Acemoglu, an Institute Professor, has been a member of the MIT college since 1993. Johnson, the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan, was chief economist of the Worldwide Financial Fund from 2007 to 2008.
In the meantime, Victor Ambros ’75, PhD ’79, a professor on the College of Massachusetts Chan Medical College, and Gary Ruvkun, a professor at Harvard Medical College and Massachusetts Normal Hospital, shared the prize in medication for his or her discovery of microRNA, a category of tiny RNA molecules that assist govern gene regulation. This significant mechanism permits cells with the identical chromosomes to become cell varieties with completely different traits and capabilities.
The inspiration for his or her discoveries was laid by their work on mutant types of the roundworm C. elegans as MIT postdocs within the lab of Professor H. Robert Horvitz (who would win a Nobel in 2002). Later, working independently, they confirmed {that a} sure roundworm gene produces a really quick RNA molecule that binds to messenger RNA encoding a distinct gene and blocks it from being translated into protein. Since then, greater than 1,000 microRNA genes have been present in people.
In an interview with the Journal of Cell Biology, Ambros additionally credited the contributions of collaborators together with his spouse, Rosalind “Sweet” Lee ’76, and postdoc Rhonda Feinbaum.
