RNA Splicing—Cutting and Pasting Genes

Science in general, and specifically the science of life, offers an intriguing path to walk along. As you deepen your understanding of a particular topic, you become aware of things you did not see at all when you started. Sometimes, this new seeing even drives you to reconsider and redefine very basic concepts that you learned along the way. This is exactly what happened after we discovered a process called RNA splicing. In RNA splicing, pieces of genetic instructions are cut and pasted together to form the final instructions for producing proteins. The discovery of RNA splicing has driven us to rethink what we previously believed about genes, which are the most fundamental units of information in biology. In this article, I will tell you what we discovered about RNA splicing, how it influenced our ideas about genes, and how we now use this knowledge to significantly improve people’s lives.