2 Mass. scientists share Nobel Prize for discovery of microRNA

Two Massachusetts researchers got unforgettable phone calls from Stockholm, Sweden Monday morning. They were notified that they'd just won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Victor Ambros is a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. He was awarded the Nobel for research he did as a scientist at Harvard three decades ago. Gary Ruvkun has been a molecular biology researcher at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital since 1985.

The pair recalled, in conversation with WBUR's All Things Considered host Lisa Mullins, a phone call they made to each other in the early 1990s. It was the night they realized they had each closed in on the discovery of microRNA, which controls how genes regulate each other inside cells.

"When [the discoveries] matched each other, it was a joyous moment," Ruvkun said. "And what's amazing is that we were right. Because those early days, we could've gotten it wrong. But over the sort of looking back, we had it exactly right. And we kind of figured it out within two hours that night."

MicroRNA became the basis for FDA-approved treatments for a variety of diseases, with more on the horizon, according to the Nobel laureates.

The two credited the teams of scientists in their labs.

"There's a usual sense that the people running the lab are these utterly special [people], and all the mentoring and training comes from the people in charge of the lab," Ruvkun said. "The mentoring is the culture of the lab, and the lab had a lot of great people."

The "machinery of science" is actually people "working together, talking, brainstorming, sharing ideas, pitching crazy ideas, and supporting each other," Ambros said. "It's not by, you know, the genius luminary, giving instructions to the minions. And it's such a privilege and delight to be a scientist and to be part of this enterprise."