Michael Rosbash facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Michael Rosbash
Michael Rosbash in Nobel Prize press conference in Stockholm, December 2017
Born	Michael Morris Rosbash (1944-03-07) March 7, 1944 (age 81) Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Alma mater	California Institute of Technology (BS) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MS, PhD)
Spouse(s)	Nadja Abovich
Awards	Gruber Prize in Neuroscience (2009) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2017)
Scientific career
Fields	Genetics Chronobiology
Institutions	University of Edinburgh Brandeis University Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Thesis	Membrane-bound protein synthesis in hela cells (1971)
Doctoral advisor	Sheldon Penman

Michael Morris Rosbash (born March 7, 1944) is an American scientist who studies genetics and chronobiology. Genetics is the study of how traits are passed down through families. Chronobiology is the study of how living things keep track of time, like our daily sleep-wake cycles.

Rosbash is a professor and researcher at Brandeis University. He also works at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research team made a big discovery in 1984. They found a special gene in fruit flies (called Drosophila) that helps control their daily rhythms. This gene is called the period gene.

In 1990, they suggested a model for how our internal body clocks work. This model is called the Transcription Translation Negative Feedback Loop. Later, in 1998, they found more important genes in fruit flies. These included the cycle gene, the clock gene, and a light-sensing protein called cryptochrome.

For his amazing work, Rosbash was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2003. In 2017, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He shared this award with Michael W. Young and Jeffrey C. Hall. They won for finding out how our bodies' internal clocks, called circadian rhythms, work at a molecular level.

Early Life and Education
Discoveries About Our Body Clocks
Positions and Awards
- Positions Held
- Awards Received
See also

Early Life and Education

Michael Rosbash was born in Kansas City, Missouri. His parents, Hilde and Alfred Rosbash, were Jewish refugees. They came to the U.S. in 1938 to escape Nazi Germany. His father was a cantor, which is a person who leads singing in Jewish worship services.

When Michael was two years old, his family moved to Boston. He became a big fan of the Boston Red Sox baseball team.

At first, Rosbash was interested in math. But a biology class at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) changed his mind. He also spent a summer working in a science lab. These experiences made him want to study biology.

He graduated from Caltech in 1965 with a degree in chemistry. He then spent a year studying in Paris on a special scholarship. In 1970, he earned his doctoral degree in biophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After more research in Scotland, Rosbash joined the faculty at Brandeis University in 1974.

Rosbash is married to another scientist, Nadja Abovich. He has a stepdaughter named Paula and a daughter named Tanya.

Discoveries About Our Body Clocks

When Rosbash started at Brandeis, he worked with his colleague Jeffrey C. Hall. They wanted to understand how genes affect our daily body rhythms. They used tiny fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, to study their sleep and activity patterns.

In 1984, Rosbash and Hall found the first "clock gene" in fruit flies. They called it the period gene. Later, a researcher named Paul Hardin found that the levels of the period gene's message (mRNA) and its protein (PER) changed throughout the day.

This led them to propose a model in 1990. They suggested that the PER protein creates a "negative feedback loop." This means that when there's a lot of PER protein, it tells the gene to make less mRNA. When there's less protein, the gene makes more. This cycle helps keep our body clocks ticking. This idea is called the Transcription Translation Negative Feedback Loop (TTFL).

After this, they looked for other parts of the clock. In 1998, Rosbash and his team found two more important clock genes in fruit flies: the Clock gene and the cycle gene. They also discovered that a protein called cryptochrome helps fruit flies sense light. This light sensing is important for setting their internal clocks.

Key Discoveries Over Time

1984: They found and copied the Drosophila period gene.
1990: They suggested the Transcription Translation Negative Feedback Loop model for circadian clocks.
1998: They found the Drosophila Clock Gene.
1998: They found the Drosophila Cycle Gene.
1998: They found that cryptochrome helps fruit flies sense light for their daily rhythms.
1999: They identified specific brain cells (LN_V Neurons) as the main "pacemaker" for the fruit fly's daily rhythm.

How the Period Gene Controls Daily Rhythms

In 1990, Rosbash, Hall, and Hardin showed how the period gene (per) works in the fruit fly's daily clock. They found that the amount of PER protein changes in a daily cycle, even in constant darkness. The amount of per mRNA (the message that makes the protein) also changes rhythmically.

They saw that per mRNA levels were highest at the start of the "night" period. Then, PER protein levels peaked about six hours later. If the per gene was changed, the cycling of per mRNA was also affected. This led them to believe that the PER protein controls its own mRNA levels in a feedback loop. This loop is key to the fruit fly's daily clock.

They also studied fruit flies with different versions of the period gene. These changes caused the flies' activity peaks to happen earlier or later. The mRNA levels for these changed genes also shifted in the same way. This showed a clear link between the gene, its message, and the fly's behavior.

They even put a working period gene into flies that had a broken one. This fixed the problem, and the flies' daily rhythms returned to normal. This proved that the PER protein from the new gene could control the old, broken gene's activity.

In 1992, Rosbash and his team looked even closer at how this feedback loop works. They found that the levels of per mRNA were controlled at the very beginning of the process, when the gene is first "read." This means the gene itself is turned on and off in a rhythmic way.

The Drosophila Clock and Cycle Genes

Rosbash and his team found a gene in fruit flies that was similar to a "Clock" gene found in mice. They named it Drosophila Clock. This dClock gene works with the period and timeless genes. It helps turn them on, which is important for the daily rhythm. If the dClock gene is broken, the flies have very low levels of period and timeless mRNA and protein. This makes their daily behavior irregular.

In 1998, they also found a new clock gene called cycle. This gene is similar to a gene called Bmal1 in mammals. If the cycle gene is broken, fruit flies also have irregular daily rhythms. They have very low levels of PER and TIM proteins, and low levels of their mRNA. This shows that the cycle gene is also needed to turn on the period and timeless genes.

How Fruit Flies Sense Light

In 1998, Rosbash and his team found a fruit fly with a broken cryptochrome gene. This fly had flat, non-changing levels of period and timeless mRNA. This meant the cryptochrome gene was important. They called this mutant fly "cry^baby."

These cry^b mutant flies could not adjust their daily rhythms to light and dark cycles. This showed that the cryptochrome protein helps fruit flies sense light. This light sensing is crucial for their internal clocks to stay in sync with the outside world.

Rosbash at a discussion during 2024 Nobel Week

Brain Cells as the Main Pacemaker

In fruit flies, certain brain cells are important for daily rhythms. These are called lateral neurons (LNs). Rosbash's team found that specific ventral lateral neurons (LN_V neurons) are key. These cells produce a signal called PDF.

Flies with a broken PDF gene or those with damaged LN_V neurons showed similar behaviors. They could adjust to light cues, but their rhythms were mostly irregular in constant darkness. This led researchers to believe that LN_V neurons are the main "pacemaker" cells for the fruit fly's daily clock. They also thought that PDF was the main signal these cells use.

Current Research

In recent years, Rosbash has been studying how different brain cells control daily rhythms. He found that seven different groups of brain cells all have the main clock genes. However, how these genes are expressed can be different in each cell group. His lab is trying to figure out if these differences are linked to the different jobs these cells do.

He has also studied how light affects these brain cells. He found that some cells are sensitive to light turning on (like dawn). These "dawn cells" seem to make us feel more awake. Other cells are sensitive to light turning off (like dusk). These "dusk cells" seem to help us sleep.

Today, Rosbash continues to study how our bodies process genetic information and how our daily rhythms work.

Positions and Awards

Michael Rosbash has held many important positions and received many awards for his scientific work.

Positions Held

Director of the Brandeis National Center for Behavioral Genomics
The Inaugural Peter Gruber Endowed Chair in Neuroscience
Co-Founder and Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Hypnion, Inc.
Member, National Center for Sleep Disorders Advisory Panel of the NIH
Member, Center for Biological Timing of the NSF
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator (1989–present)
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (2007)
Member, National Academy of Sciences (2003)
Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1997)
Guggenheim Fellow (1989–1990)
Helen Hay Whitney Fellow (1971–1974)
Fulbright Fellow (1965–1966)

Awards Received

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2017)
12th Annual Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences (2013)
Massry Prize (2012)
Canada Gairdner International Award (2012)
Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University (2011)
Gruber Prize in Neuroscience (2009)
Aschoff's Rule (2008)
Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award (2001)
NIH Research Career Development Award (1976–1980)