Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts 01605, USA. craig.mello@umassmed.edu
The recent discoveries of RNA interference and related RNA silencing pathways have revolutionized our understanding of gene regulation. RNA interference has been used as a research tool to control the expression of specific genes in numerous experimental organisms and has potential as a therapeutic strategy to reduce the expression of problem genes. At the heart of RNA interference lies a remarkable RNA processing mechanism that is now known to underlie many distinct biological phenomena.