[continued from previous message]   
      
   >> and running when these guys made their micro RNA discovery.  Their   
   >> research wasn't ignored it was just a me too accomplishment that had   
   >> already spawned a useful technology before they made their discovery.   
   >> Micro RNA genes became useful when researchers discovered ways to   
   >> change the sequence of the micro RNA genes so that they would regulate   
   >> different specific genes.  Micro RNAs work just like RNA interference   
   >> small RNAs had always worked, but you could make constructs that would   
   >> produce the micro RNA sequence that you wanted in the cell.   
   >>   
   >> The reason why no one made a big deal about the discovery, was because   
   >> it wasn't anything that was really new and exceptional.  I didn't   
   >> think that it was very exceptional at the time.  Using small RNAs to   
   >> interfere with translation was already a working technology in animal   
   >> research that had been spawned by the plant discoveries.   
   >>   
   >> The lab that I did my genomics post doc in was already using RNA   
   >> interference in chicken cell culture in 1993.  Finding out that   
   >> animals also used RNA interference like plants did wasn't that   
   >> exciting because researchers were already using RNA interference in   
   >> animal tissue culture to inhibit gene expression.  Their findings were   
   >> not rejected, just did not spawn much excitement.  Their findings were   
   >> published in a very important journal (Cell) and were never rejected   
   >> by the scientific community.   
   >   
   > Exactly. Note that another of Casey's main references for the supposed   
   > death of junk DNA is the main ENCODE paper. What a maroon.   
   >   
      
      
   I've looked up the situation and in the early 1990's it was called   
   antisense oligonucleotide gene silencing. It's origins actually predate   
   the petunia RNA interference 1990 paper.  The first attempts at doing it   
   were in the 1980's.  The mechanism for how it worked wasn't figured out   
   until 1998 and got those researchers the Nobel prize in 2002.   
      
   Ron Okimoto   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)