Michael Rosbash: ”No one works for prizes”

Still, the call from the Nobel Prize committee came as a pleasant surprise for Rosbash, who has been collaborating with Hall at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA in the U.S. since 1984.

“It was shock, incredulity, pleasure, all the usual things, ‘Oh, my God,’ said Rosbash about the news that he Hall and Dr. Michael W. Young, PhD,  of Rockefeller University in New York City had won the 2017 Prize for Medicine. His reactions were only eclipsed by the excitement of attending the award ceremony itself. “It was awesome, awe-inspiring. You are sitting there in a formal ceremony, thinking of all the people who preceded you and you are a part of this historical procession.”

Michael Rosbash spoke in his Banquet Speech, about that all three of them [the Laureates] began their professional lives with a love of laboratory and experiment.

“Yet one should never discount the importance of stochastic events or “blind, dumb luck””, he continued.”We have been blessed with good fortune at almost every turn, but to have this journey topped off in this way is almost unimaginable. Mike, Jeff and I are profoundly grateful,” he finished his speach.

The period gene in fruit flies

Rosbash, Hall and Young shared the prize for discovering molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm, according to the Nobel Prize Committee.

A major part of their work involved the periodgene in fruit flies. According to the Nobel committee, the researchers isolated the period gene that controls the normal daily biological rhythm. The trio demonstrated that the gene encodes a protein that collects in the cell during the night, and is then reduced during the day. Following this discovery, they found “additional protein components of this machinery, exposing the mechanism governing the self-sustaining clockwork inside the cell.”

Competitors who became friends

Rosbash and Hall first met in 1982, as competitors in the lab and on the basketball court in pick-up games, which led to friendship and a professional collaboration. “We were both doing some similar things; we were competitors in the early days, but there were only two places this problem was being investigated in the world,” said Rosbash. “After the competition period, we began working together and became good colleagues.”

Hall was working on the period gene first, talking about it, and it seemed like something they could work on together, Rosbash remembered. “It was a side project for myself at first, then it became more consuming, more interesting, and then we got somewhere.”

The two received awards at different stages of their research. “Colleagues recognized our work, the prizes came along by accident,” Rosbash noted. “No one works for prizes.”

Plans to pursue his research

Rosbash noted that he benefited from having strong mentors during his career, including  Norman Davidson at the undergraduate level, Sheldon Penman in graduate school, John Bishop during post-doctoral work and Jim Darnell, a friend and long-time informal colleague and advisor.

While Hall is now retired, Rosbash plans to pursue their research. “I’ll be continuing to study how circadian rhythms work, how the brain works and how the sleep function works try to understand why we sleep,” he said. “I would argue that there is not an agreed-upon answer.”