_{PHOTO: Gary Ruvkun, middle, has won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. He’s shown here with his daughter, Victoria Ruvkun, left, his wife, Natasha Staller, right, and their dog, Barnaby, the morning the prize was announced. Photo Courtesy Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard University}

A Newton man won a Nobel Prize this week.

Dr. Gary Ruvkun, a researcher with Massachusetts General Hospital and genetics professor at Harvard Medical School, won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his work that led to the discovery of microRNA and how it impacts genetic function.

Ruvkun won the award with Dr. Victor Ambros of UMass Medical School, with whom he collaborated on the research.

Messenger RNA, commonly called mRNA, is a single-stranded molecule that is needed to synthesize proteins and contains a genetic sequence that, when making mRNA vaccines like the ones used to vaccinate against COVID-19, is then spliced and part of that sequence is encoded into a protein.

MicroDNA is hundreds of times smaller than the proteins created from messenger RNA.

“Current knowledge suggests that most plant and animal genomes, including the human genome, contain more than 1,000 microRNAs, which control many protein-coding messenger RNAs and may be involved in a broad range of normal- and disease-related activities,” the Massachusetts General Hospital website explains. “Human microRNAs have been implicated in heart disease, in viral pathogenesis and in regulation of neural function and disease. Human therapies based on microRNAs are in clinical trials for heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and more.”

Ruvkun and Ambros first discovered microDNA around 30 years ago when studying a roundworm. Over the next two decades they would study how animals use microDNA, concluding that microDNA is a universal component in all animals, not just simple organisms like roundworms.

The duo, alongside Dr. David Baulcombe of the University of Cambridge, won the Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 2008 for their work.

Ruvkun has also received the Franklin Medal, the Gairdner International Award, the 2012 Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research, the 2014 Gruber Genetics Prize and the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, among other recognitions.

“Nobody who knows Gary or his work could be surprised by this recognition for his research on microRNA. A brilliant investigator, his curiosity has led him to one remarkable insight into fundamental biology after another,” Harvard University President Alan M. Garber said in a statement published by that school. “The implications of those discoveries aren’t always obvious at the outset. With promising medical applications of microRNA research on the horizon, we are reminded—again—that basic research can lead to dramatic progress in addressing human diseases.”