[HN Gopher] RNA Takes Over
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RNA Takes Over
Author : _Microft
Score : 70 points
Date : 2021-12-07 17:17 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| divbzero wrote:
| Don't we have an advantage in studying RNA (or "junk" DNA) over
| proteins in that sequencing of nucleic acids is far easier than
| sequencing of proteins? Seems fortuitous for our research efforts
| that these nucleic acids play a bigger role in biology than we
| initially thought.
| uplifter wrote:
| Sequencing nucleic acids (RNA, DNA) is more straightforward,
| though protein sequencing tech is fairly functional too, if
| more expensive and complicated, machinery wise.
| amacbride wrote:
| There are some recent startups (Glyphic Bio out of MIT, and
| Jonathan Rothberg's Quantum-Si) that are tackling next-gen
| protein sequencing. I'm eager to see what they can do once
| they're widely available.
| uplifter wrote:
| The trend of discovering biological purposes for what were once
| termed 'junk' DNA (which these RNA are transcribed from)
| continues.
|
| In addition to the improved understanding of our physical nature,
| it will be exciting to see what applications are developed for
| targeting or tricking-out these novel cellular components for
| pharmaceutical and biotechnological purposes. They are sure to be
| significant, if our experience with the RNA tech employed in the
| modeRNA and Pfizer vaccines are any indication.
|
| Personally, as someone who finished his biochemistry degree 2
| decades ago (and has mostly worked on the software side of things
| since), I'm excited for what we'll be able to do with fuller
| understanding of this molecular machinery, and plan to pivot back
| into biotech over the next decade.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| It seems that we find more and more 'junk' DNA to not be junk.
| Whoever was quick to label it 'junk DNA' did so in haste. It
| would have been a lot more humble to label it 'DNA of unknown
| function'.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Well we did rename swamps to wetlands.
| J5892 wrote:
| A swamp is a type of wetland. They weren't renamed.
| uplifter wrote:
| You made me curious and some quick duckduckgo-ing led me to a
| biologists involved-if-not-comprehensive investigation of the
| origins of the term [0].
|
| Long story short, it _probably_ dates to late 1950s Cambridge
| and _may_ have originated with Francis Crick, co-discoverer
| of the structure of DNA. Of relevance is that it preceded the
| discovery of mRNA, dating to a time when all RNA was thought
| to be ribosomal DNA. At that time the prevailing theory was
| that DNA codes for RNA that is incorporated into the ribosome
| (which then makes proteins). Because the amount of RNA code
| in the ribosome was clearly much less than the amount of DNA
| code in the genome, the implication was that much of the
| genome did not code anything, simply as a matter of
| mathematical difference. The term was controversial early on,
| and it might even have been coined to be so, though that 's
| less clear.
|
| [0] https://judgestarling.tumblr.com/post/667709690372849664/
| the...
| smegsicle wrote:
| "dark dna"
| bigodbiel wrote:
| IIRC it was in jest, and then taken as "serious" by
| mainstream audience, like "god paricle" or "al gore invented
| the internet".
| ampdepolymerase wrote:
| Molecular biology education needs more funding. Teaching it at
| scale (and more importantly, communicating new discoveries
| outside of textbooks) still remains a challenge. Keeping up
| with the field without reading papers is much harder compared
| to CS/ML where almost every ML engineer maintains a blog.
| shigawire wrote:
| I'm in a similar situation but a decade removed. I'm not sure I
| even remember what I learned previously - how have you retained
| anything after 2 decades?
| uplifter wrote:
| I try to read journal papers every now and then, usually when
| investigating the source of some news story, or when digging
| down into the molecular details of a personal health
| interest. Somewhat contrary to the theme of TFA, I've found
| that my 20 year old training has provided good mileage in
| terms of understanding current research. Much of the
| overarching theory of molecular biology hasn't changed in
| that time, and a lot of the same techniques are still used,
| if often miniaturized and scaled, e.g. microarray methods for
| things I learned to do using blots. For when I find a gap in
| my knowledge, modern literature search tech facilitates
| digging down to find related papers that describe newer
| theories or ones that describe new methods. Often I'll find
| references to review papers which are essentially designed to
| get one up to speed on a topic. If anything papers are easier
| to access now than back when I was in university, _wink_
| _wink_.
|
| Oh, and there are definitely quite a few bored biochemists
| contributing serious detail to select wikipedia articles.
| With grain of salt in hand, I've found some pretty high
| quality descriptions (in terms of detail and ease of
| understanding) of molecular pathways peppered throughout
| articles on various topics, which can serve as decent
| starting points for diving into the literature on those
| topics.
|
| I'm a far cry from considering myself current on the latest
| research, but I feel not too far behind and that I can catch
| up quickly when needed.
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