Sublime

The idea was to short-circuit the production of a protein by introducing an RNA that was complementary (“antisense”) to its mRNA. The antisense strand would base-pair with the mRNA of interest, covering up the codons and preventing protein synthesis.

interference (RNAi).

These are not messenger RNAs, but rather noncoding RNAs—the same general category as ribosomal RNA, transfer RNA, telomerase RNA, and microRNAs. But what they’re doing is still, for the most part, a mystery.

that chopped long double-stranded RNA into smaller pieces called small interfering RNAs (siRNAs).

With a sequence complementary to that of the codon, this triplet is called the anticodon.

somehow knock down gene expression, at least in worms; they also discovered that it was impressively precise. It was only the targeted unc gene that seemed to be affected by the double-stranded RNA treatment.

double-stranded RNA had a powerful ability to interfere with gene expression.