 History of RNAi use in medicine

The first instance of RNA silencing in animals was documented in 1996, when Guo and Kemphues observed that, by introducing sense and antisense RNA to par-1 mRNA in "Caenorhabditis elegans" caused degradation of the par-1 message.It was thought that this degradation was triggered by single-stranded RNA (ssRNA), but two years later, in 1998, Fire and Mello discovered that this ability to silence the par-1 gene expression was actually triggered by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA).They would eventually share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this discovery.