Reacción a "Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology awarded to Ambros and Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNAs and their role in gene regulation"

I find this Nobel Prize very interesting as it awards researchers who conducted basic research that has been shown to be very important for understanding the regulation of gene expression. Typically, we explain that genes are a sequence of DNA that codes for a specific protein, and that in order to decode genetic information, DNA is transcribed into RNA to be then translated into proteins. However, although all genes are transcribed, not all of them code for proteins. There are genes for which the RNA is not translated, but rather the RNA functions as such.

The Nobel Prize winners this year, Ambros and Ruvkun, discovered a genetic regulatory mechanism that is based on the use of very small RNAs, hence the name microRNAs, whose function is to bind to the RNAs of other genes to silence them and prevent them from producing protein. In other words, they perform the opposite function, preventing and blocking the translation of other genes. Ambros and Ruvkun discovered these genes in the nematode C. elegans, and at first, they were not given much attention because it was thought to be an exceptional mechanism that only acted in very specific organisms, until it was discovered that it is a highly effective and universal regulatory mechanism in multicellular organisms. Although microRNA genes are very small (21 to 25 nucleotides), there are hereditary genetic diseases caused by mutations in these genes, which consequently deregulate many different genes, potentially altering various signaling or metabolic pathways and affecting different organs.