Nobel Prize Research has Huge Implications for Our Health and Wellbeing

UK physiologists congratulate Nobel Laureates

UK physiologists welcome the award of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, which has been awarded to three scientists from the US.

The Nobel Prize has been awarded to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young for the discovery of a fundamental mechanism underlying a key biological system in our bodies: how our cells can keep time.

Using fruit flies as a model organism, this year’s Nobel laureates isolated a gene that controls the normal daily biological rhythm. The biological clock is involved in many aspects of our complex physiology. A carefully calibrated circadian rhythm adapts our physiology to different phases of the day.

President of The Physiological Society (@ThePhySoc), Professor David Eisner, said:

“On behalf of physiologists in the UK and across the world I congratulate Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young for this award.

“Their research has transformed our understanding of circadian biology. Having evolved on a planet with roughly a 24 hour cycle of day and night, we have evolved to anticipate when these changes happen. So much of our brain and body has the capability of 24 hour rhythms and this process needs to work well to ensure good health. Understanding how our daily biological clock works and how our body adapts to different phases of the day has huge implications for our health and wellbeing.

“This research demonstrates why an understanding of physiology is vital to understanding how our bodies respond to health and disease.

“When someone’s biological clock is disturbed they are more likely to have poor health, such as obesity or cardiovascular illness. This research will also help us develop better treatment for ill health, for example if we can target particular components of the clock we can stop the development of certain diseases.”