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RNA Interference Leads To Nobel Prize
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Oct 02, 2006 10:28 PM
from the making-the-double-helix-dance dept.
from the making-the-double-helix-dance dept.
gollum123 writes "The Nobel Prize for medicine has been awarded to two US scientists who discovered a phenomenon called RNA interference, which regulates the expression of genes. From the article: 'The breakthrough has also given scientists the ability to systematically test the functions of all human genes. [...] The Nobel citation, issued by Sweden's Karolinska Institute, said: "This year's Nobel Laureates have discovered a fundamental mechanism for controlling the flow of genetic information."'"
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*Shakes Head* (Score:2)
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in other news... (Score:3, Funny)
In other news, President Bush has awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to two US scientists who discovered the gene which regulates the expression of opinion.
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No, silly, that's RNC interference.
Paper tape (Score:2)
If the basic building blocks of life (genes) can be reduced to algorithms, how much longer until we can reduce the rest of our bodies to computer-replicable algorithms?
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Re:Paper tape (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Paper tape (Score:5, Informative)
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Do you mean to say that viruses could be introduced into an organism to change DNA? If so would it be possible for there to be something like inheritance where genetic characteristics propogate directly between organisms rather than through reproduction?
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I am not entirely clear what you are asking but there are cases where children express phenotypes controlled by the mother's DNA. In some species of snail, the direction of the child's shell rotation is controlled by the mother's genes.
Re:Paper tape (Score:4, Informative)
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Morgellons Disease (Score:2)
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Well I suppose that makes sense, most of my gene transferring occurs horizontally.
Giggity Giggity Giggity!
Re:Paper tape (Score:5, Informative)
In the "Genetic Turing Machine" the 'tape' is comprised of DNA, RNA (in various forms), and proteins; the 'head' is mostly protein and RNA; and the FSM involves DNA, RNA, and protein. Oh, with some other crap, like metals, sprinkled throughout. Information is encoded in DNA and various other epigenetic systems (about which we know very little at this point). Reading and writing from/to this 'tape' is accomplished with mechanisms built from proteins and RNA, proteins whose production is regulated by other proteins and various forms of RNA.
There is no similarity in the fundamental workings of biological systems and computers, except perhaps (depending how you feel about the Church-Turing thesis) their computability power.
Computer metaphors are generally useless, whether you are trying to explain computers using cars, or humans using computers.
Oh, but reducing our bodies to algorithms is simple - all you have to do is model the physicals properties of all the atoms that comprise the body. It's simply a matter of processing power.
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schedule for Nobel Prize announcements (Score:4, Informative)
Impressively fast (Score:2)
I call shenanigans (Score:5, Funny)
I'm pretty sure condoms have been around for a while.
Unexpected discovery (Score:5, Interesting)
In the 1980's, Dr. Rich Jorgensen was a botanist interesting in making prettier petunias. He identified chalcone synthase, an enzyme needed to manufacture the purple pigment in the flowers. He reasoned that the more chalcone synthase there was, the purpler the flowers would become.
Normally, the cell DNA for an enzyme is copied into RNA, which is made into protein. It seemed logical that increasing the RNA would lead to more protein.
In fact, the statement
DNA -> RNA -> Protein
is often called the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology.
Because single stranded RNA was so hard to synthesize, Jorgensen injected massive amounts of double stranded RNA for chalcone synthase into the petunias. Much to his surprise, the petunias didn't become more purple: they became white. Somehow, increasing the enzyme RNA number actually suppressed the protein.
This Nobel Prize is well-deserved. By elucidating the mechanism of this paradoxical response, they challenged the Central Dogma. Moreover, by allowing scientists to "knock-down" genes, RNAi can be used to study the loss a single gene quickly and cheaply. It is very difficult to find a published biology paper today that doesn't use this technique.
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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3210/02.h
Left-under is the video
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Now you can just add either RNAi directly to cells (a bit expensive), transfect cells with DNA which expresses RNAi (cheap) or even integrate a gene expressing RNAi into the genome of cells (laborious but very handy).
Hrshgn
my impression of Mello and Fire (Score:5, Interesting)
Craig looks more like a rock star than a Nobel Prize winning scientist in person; he's got the faded blue jeans/shirt hanging out look down pat. He's also ~6'5 and has great hair. Looks aside, Craig is one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. Some of the science he has done is simply mind-blowing (not necesarily the RNAi stuff). Back in the late 90's when Craig was just beginning to work on RNAi I remember going to a seminar of his and thinking "wow, this stuff will win the Nobel Prize one day."
Andy on the other hand looks exactly like the egghead stereotype of an absent-minded professor. Balding, wears thick round glasses, sweater and khakis. While not as physically imposing as Craig, Andy has this incredibly modest demeanor that really demonstrates what it means to be a *top notch* academic. No pretenciousness at all. As a "worm person", I will be eternally grateful for Andy for providing a vector kit for the C. elegans research community essentially free of charge. Even without the RNAi and other research accomplishments the worm community has much to thank Andy for.
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RNAi 101 (Score:5, Informative)
Ever since the 1920's, scientists knew that DNA was the inheritable component that held the genes. They also knew that protein was the actual workhorse, the microscopic machines that accomplished cellular processes. Eventually, they elucidated that DNA copies itself into RNA, which is then converted into protein. Watson and Crick determined the structure of DNA, and proposed the mechanism for conversion of DNA to RNA.
Since Watson and Crick's time, we have been using the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology:
DNA -> RNA -> protein
Increase the amount of DNA? That means more protein. Increase the amount of RNA? That means more protein.
The big question in biology is now: given that there is usually just one gene for each protein, why do you have drastically different amounts of protein?
What these guys show is that the Dogma really isn't entirely true. Sometimes you can add certain RNAs and make *less* protein. Moreover, they showed that this mechanism was conserved in organisms ranging from yeast to microscopic worms, to humans. In other words, small RNA molecules not only directed the synthesis of protein, they actually could be used to suppress it. An entirely new level of cellular regulation was elucidated.
But to be quite honest, that wasn't the reason they won the Nobel Prize. It is for the experimental implications. Back before RNAi, if I were studying My Favorite Gene, the classical way to do it would be either to find a small molecule inhibitor (very difficult and expensive to find one) or to genetically modify cells to stop making it (also very time consuming and difficult). Now, with RNAi, I have a third, very fast method. Simply construct RNAi using a pretty standardized cookbook, order it online for around $100, and stick it in the cells. See what happens. Experiments that used to take months to years and cost thousands of dollars could now be done in a few days for a few hundred dollars.
I'll put it in terms you guys can probably understand. Research without RNAi is like debugging without a debugger. Yeah, you can do it, but it's often time-consuming and confusing.
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I write in Perl. To debug, I just put a "print" statement after every line in the program. Failing that, I change characters randomly until it works.
WHERE IS THE PEER REVIEWED ARTICLE? (Score:2)
Personally this is one of the amazing stories for me. It is an obvious mechanism of regulation for chemist or physicist, but not so obvious for a biologist. The simplicity of theoreetical ideas and easy usage has destined this work for the fast Nobel track from the very beginning.
Well done.
Nature article (Score:3, Interesting)
Potent and specific genetic interference by double-stranded RNA in Caenorhabditis elegans
ANDREW FIRE, SIQUN XU, MARY K. MONTGOMERY, STEVEN A. KOSTAS, SAMUEL E. DRIVER & CRAIG C. MELLO
Experimental introduction of RNA into cells can be used in certain biological systems to interfere with th
Of course, this is only one theory (Score:3, Funny)
More attempts at explanation (Score:2)
I would add to this an analogy.
So, the storyline is DNA->mRNA->protein.
The second leg of this classic protein production path is done on ribosomes - 100A brontosaurs of the cell. One of the elements of protein synthesis on these astounding machines is recognition of a triplet of nucleotides (codon) on the matrix RNA (mRNA) by tRNAs (transfer RNAs) that uses a
Weird, I recall knowing this... (Score:2)
I read interference and think of interferon... (Score:2)
Homer: And you're "interferon" with our good time! Hehehehe!
Hello World? (Score:2)
#include main() { printf("Hello, World."); }
Re:And all of you athiests have been so smug... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:In other news... (Score:4, Informative)
On October 3, they will announce the winner(s) in physics, followed by chemistry the day after. Prize in economy, October 9.
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Sometimes I wonder if Eurotrash sneering at the supposed lack of scientific sophistication here is related to insecurity over the "brain drain" from Europe to America that has helped give us more Nobel prizes than any other nation by far.
-ccm
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I think the GP post meant this too.
Playing with the gene knobs is surely not what we, humble creations of the Intelligent Designer, are allowed to do.
That's what the guvner said, hmm?
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"Funny" mod will not improve your karma, buddy!