For many years we have known that living organisms, including humans, have an internal biological clock that helps anticipate and adapt to the regular rhythm of the day. But how does this watch really work?
Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young delved into our biological clock and managed to detail its internal workings. This finding has been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology.
His discoveries explain how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm to synchronize with the revolutions of the Earth.
Using fruit flies as a model organism, this year’s Nobel laureates isolated a gene that controls the normal daily biological rhythm. They showed that this gene encodes a protein that accumulates in the cell during the night, and then breaks down during the day.
Subsequently, they identified additional protein components of this machinery, exposing the workings that governs the ‘clockwork’ within the cell. Biological clocks are now known to work on the same principles in the cells of other multicellular organisms, including humans.
With exquisite precision, our internal clock adapts our physiology to the different phases of the day. The clock regulates critical functions such as behavior, hormone levels, sleep, body temperature, and metabolism. Our well-being is affected when there is a temporary mismatch between our external environment and this internal biological clock. For example, when we travel across multiple time zones and experience “jet lag”.
There are also indications that chronic misalignment between our lifestyle and the rhythm dictated by our internal timekeeper is associated with increased risk of various diseases.
Spanish advances in CRISPR-Cas9 are left without the Nobel
The Spanish researcher and professor at the University of Alicante (UA), Francis Mojica , was among this year’s nominees for his research in the CRISPR-Cas9 genetic engineering technique, which has revolutionized Medicine.
Had he won the award, he would have become the third Spaniard to win a Nobel Prize in Medicine , after Ramón y Cajal, in 1906 for his discoveries of the functioning of the nervous system; and Severo Ochoa, in 1959, for identifying the mechanisms of the biological synthesis of ribonucleic and deoxyribonucleic acids.
