A Nobel laureate shares how curiosity and collaboration drive medical breakthroughs.
Highlights:
- Dr. Victor Ambros co-won the 2024 Nobel Prize for discovering microRNAs, tiny regulatory RNA molecules, while studying nematode genetics alongside Dr. Gary Ruvkun.
- Raised on a Vermont farm as the first scientist in his family, he initially entered MIT for astrophysics before switching to molecular biology.
- His formative training under renowned scientists, including Nobel laureates David Baltimore and Robert Horvitz, taught him the scientific method and how to pursue independent research.
- MicroRNAs show strong clinical promise in diagnostics, particularly for predicting and managing breast cancer outcomes.
- As a mentor, Ambros focuses on encouraging self-doubtful students including by staying out of their way and validating their talents.
“I think of myself as someone who made a discovery by accident,” says Dr. Victor Ambros, who received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, alongside Dr. Gary Ruvkun, for their discovery of microRNAs, tiny molecules that help regulate gene activity. Perhaps, rather than being a matter of chance, his discovery was the result of a life devoted to science, curiosity, pursuing questions that lead to more questions, and surrounding himself with brilliant minds.
Ambros grew up on his family’s farm in Hartland, Vermont, alongside his seven siblings, in a region of forested hills and mountains. His father, a Polish immigrant who came to the United States after World War II, met his mother there. As a child, Ambros planted and harvested corn and helped care for cows and pigs.
I don’t remember ever going through a phase when I didn’t want to be a scientist.
Victor Ambros
He says he was the first scientist in his family. “I don’t remember ever going through a phase when I didn’t want to be a scientist,” Ambros shares. For a while, he wanted to be a baseball player, although he thought that was unrealistic. There were science books at home that he enjoyed reading, and the idea of pursuing science seemed quite exciting. It “seemed like an adventure,” and he felt it was a realistic possibility because he enjoyed math and science at school.
In the 1970s, “I started at MIT interested in astrophysics,” he recalls. However, a few chemistry courses sparked his interest, and spending time with molecular biology students eventually drew him toward the field. Listening to their conversations about their laboratory work was when he first began to picture himself in that world.
He joined a laboratory and was assigned to work with Dr. Edward Gruberg, a researcher who suggested studying brain activity in salamanders and frogs using electrodes. “That work resulted in a scientific publication,” he says. During this period, he learned how to write scientific papers, understand the importance of the scientific method, and, above all, recognize the limits of what one knows. One lesson he remembers from Gruberg was that when you don’t know something, you need to find someone who does and ask them. “Let’s get up, go out, and find someone,” he would say. Gruberg believed that at MIT, they would surely find someone who could answer their questions. And they did.
His laboratory was full of fascinating people working on very interesting projects in virology and immunology.
Victor Ambros
Later, Ambros worked with Dr. David Baltimore, who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1975. “His laboratory was full of fascinating people working on very interesting projects in virology and immunology,” he recalls. Baltimore helped him envision himself as a scientist and understand that he could contribute to knowledge, even with his own limitations. “He never put it exactly that way, but that’s how I understood it,” he says. Being in an environment where everyone seemed extraordinarily intelligent and there was always something new to learn was an intellectually enriching experience.
During his postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Robert Horvitz, his advisor and the 2002 Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine, introduced him to developmental biology and the genetics of nematodes. With him, Ambros learned to formulate his own questions and find his place in that field of research. “When I finished my PhD, I was excited about developmental biology,” Ambros recalls. In Horvitz’s laboratory, he began studying two genes in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, together with Dr. Gary Ruvkun. Each took one gene to study in their respective laboratories, and years later they compared their findings. Ambros’s gene did not produce a protein. Instead, it produced a tiny RNA molecule, now known as a microRNA, capable of regulating the gene Ruvkun was studying. The discovery revealed an entirely new mechanism for regulating gene expression.
A single microRNA can regulate hundreds of genes, which has made it difficult to develop them into treatments. However, they are beginning to find their way into diagnostics. Breast cancer is a good example of their potential. A review published this year in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences suggests that microRNAs could help predict how a patient will respond to chemotherapy and hormone therapy, anticipate cancer recurrence, and identify new ways to overcome drug resistance. For these advances to reach clinical practice, their usefulness still needs to be validated through clinical trials.
What I try hardest to do is not hurt or discourage them
Victor Ambros
Ambros has also become a mentor himself. He has learned that everyone is so different that what worked for him will not necessarily work for someone else. Times change, and so do people’s circumstances. “What I try hardest to do is not hurt or discourage them,” he says, describing the most important principle in his laboratory. In a leadership position, one must make a genuine effort to give colleagues every opportunity within one’s power to encourage them. Dr. Craig Mello, who received the 2006 Nobel Prize for discovering RNA interference, was his doctoral student. “When people ask me whether I can take credit for Craig’s success, I say no,” he explains. “The only thing I can take credit for is not getting in his way. Letting Craig be Craig.”
If the most talented people in my laboratory don’t know they have talent, I suppose I have to tell them.
Victor Ambros
He has been surprised by how difficult many of us find it to recognize our own abilities. More than once, a student has come to him wondering whether they are truly good enough to succeed. Often, these are people who are “much better than I was as a student.” He simply tells them they have talent. Then he encourages them to look at what they have already accomplished, the path they have taken, and the problems they have solved. “If the most talented people in my laboratory don’t know they have talent,” Ambros reflects, “I suppose I have to tell them.”
Outside the laboratory, life’s little moments keep Ambros grounded. He remembers the nights when he would read his children a bedtime story until they fell asleep, thinking, “If this moment could last forever, I wouldn’t mind,” he recalls. Now he has grandchildren, who have surely given him more of those small, meaningful moments that make life so fulfilling. “What would make me happiest is knowing that my children and grandchildren are doing very well and are very happy,” Ambros says.
I’ve had an incredible life, full of blessings.
Victor Ambros
When I ask him what success means to him, he returns to gratitude. He speaks of his mentors, his students, and, above all, Rosalind Lee, his wife since 1976, who worked alongside him in his laboratory for years and is listed as first author on one of the 1993 papers recognized by the Nobel Prize. “I’ve had an incredible life, full of blessings,” he says.
