By Professor Hugh Piggins
Professor of Neuroscience, The University of Manchester
The winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced today (Monday 2nd October). Physiologist Hugh Piggins of the University of Manchester explains why the research is vital to understanding how our bodies respond to health and disease.
The Nobel Prize winning research by Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young has transformed our understanding of how our bodies work.
In simple terms, they have discovered that molecules in our body have a clock that represents a 24 hour day. They first found this in fruit flies in the 1980s and then later other researchers showed that these fundamental components were also present in cells and tissues of mammals, including humans.
All mammals have a master clock in the brain that receives input from the eye that synchronises it to day and night. We now know that, having evolved on a planet with changing conditions across roughly a 24 hour cycle, our bodies are designed to anticipate when these changes should happen. Thus the 24 hour cycle is called our circadian rhythm and we all feel the impact of this, for example, when our bodies signal to us in the morning and we find ourselves awake just before our alarm clock.
As so much of our brain and body relies on this 24 hour rhythm, it needs to be kept in good order to ensure optimum health. As our bodies are programmed to operate in 24 hour periods then deviation from this can cause problems.
This is felt by shift workers or those suffering from jet lag. The result of forcing our body to operate abnormally means our internal clock clashes with external signals. This means the body is not ready and we see the sometimes tragic consequences of this with industrial accidents more likely to occur with those working long shifts.
Longer term, this disruption in the body clock causes health issues such as obesity or heart disease. There is lots of evidence to show that night shift workers are at greater risk of developing obesity, partly due to the fact that night shift patterns disrupt the metabolism and sleep cycles of employees.
This research also points the way towards new treatment routes. Now that we know the disruption of these clocks can cause illness, it opens the door to targeting particular components of the clock to stop the development of disease. There is also evidence that the body can be more sensitive to certain drugs at specific times of the day, which could help us deliver more effective treatments.
Finally, our internal clock changes over time, which means a teenager’s clock runs differently to that of an older person. By recognising this biological reality and, for example, changing school start times, there is increasing evidence that the performance of school pupils will improve.
This is an exciting and important area of scientific research. It highlights why an understanding our daily physiology –the science of biological timekeeping – is vital to understanding how our bodies respond to health and disease.
More information about this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is available on the Nobel Prize website.