Scientists from the US, Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young won the 2017 Nobel prize for medicine for unravelling molecular mechanisms that control our internal body clocks. Mr. Rosbash and Mr. Hall, both at Brandeis, along with Mr. Young isolated the "period gene" in fruit flies. Mr. Hall and Mr. Rosbash found that a protein encoded by the gene accumulated during the night and degraded during daytime. A decade later, Mr. Young discovered another "clock gene."
