Nobel prize for medicine awarded for insights into internal biological clock

The Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for 2017 has been awarded to the American trio of Jeffrey C Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W Young for “for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm”.

According to the Nobel committee’s citation, the group were recognised for their discoveries explaining “how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronised with the Earth’s revolutions.”

The team identified a gene within fruit flies that controls the creatures’ daily rhythm. The gene encodes a protein within the cell during the night which then degrades during the day.

When there is a mismatch between this internal “clock” and the external surroundings, it can affect the organism’s wellbeing – for example, in humans, when we experience jet lag.

The team’s discoveries of various genes and proteins involved in the internal clock helped to explain how the self-regulating mechanism works and adapts to different conditions, as well as the mechanism by which light can synchronise the clock.

All three winners are from the US. Hall has retired but spent the majority of his career at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachussetts, where fellow laureate Rosbash is still a faculty member. Young works at Rockefeller University in New York.

It is the 108th time the prize has been awarded and was announced at the Nobel Forum at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

The winners will share a prize of 9m Swedish kronor (£825,000), and each receive a medal engraved with their name.

Source: The Guardian