Professor Andrew Z. Fire of Stanford University (USA), a Nobel Prize winner for Physiology or Medicine, held a special lecture providing useful information on RNA interference, an important discovery in biology
Andrew Z. Fire of Stanford University (USA) gave a special lecture at Dankook University last month. Fire is a recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering RNA interference, which is one of the most important achievements in biology.
This lecture was arranged by the Department of Molecular Biology and was held at Humanities Hall on June 1. In the special lecture, Professor Fire told various stories on RNA and RNA interference, introducing his discoveries to the audience in easily understood language.
“We prepared this event to inspire our university students and to help them develop deeper interest in study and research,“ said Professor Sunju Chung (Molecular Biology), who arranged the event. “Students will gain from the experience of listening to a special lecture presented by a world famous scholar in the RNA field, which is one of the most important issues related to current studies in Molecular Biology.”
RNA interference is an action of RNA, which was originally thought to carry a subordinate role in the gene expression process, actively controlling and interfering protein synthesis, playing a more important role in living beings than previously thought.This is an important discovery which totally overturned the central dogma of existing molecular biology, and it has unlimited possibilities for applications in medicine, engineering, agriculture and similar fields. Moreover, it opens the possibility of relating to cures for AIDS or cancer through injection of double helix RNA once we know the DNS sequences causing those diseases.
Professor Fire is currently working at Stanford University in California, and he was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering RNA interference along with Professor Craig Mello of Massachusetts University.
