Exploring the Uses of RNAi — Gene Knockdown and the Nobel Prize

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Abstract
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded this year to Andrew Fire (Stanford University School of Medicine) and Craig Mello (University of Massachusetts Medical School) for their discovery of a new form of gene silencing. Nearly 9 years ago, Fire and Mello and their colleagues reported that exposing cells of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to double-stranded RNA resulted in specific and efficient gene silencing.1 They also observed that double-stranded RNA is far more potent than sense or antisense RNA in silencing the gene that shares its sequence, and they dubbed the silencing process “RNA interference” (RNAi). Because RNAi . . .