Aileen Constans(aconstans@the-scientist.com) | Jun 19, 2005 | 6 min read
RNA interference seemed poised to transform functional genomics and therapeutics with the 2001 publication of a paper by Tom Tuschl and colleagues showing that 21-base-pair (bp) RNA duplexes silence mammalian genes in a sequence-dependent manner.1 Though prior research demonstrated the effectiveness of double-stranded (ds)RNA as a posttranscriptional gene-silencing tool in plants and nematodes, its use in mammals was limited by the fact that dsRNAs larger than 30 bp can activate the interferon r