Biological Clocks - Nobel Prize for Medicine

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