[Editors] MIT biologist marks 50 years since key RNA discovery

[Elizabeth Thomson]

MIT News Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307
Phone: 617-253-2700
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www

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MIT biologist marks 50 years since key RNA discovery

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For Immediate Release
TUESDAY, JAN. 9, 2007
Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office
Phone: 617-258-5402
Email: thomson at mit.edu

PHOTOS AVAILABLE
Also see sidebar:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/rna-history-side.html



CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Profound doubts were the frequent response when MIT 
biophysicist Alexander Rich announced that two single-strand 
ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules could spontaneously align themselves 
to form a double helix, just like those of their famous cousin, DNA. 
Many biologists thought it impossible; the rest considered it 
unlikely.

Today, 50 years later, it is abundantly clear that Rich--who made the 
discovery with David R. Davies while both were working at the 
National Institute of Mental Health--was onto something big. In fact, 
it generated a paradigm shift in the science of biology. The 
discovery changed how research is done at the molecular level and 
helped spawn what has become the global biotechnology revolution.

To mark the anniversary, Rich was invited to write an article about 
the work in the December issue of The Scientist.  Likewise, Professor 
Alexander Varshavsky of Caltech wrote an article for Cell that 
appeared in the Dec. 29 issue.

In 1956 Rich and Davies announced in the Journal of the American 
Chemical Society that single strands of RNA can "hybridize," joining 
together to form a double-stranded molecule. As a result of the 
discovery and the work that followed, scientists now routinely 
identify, isolate, manipulate and replace the genes in living things. 
Such work led to the Human Genome Project and is pushing science 
toward a fundamental understanding of how life works.

"This was a founding technology of the biotechnology business," 
explained Rich, the William Sedgwick Thompson Professor of 
Biophysics. "The discovery was absolutely remarkable because no one, 
myself included, thought such a thing was possible and could work."

The seminal discovery of double-stranded RNA by Rich and Davies came 
only three years after James Watson and Francis Crick stunned the 
scientific world by describing DNA's structure as a double helix. 
Watson and Crick not only described a structure, but also suggested 
how inherited information--genetic information--is safely stored and 
can be passed from one generation to the next. It was a major 
milestone in the biosciences.

In 1953, Rich--working with famed chemist Linus Pauling at 
Caltech--was using X-ray crystallography to try to discover the 
structure of RNA, hoping to learn more about its role in life. One 
nagging question was whether RNA, like DNA, could exist in a 
double-stranded helical molecule.

The x-ray images weren't helping much; they were fuzzy, inconclusive 
shadows of the gooey, glassy fibers that were pulled from a glob of 
RNA.

At Caltech, and later at the NIH, Rich and his colleagues "talked a 
lot about RNA," he told a reporter from Chemical and Engineering News 
last month. "But nobody--including myself--suggested, 'Why don't you 
mix together PolyA and Poly U,' the two differing stands of RNA. It 
wasn't at all obvious that could work," he said, in part because 
everyone felt an enzyme would be needed to stitch them together. 
"People had no idea that hybridization could occur by itself."

Ultimately Rich did try mixing the two strands, resulting in the 
discovery of double-stranded RNA, but to this day, he said, he can't 
recall what prompted him to do so. "I've asked my colleagues and 
searched through my memory, and I don't actually know." But it did 
work, and that has made all the difference.

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Elizabeth A. Thomson
Senior Science and Engineering Editor
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
News Office, Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307
617-258-5402 (ph); 617-258-8762 (fax)
<thomson at mit.edu>

<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www>
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