Trio used fruit flies to study circadian clock

Scientists have been pondering the concept of body clock genes since 1960s

Stockholm/London, Oct. 2: US scientists Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young won the 2017 Nobel prize for medicine on Monday for unravelling molecular mechanisms that control our internal body clocks.

“This ability to prepare for the regular daily fluctuations is crucial for all life forms,” Karolinska Institute Nobel Committee secretary Thomas Perlmann told reporters.

“This year’s Nobel prize laureates have been studying this fundamental problem and solved the mystery of how an inner clock in our bodies can anticipate daily fluctuations between night and day to optimize our behavior and physiology.”

Dr Rosbash said the news that the trio had won the Nobel prize, which is worth 9 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million), was “a little overwhelming”.

“It took my breath away, literally. I was woken up out of deep sleep and it was shocking,” he said.

It’s great for basic science. It hasn’t had a tremendous amount of practical impact yet, so it’s really a very basic discovery... It’s good to have the attention on this kind of basic work.”

Scientists were already pondering the concept of body clock genes in the 1960s and 1970s.

Then in the mid-1980s the three laureates used fruit flies to isolate a gene that controls the normal daily biological rhythm and showed how it encodes a protein that accumulates in the cell during the night and degrades during the day.

Further research revealed the role of other genes in the complex system. Now doctors are paying increased attention to the implications of this daily cycle in people who have erratic sleeping and working patterns or in children who stay up late.

“We are learning more and more what impact it has to not follow your clock,” Nobel committee member Christer Hoog said. “If you constantly disobey your clock, what will happen? Medical research is going on with regards to that.”

Medicine is the first of the Nobel Prizes awarded each year. Nobel prize for literature will be announced on Thursday, the panel that awards the prize said.

CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS adapt the workings of the body to different phases of the day, influencing sleep, behavior, hormone levels, body temperature and metabolism.