Jeannette Mohr

05.10.2021 , 02:06 Uhr

Andrew Z.Fire and Craig C. Mello haben 206 den Nobelpreis für ihre weit reichende Arbeit darüber wie Gene innerhalb lebenden Zellen gesteuert werden, bekommen.

"Other scientists soon figured out the evolutionary reason for this curious mechanism. It is a defense against viruses, many of which have double-stranded RNA as their genetic material. When a virus enters a cell, its RNA is chopped up and the fragments are used to battle the virus itself. The cell takes one strand of each fragment and tests all the messenger-RNA’s — those that direct synthesis of proteins — to see if they match it. Only the virus’s RNA’s will match, and they are destroyed before they can start making the virus’s proteins." www.nytimes.com/20...ience/03nobel.html