RNA interference, mRNA vaccines, RNA-guided editing. These are just some of the fields of biomedical research that have exploded in recent years and brought RNA out of the projected shadow of the most famous nucleic acid: DNA. Credit for the ongoing scientific and technological revolution goes to researchers such as Thomas Cech, who have been able to look beyond the double helix and, in many cases, have earned Nobel prizes (the latest being Katalin Karikό for the anti-Covid vaccine). But we also owe a nice gratitude to the strange critters who first exhibited some unexpected phenomena that later became of universal interest.  

The many RNA molecules with different (and still largely unknown) functions, the scientists who studied them, and the organisms that made it possible are featured, almost in equal measure, in the book recently published by Cech, a Nobel Prize winner for his discoveries on the catalytic properties of RNA, as well as a mentor to CRISPR inventor Jennifer Doudna.
Readers of “The Catalyst. RNA and the quest to unlock life’s deepest secrets” will be fascinated by the slew of lowly guinea pigs used by RNA scientists, such as the microscopic pond scum inhabitant called Tetrahymena, that led to the discovery not only of catalytic RNA but also of telomerase. “The esoteric creatures we chose to study exaggerated one of these phenomena in some way, making a complex subject more accessible, or offered some other practical advantage in the lab,” says Cech. “Then, because we believed in evolution, we knew that whatever we found in the obscure organism would have implications for other organisms as well”.  Funding agencies are downsizing their support for research on little-known creatures, focusing on human cells and mice. But how many discoveries will we miss if we stop investigating the myriad of neglected beings whose biology is still unexplored?