Geneticists win Nobel Prize
US GENETICISTS Jeffrey C Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W Young were awarded the Nobel Medicine Prize yesterday for shedding light on the biological clock that governs the sleepwake cycles of most living things.
The team’s work revealed the role of genes in setting the “circadian clock” which regulates sleep and eating patterns, hormones and body temperature, the Nobel Assembly said.
“Their discoveries explain how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronised with the Earth’s revolutions.”
All life on Earth is tuned to the rotation of our planet. Scientists have long known that living organisms, including humans, have an internal timekeeper that helps them anticipate and adapt to the rhythm of the day.
Hall, 72, Rosbash, 73, and Young, 68, were able to peek inside our biological clock and elucidate its inner workings, the Nobel jury said.
They identified genes that regulate the clock, and the mechanism by which light can synchronise it.
The circadian clock is what causes jetlag -- which happens when our internal clock and external environment move out of sync as we change time zones.
It also regulates sleep, which is critical for normal brain function.
Circadian dysfunction has been linked to depression, bipolar disorder, cognitive function, memory formation and some neurological diseases.
Using the fruit fly as a model organism, this year’s laureates isolated a gene that controls the daily biological rhythm, called the period gene.
“They showed that this gene encodes a protein that accumulates in the cell during the night and is then degraded during the day,” the Nobel team said.
“Subsequently they identified additional protein components of this machinery, exposing the mechanism governing the self-sustaining clockwork inside the cell.”
The trio will share the prize sum of nine million Swedish krona (R15-million).
The physics prize laureates will be revealed today, followed by those for chemistry tomorrow.
The literature prize will be announced on Thursday, the peace prize on Friday, and the economics prize will wrap things up on Monday October 9.
For literature, the Swedish Academy is expected to turn the page on last year’s surprise choice of US singer songwriter Bob Dylan, which divided the literary world.