Alexander Rich elucidated the double helix structure of RNA 50 years ago. "The puzzle came straight out of the Watson and Crick paper," says Rich. "There's a statement in there that says it is probably impossible to form this structure with ribose rather than deoxyribose." On page 34, Rich describes that discovery, as well as what's next for the field of RNAi and others related to his findings. Rich earned an MD from Harvard in 1949 and went on spend five years at CalTech working with Linus Pauling. He continued to study nucleic acids at MIT, where his lab remains today.
Staff writer Kerry Grens joined The Scientist in September after two years as the health and science reporter for New Hampshire Public Radio. Before that, she earned a master's degree in biology from Stanford. On page 18, she writes about why researchers have attached condoms to robotic frogs to ...
