Gary Ruvkun, PhD, an investigator in Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine during a ceremony in Sweden on December 10.
Ruvkun is the latest in long line of researchers from Mass General Brigham to receive the Nobel Prize.
How well do you know him and Mass General Brigham’s other Nobel Prize winners?
Take this quick quiz to find out.
B. Scientific American
“When I was in Cochabamba, Bolivia, I was bored for a day with travel,” Ruvkun recalls. “So, I spent a day reading Scientific American, then a monthly magazine read by the general public but written by major scientists (it is no longer like this today), and it was really a good day. And I said to myself, ‘You know what? Maybe I'll go to graduate school.’’’
D. Oxygen
Kaelin and colleagues identified a molecular machinery that regulates the activity of genes in response to varying levels of oxygen. The discoveries may lead to new treatments of anemia, cancer and many other diseases.
C. Liver
Minot and Murphy found that if patients with pernicious anemia ate abundant amounts of liver daily, their condition improved, turning a once fatal condition into a manageable disorder. Their discovery also shed light on the cause of pernicious anemia, which is a shortage of vitamin B12.
A. Peace
Abrams, Lown and Muller were recognized with the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize for founding the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), an organization with 28,000 members in the United States and 60,000 in the Soviet Union. IPPNW held annual congresses to tell the world about the consequences of nuclear war.
C. Kidney
Using radiotherapy and immunosuppressants to prevent organ rejection, Murray and colleagues were able to successfully transplant a kidney from one identical twin to his brother, who was suffering from kidney disease.