In celebration of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, we’ve made an infographic detailing the achievements of Dr. Victor Ambros and Dr. Gary Ruvkun in their discovery of microRNAs (miRNAs)! Check out the free, fully editable templates below.

A special thanks to Dr. Charles Nelson & Dr. Ye (Oscar) Duan from the Ambros Lab for collaborating with us on this infographic.

The Discovery of miRNAs

In the late 1980s, researchers Dr. Ambros and Dr. Ruvkun made an unexpected discovery that would reshape our understanding of gene regulation. In the tiny roundworm C. elegans, they found that the RNA lin-4 represented a previously unknown type of RNA molecule—miRNA.¹

Unlike other RNAs that help build proteins, microRNAs are tiny and don’t code for any proteins. Instead, they play a crucial role in regulating which genes are active in each cell type, influencing everything from cell growth to development. They do this by binding complementary sequences in target messenger RNAs (mRNAs), blocking protein production.

Dr. Ambros and Dr. Ruvkun demonstrated the first example of this, with lin-4!  The miRNA lin-4 binds with partial complementarity to the mRNA of lin-14, a gene that plays a big role in C. elegans’ developmental timing.^2-4 The binding of lin-4 results in lin-14 translational repression.

Small RNA, Big Impact

At first, it was unclear just how big this discovery was— after all, there didn’t seem to be any homologs of lin-4 outside of nematodes.

But with the discovery of a second miRNA, let-7, we began to see that miRNAs are found in most eukaryotes, including humans⁵. Since then the dysregulation of miRNAs has been linked to cancers and tumor risk, and miRNAs are now known to play essential roles in the development, health, and function of multicellular organisms.

Inspired to create your own infographic? Keep reading! We'll take you behind the ‘canvas’ of how we designed this one, giving you tips and tricks to easily craft your own stunning infographic in BioRender.

Behind-the-Infographic: Crafting Visual Stories That Shine

When it comes to designing infographics in BioRender, we aim to both 1) accurately showcase the science and 2) make it visually engaging and easy to understand. Achieving both can be challenging, especially when there’s a lot of information to include (like with the infographic above). But with the right approach, you can master it too.

Here’s how we brought the Nobel infographic to life—and how you can do the same.

Building a Clear, Dynamic Layout

For complex figures like infographics, a well-thought-out layout is especially important, as it keeps things organized and easy to read instead of overwhelming or confusing. To create a clear, dynamic layout for our Nobel Prize infographic about the discovery of miRNA, we followed three key principles:

1. Assemble the key narrative elements. With a story like the Nobel-prize-winning discovery of the miRNA, we landed on these key story pieces: a bold title and description, a timeline for the discovery, the biological mechanisms, and future implications. We drafted multiple layout variants and landed on one layout where the main flow of the story is deliberately top left to bottom right, complemented by secondary sections.
2. Structure the layout around the central concept. We finessed the layout so that compositionally, the panel for the central point (in this case, the underlying biological mechanism of the miRNA) is roughly centered and takes up a deservedly large proportion of the layout real estate.‍
3. Balance content richness with breathing room. We made sure the layout had visual harmony between areas that are more rich with content (such as timeline and future implications) and areas that have more breathing room (such as the title area).

Like this layout? We’ve turned it into a BioRender template - try it out for yourself! Click here to use the template.

Adding That Extra Punch to the Visuals

Scientific infographics feature big stories and are content-dense by design. What sets them apart from other content-dense formats (e.g. research posters) is visual contrast as a guiding theme.

Visual contrast permeates all aspects of an effective infographic design, such as scale (large vs. small), rendering (realistic vs. schematic), space (open vs. dense sections), and color/tone (choices in hue, saturation, and tonal levels). For example, we followed this guiding theme to craft the centerpiece of our Physiology/Medicine Nobel Prize infographic: an engaging 3D rendition of the RISC Complex. Here’s how we created it:

• Rendering and portrayal: We used BioRender’s PDB Plugin tool to generate a 3D render of the Ago protein. We then used BioRender’s dynamic line tool to craft a precise illustration of the microRNA-mRNA pair associated with the Ago protein, forming the RISC complex. 
• Scale and composition: The RISC complex graphic is scaled up in size such that it becomes a strong visual anchor to the entire infographic, even breaking out of its panel boundaries as additional flourish in visual contrast to the rest of the infographic. 
• Connecting it to the rest: We visually associate the RISC complex centerpiece visual to the other elements of the infographic using callouts, panel grouping, and through consistent color choice: yellow as the primary color for the Ago protein, blue as the secondary color for the mRNA, and red as the highlight/accent color reserved only for the miRNA.

Feeling stuck with a blank canvas? No worries—we’ve got you covered! Kickstart your key design graphic with a BioRender icon pack. Check out this collection of our RNA icons to help you get started.

Every figure is a story waiting to be told. Start by asking: What’s the key message I want to share?  This will shape your design choices—from the key graphics you include to how you organize your information. With tools like BioRender and a thoughtful approach, you can bring your scientific story to life.

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Keep reading: 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

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