Winning the Nobel ‘an earthquake’, says Ruvkun

US scientist Gary Ruvkun, who on Monday won the Nobel Prize in Medicine with fellow American Victor Ambros for their discovery of microRNA, said winning the honor was like “an earthquake”.

“It’s a big deal. It’s a big one. It’s an earthquake,” the 72-year-old professor at Harvard Medical School told Swedish public radio SR just after the announcement was made in Stockholm.

He was woken by a call from the Nobel prize committee in the early hours of Monday in the United States.

“The dog is confused by why it’s dark outside and we are running around the house,” laughed Ruvkun.

He said he looked forward to attending the Nobel gala in Stockholm on December 10, when the laureates receive their prizes from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf.

He said he had already attended the ceremony “a few times”.

“It’s a party. You don’t think of a bunch of scientists as party animals but we really are.”

The Nobel committee failed however to reach Ambros, who learned the news from an SR reporter who called and broke the news.

“Wow, that’s incredible! I didn’t know that,” the 70-year-old professor at the University of Massachusetts medical school said, adding: “Good. Wonderful.”

The Nobel Prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1 million check to be shared by the pair.

Collaborating but working separately, they discovered microRNA, a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play a crucial role in gene regulation, which in turn allows each cell to select only relevant instructions.

Gene regulation that goes wrong can lead to serious diseases, such as cancer or diabetes.

© 2024 AFP