RNAi, the guiding principle and keeping family happy
JD Alfonzo
I am a relative newcomer to the RNA field and have knowingly worked on RNA since 1995. You may say that my interest in RNA
literally started with the RNA journal.
Having to choose my favorite topic in RNA in the last 20 years is worse
than asking a good parent to choose a favorite
child. What compounds the problem is that in this
particular case the “family” is quite extensive and includes, in the
last
20 years alone, 612,536 siblings (entries in PubMed)
that harbor the word “RNA.” Nonetheless, at the risk of offending my
extensive and extended family, choose I must. For me
the single most important discovery has to meet two major, yet simple,
criteria: 1) it must impact fields beyond that from
which the discovery was made; 2) it must generate a principle or concept
that can be applicable to thinking about other
unresolved scientific questions. Additionally, the discovery may, if
providence
allows, have some practical applications, although
this last point need not be an absolute requirement.
