Gary Ruvkun

Bruce Gary Ruvkun ( born March 26, 1952 in Berkeley, California) is an American geneticist and professor at Harvard University.

Life

Ruvkun 1973 acquired a BA in biophysics at the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in 1982 at Fred Ausubel in biophysics from Harvard University. Make a postdoctoral fellow at H. Robert Horvitz he had at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (together with Victor Ambros ) and Walter Gilbert at Harvard University. Since 1985 he has been a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, first as Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor and finally as a full professor.

Work

Ruvkun has won first groundbreaking insights on regulatory microRNA. These molecules in animals ( including humans ) and plants important functions in the regulation of genes. First example was the let-7, the function of which was first investigated in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, which also in higher organisms has an important function in development. Hundreds of other microRNA have been described by Ruvkun and his group. Further investigations deal with the RNA interference.

Awards (selection)

Let-7 microRNA precursor
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