Scientist honored for RNA research

Witold Filipowicz, group leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) of the Novartis Research Foundation, received over the weekend the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the internationally renowned RNA Society. With the award the RNA Society honors his leadership in research on the biogenesis, function and metabolism of RNA and ribonucleoproteins (RNPs), the proteins interacting with RNA. Bacterium Escherichia coli, brine shrimp, potato, tobacco, thale cress, yeast, fruit fly, and human cells: In his forty-year career Witold Filipowicz has not shied away from unusual cells. On the contrary, he has used the cells best suited to deliver answers to his curiosity-driven research into how the cell regulates RNA biogenesis, function and metabolism. As a pioneer in RNA research, he has studied this molecule long before the recent excitement around RNA interference (RNAi), microRNAs (miRNAs), and RNA's newly defined role in gene regulation arose. His results, synergizing with others in the field, not only paved the way for a new view of the function of RNA in the cell, but laid the groundwork for harnessing RNA-driven processes for biomedical purposes. In the last couple of years, in particular, his characterization of human Dicer, the protein catalyzing the first step in RNAi, and his work on the function and metabolism of miRNAs, have demonstrated that small RNA molecules play a key role in gene regulation.