- On 2 October, 2017 The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has decided to award the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young.
- They are awarded for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm.
About their work
- Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young were able to peek inside our biological clock and elucidate its inner workings.
- Their discoveries explain how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronized with the Earth’s revolutions.
- Using fruit flies as a model organism, this year’s Nobel laureates isolated a gene that controls the normal daily biological rhythm.
- They showed that this gene encodes a protein that accumulates in the cell during the night, and is then degraded during the day.
- Subsequently, they identified additional protein components of this machinery, exposing the mechanism governing the self-sustaining clockwork inside the cell.
- We now recognize that biological clocks function by the same principles in cells of other multicellular organisms, including humans.
About Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- Awarded to 214 Nobel Laureates since 1901.
- The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
- 32 years was the age of the youngest Medicine Laureate ever, Frederick G. Banting, who was awarded the 1923 Medicine Prize for the discovery of insulin.
Reference:
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2017/press.html
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/