RNA World research—still evolving
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado BioFrontiers Institute, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0596, USA
- Corresponding author: thomas.cech{at}colorado.edu
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
One step forward, two steps back. That's how laboratory research seems to progress for most grad students and postdocs from week to week. Yet, when we step back and look at how far the RNA field has progressed in the 20 years since the RNA journal was born, we get a very different perspective. The international community of RNA scientists, through hard work, serendipity and building on each others’ findings, has made remarkable discoveries. In this perspective, I will remind the reader of the state of RNA science then, in 1995, where the field is now, and what the next 20 years may bring.
Then
In 1995, the hot new science being presented at RNA conferences was concentrated in two areas—RNA splicing and ribozymes—and there was also a lot of action in RNA editing, snoRNAs, hnRNPs, tRNAs, translation, and HIV RNA. Although the intron-exon structure of eukaryotic genes had been discovered …
