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Biological Clocks - Nobel Prize for Medicine

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October 06, 2017

Why in news?

  • Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash & Michael W. Young are to be jointly awarded the 2017 “Nobel Prize for Medicine”.
  • The award is for their work in discovering the mechanisms controlling the internal clocks in living organisms.

What is their research about?

  • The trio’s work was in ‘Chrono Biology’ – A science that examines periodic phenomena in living organisms in relation to nature.
  • They made significant contributions in unravelling the genetic coding and protein pathways that regulate the circadian rhythm.
  • This rhythm is what tells us when it is time to eat, sleep or wake up -  even when we have no bedside alarm.

What were the acheievements of the trio?

  • Isolation of a gene called ‘Period’ in fruit-flies that disrupted its circadian clock was the most important acheivement.
  • PER – A protein named ‘PER’ that serves as a functional communicator for the ‘Period Gene’ was discovered.
  • PER was found to accumulate at night & diminish during the day.
  • Timeless – A second gene called ‘Timeless’ that acts through its ‘TIM protein’ in conjunction with ‘PER’ was also identified.
  • This was found to cause the seesawing of cellular protein levels.
  • Doubletime - A third gene called ‘Doubletime’ was discovered  to be the regulator of the frequency of the oscillations.

What are the implications?

  • The current research has added significantly to the science that studies the linkages between sleep & metabolic activity.
  • The impact of smartphone & other gadgets in disrupting circadian rhythms is already being studied extensively.
  • There is more clarity now, in the link between peak physical performance in sport and the time of the day.
  • Circadian rhythm may well hold the key to future breakthroughs in the modulation and treatment of various diseases.

 

Source: The Hindu

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