Three US Scientists, Studying Body Clocks, Receive The 2017 Nobel Prize For Medicine

Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael Young, three US-based scientists, on Monday, won the 2017 Nobel Price for Medicine for their findings about the internal body clocks in human bodies.

The scientists have revealed molecular systems that control these body clocks (circadian rhythm).

This has proved to be instrumental in figuring out what happens when the circadian rhythms don't work properly, and also in figuring out about bigger medical complications and disorders as such insomnia, depression, and even heart disease.

Thanks to the three scientists, Chronobiology (the study of circadian rhythms) is gaining much prominence and popularity today, and is being used as a major tool in the medical science.

This is facilitating the exploration and discovery of newer medical treatments based on how our circadian cycles work. It has brought to our notice how significant are the timings for our medications and our sleeping patterns.

According to Michael Rosbash, the news of he and his fellows receiving the Nobel Prize, worth 9 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million) was quite over-whelming.

"It took my breath away, literally. I was woken up out of deep sleep and it was shocking," he told Reuters.

"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."

The scientist started working on the concept of body clock genes in as early as the 1960s and 70s.

During the mid-1980s, the trio used fruit flies so as to isolate a gene, period, that controls the usual biological rhythm and revealed how it encodes a protein, PER, that accumulates in cells during night-time and degrades during the day. Continued research showed the role of other genes in the system as well.

COMMENT