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Nature 428, 375-378 (25 March 2004) | doi:10.1038/428375a

Open Innovation Challenges

RNA interference:  Human genes hit the big screen

Andrew Fraser1

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Genetic screens are powerful tools for identifying the genes involved in specific biological processes. At last, RNA interference makes large-scale screens possible in mammalian cells.

One of the most intuitive ways to learn how a complicated machine works is to take it apart piece by piece — a directed 'learning by breaking'. For biologists, teasing apart the machinery underlying the form and function of an organism can be done, most simply, by removing genes one at a time and looking at the effect.

  1. Andrew Fraser is at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SA, UK.
    Email: agf@sanger.ac.uk

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