The 2002 Genetics Society of America Medal Andrew Fire

  1. Cynthia Kenyon

ANDY Fire is awarded the GSA Medal for 2002 for his discovery that introducing double-stranded RNA into an animal can activate a process that leads to the destruction of its own complementary mRNA. This discovery, known as RNA interference (RNAi), is now having a profound effect on biological research in many organisms and has immense potential for disease treatment in humans. RNAi can now be used to inhibit gene function in many research organisms including Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila, and mice. RNAi screens have now nearly replaced conventional mutagenesis screens in some fields of research, and because it is much faster than current methods, RNAi will probably come to play a major role in the genetic analysis of mice and other mammals. Because the targeting process is so specific, RNAi may eventually be used to inactivate human disease genes, such as the oncogenic forms of genes responsible for human cancers. Already a number of biotechnology companies have been formed specifically to develop this therapeutic strategy. Andy discovered RNAi when he began to ask why preparations of sense as well as antisense RNAi were able to inhibit gene function in conventional antisense-RNA experiments in C. elegans. On closer inspection, he discovered that the active species was actually double-stranded RNA, which had been contaminating both the sense and antisense RNA preparations. Since then, Andy's laboratory has gone on to elucidate many of the key steps in the mechanism by which double-stranded RNA leads to the destruction of endogenous mRNA.