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A ring is nothing more than a line whose ends have been joined together. But this deceptively simple structure sits at the heart of chemical compounds that have shaped human history. Drugs like the antimalarial quinine, the antibiotic erythromycin, the immunosuppressant rapamycin, and many other fascinating and critical organic compounds contain chains of carbon, linked together in a ring.

Ramnik Xavier calls it “learning from human genetics.” That’s how the senior associate member of the ӳý describes his research building on the soaring number of genes now known to be implicated in two common disorders, Crohn’s disease and type 1 diabetes.

Boston Globe reporter Carolyn Johnson writes on today's about the push to target cancer with new therapies — among many specialists, the piece quotes Todd Golub, director of the ӳý's Cancer Program. Todd and other colleagues discussed the ӳý's approach to cancer research in the new Annual Report:

• Develop a comprehensive catalogue of all mutations in a tumor, in order to understand how genes collaborate to drive the disease;

At the 5th annual RNAi (RNA interference) and miRNA (microRNA) World Congress held recently in Boston, David Root, Director of the RNAi Platform at the ӳý, gave the keynote presentation. I recently caught up with David and asked him to help explain the fundamentals behind RNA interference technology and why it is such a valuable tool for learning about what specific genes do.

Q1. What is the value of studying RNA interference?