Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue.
Topic: DNA or RNA? Versatile Player Takes a Leading Role in Molecular Research
Stories covered over the past two weeks include the Supreme Court’s decision that “DNA evidence that sheds doubt on a defendant’s guilt can be used to reopen the case in federal court.” In New York there is an ongoing debate between the State Assembly and the Senate on the current five-year statute of limitations on rape cases; and “legislative leaders reached a tentative compromise to expand the state's DNA database to solve crimes and catch criminals”.
In another interesting article entitled “DNA SEGREGATION - SEPARATE BUT NOT EQUAL” by Daniel Sargis he presents a contradiction of the use of DNA evidence vs. victim testimony in two separate cases. “With the same ease that a Connecticut judge exercised in releasing a convicted rapist resulting from DNA evidence over victim testimony, Nifong continues to prosecute the three Duke students with a confidence in victim testimony over DNA exoneration.” Also, the Social Security Administration issues a new ruling on the impact of DNA testing in sibling cases.
As always there are a number of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence.
In a 5-to-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that DNA evidence that sheds doubt on a defendant’s guilt can be used to reopen the case in federal court.
The decision was the proper one.
At issue was the case of a paroled rapist who was found guilty 20 years ago of murdering a woman. But 10 years after his conviction, DNA testing proved that the semen prosecutors had used to support speculation the woman had been raped actually was her husband’s.
The Supreme Court ruled that the new evidence raised sufficient doubt about who committed the crime to merit a new hearing in federal court.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, emphasized that the court’s decision did not exonerate the man. But the court must take into account all evidence, “old and new, incriminating and exculpatory,” when an inmate comes to federal court with evidence of innocence.
The court did not make new law in its decision. But it did take a much-needed step forward in making it clear how lower courts should handle new technology in allowing appeals.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref01.html
There are 833 cases of rape in New York—including 687 cases in New York City—that have now gone over the five-year statute of limitations. Put simply, that means a sexual predator who committed rape in 2001, but managed to not get caught or convicted can now walk free from the law, regardless of incriminating evidence or witnesses that might surface. The figures were tallied by State Senator Jeff Klein (D-Bronx/Westchester), who is pushing for the State Assembly to put aside politics and compromise on legislation that would get rid of the five-year statute of limitations.
"We cannot keep giving rapists a 'get out of jail free' card simply because they manage to evade capture for five years," said Sen. Klein, addressing the media in front of the State Supreme Court building last Sunday.
The two state legislative bodies, the senate and the assembly, have both passed different legislation repealing the statute. Both legislations would end the statute on rape for criminal cases, but the assembly's legislation would additionally repeal the statute for civil cases. Now, as the state legislative session in Albany comes to an end this week—not to reconvene again until January 2007—the five-year statute could remain if the two legislative bodies do not come to a compromise.
"It doesn't really matter which one passes," said Sonia Ossorio, of the National Organization for Women, which advocates for the elimination of the statute. "Frankly, I'd like them [the assembly and the senate] to come together and compromise a little bit."
The idea of repealing the five-year statute of limitations of rape was overwhelmingly popular in both the senate and the assembly, with the senate passing legislation repealing the statute by a vote of 60 to 1 in February, and the assembly passing different legislation repealing the statute by a vote of 139 to 1 in May.
Most state lawmakers feel that the statute on rape, which originates from the 1800s, was meant to guard against fading memories and false accusations. Now, however, with advances in forensic science and DNA testing, it is possible to identify criminals years and even decades later.
Only six other states in the country have a five-year or shorter statute of limitation on rape.
Despite almost universal support and few arguments to the contrary, Sen. Klein, who has been pushing the repeal of the statute since 2002, fears that the statute will go untouched for yet another year in Albany. He sites "intentions that are impure."
More specifically, it's partisan politics, says State Senator Diane J. Savino (D-Brooklyn/Staten Island), who co-sponsored Sen. Klein's legislation. She believes that since this is an election year, the assembly and the senate are purposely not agreeing. By not pushing the issue, the Republican-controlled senate—who introduced legislation first—can say they are being tough on crime and the Democrat-controlled assembly is standing in the way. Meanwhile, the assembly can blame the senate for trying to take away rape victims' right to sue the rapist on civil grounds.
Senators Savino and Klein, who are part of the senate's Democratic minority, have stepped outside partisan lines, calling on their Democratic colleagues in the assembly to stop pushing civil liability.
Sen. Savino said, "Before we go home next week, it is imperative that we enact legislation that will end this travesty of justice against those who have been victimized by a violent sexual predator. This isn't a complicated issue."
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref02.html
Legislative leaders reached a tentative compromise to expand the state's DNA database to solve crimes and catch criminals after tempers erupted in the Capitol.
Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver accused Governor George Pataki of playing to a presidential electorate with his proposal to vastly expand the existing DNA database.
"The governor can govern by press conference and sound bite all he wants, and probably will a lot more in Iowa and New Hampshire as well," Silver said at a news conference, referring to Pataki's recent trips to the key presidential primary states.
"That is just despicable," Pataki said of Silver.
Hours later, legislative leaders tentatively agreed to a compromise between Pataki's call to take genetic samples after every felony and misdemeanor conviction and the Assembly's version that would include felonies and a dozen of the most severe misdemeanors.
The tentative deal would include all felonies and 17 misdemeanors including the most common entry level crime of petit larceny.
Tuesday night's tentative agreement would also end the statute of limitations on rape and other sex crime felonies.
Last week, Pataki's Criminal Justice Chief, Chauncey Parker, met with local law enforcement officials in Buffalo to push for the expanded DNA Data Bank.
"If we had an All Crimes DNA Data Bank in New York State, we would literally solve and prevent thousands and thousands of crimes. We would exonerate people and bring justice to crime victims," said Parker.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref03.html
DNA SEGREGATION - SEPARATE BUT NOT EQUAL
I’m telling you right now, if you want to get ahead in this world...quit school; become a loser; commit some crimes and quit being an average guy.
While Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong continues hell-bent to destroy the lives of three college lacrosse players with no evidence other than the representations of an unstable stripper, a Connecticut judge just freed a convicted rapist (with a prior criminal record) based on 18-year-old DNA "evidence".
The Fourteenth Amendment, the same Fourteenth Amendment used to guarantee "Equal Protection" in Brown v. Board of Education, has ceased to be relevant when it comes to normal people.
Or... could it be that Nifong coasted through law school, and more than 27 years as a prosecutor, without ever reading the Bill of Rights.
Without a single smear of credible DNA evidence connecting the Duke University lacrosse players to the "victim" after multiple DNA tests, Nifong discounted the value of DNA evidence and proceeded to indict the three Duke students.
In Nifong’s own words, "DNA results can often be helpful, but I've been doing this a long time, and for most of the years I've been doing this, we had to deal with sexual assault cases the good old-fashioned way. Witnesses got on the stand and told what happened to them. The fact is anytime you have a victim who can identify her assailant, then what you have is a case a judge must let go to the jury."
In Connecticut, Hartford Superior Court Judge Thomas Miano freed (pending a new trial) convicted rapist James Calvin Tillman when Miano "based his decision largely on revolutionary advances in the science of DNA testing...and none conclusively matched Tillman's DNA profile".
Tillman was sentenced in 1989 to 45 years in prison "for the brutal kidnapping and rape of a woman in downtown Hartford (CT)" based upon the victim who "...picked him out of a police photo lineup as the man who forced himself on her as she was getting into her car after a night of having drinks with co-workers at the Arch Street Tavern in Hartford".
The then 26-year-old Tillman with a previous criminal record for "a 1987 conviction on charges of assault and larceny, and a conviction from a 1985 arrest on charges of driving while intoxicated" was living in a homeless shelter at the time of the rape.
But along came two lawyers from the Connecticut Innocence Project who found, after 18 years, a "box on a conference-room table...Inside was another box, and inside that was a manila envelope...Through a hole in the envelope, they could see crumpled pieces of black fabric - the evidence they hoped would clear James Calvin Tillman".
This "evidence" has traveled a muddy road:
In 1990, while trying to reverse his conviction, Tillman arranged to have DNA-stained evidence re-tested by a private company. With the DNA technology at the time, the testing company’s results were inconclusive.
By 2006, that testing company had gone out of business and another firm had inherited all of its old records and evidence...but the new company could find nothing from the Tillman case.
The "evidence" eventually was discovered in the possession of Greater Hartford Legal Aid Inc. where one of its workers "found the box with ‘Tillman’ written on it in a storage archive in East Hartford, and brought it back to the Hartford office".
With new testing technology, analysts from the Connecticut state forensic lab determined that four out of five DNA stains could not have come from Tillman. Testing on the fifth stain was inconclusive.
I don’t want to be picky here, but the integrity of this "evidence" was obviously compromised. The National Institute of Justice cautions "Because extremely small samples of DNA can be used as evidence, greater attention to contamination issues is necessary when identifying, collecting, and preserving DNA evidence. DNA evidence can be contaminated when DNA from another source gets mixed with DNA relevant to the case. This can happen when someone sneezes or coughs over the evidence or touches his/her mouth, nose, or other part of the face and then touches the area that may contain the DNA to be tested."
Although Tillman’s 18 year old DNA evidence was: bounced from location to location; lost and then found in a document storage archive building; had a hole in the envelope in which it was stored and handled by multiple people...a Connecticut judge saw fit to release Tillman. How do you spell "evidentiary chain of custody"?
With the same ease that a Connecticut judge exercised in releasing a convicted rapist resulting from DNA evidence over victim testimony, Nifong continues to prosecute the three Duke students with a confidence in victim testimony over DNA exoneration.
As Nifong explains it, the lack of any DNA evidence connecting the three Duke students to the rape "doesn't mean nothing happened...It just means nothing was left behind." Nifong maintains that he "feels comfortable" with the credibility of the alleged rape "victim".
And what a "victim" Nifong has relied on to ruin the lives of the three Duke students.
Nifongs "victim" is a stripper with a criminal record who "was drinking while taking prescription medication and had sex with at least four men and a vibrator" immediately prior to the alleged rape. And, despite the prosecution’s representations, the post "rape" medical examinations showed no signs of sexual or physical attack consistent with the "victim’s" allegations.
In fact, "The second dancer in the Duke lacrosse case told police early on that allegations of rape were a ‘crock’ and that she was with the accuser the entire evening except for a period of less than five minutes." At one point in early in the investigation, the "victim" maintained that the second dancer even facilitated and participated in the rape.
Although his "victim" seems as loony as the Mad Hatter, Nifong insists on going forward "the good old fashioned way".
Does Nifong realize that "the good old fashioned way" just resulted in the freeing of a convicted rapist in Connecticut?
And the victim testimony in the Connecticut case was much more credible than the cards Nifong is dealing.
Sometimes you have to wonder how much law is left in the legal system when American justice can be so unequal.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref04.html
The Social Security Administration has issued a ruling on establishing a parent-child relationship when a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test shows a sibling relationship between a claimant and a child of the worker who is entitled to Child's Insurance Benefits (CIB) under Social Security Act 216(h)(3).
The new ruling, Social Security Ruling 06-02p, provides that if the results of DNA testing show a high probability that an entitled child is the sibling of a child claimant who is filing for benefits under the state law definition of ``child'' and the SSA has already determined that the entitled child is the worker's natural child under one of the two federal law definitions in 216(h)(3), the SSA will rely on the 216(h)(3) determination when it determines whether the child claimant is the worker's child in accordance with 216(h)(2)(A) of the Act. Under these circumstances, the ruling states that the agency will not determine whether the child who is entitled under one of the federal law definitions in 216(h)(3) also meets the definition of ``child'' under state law.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref05.html
Cases involving DNA evidence include:
The number of prison inmates requesting DNA testing to try and prove their innocence continues to rise.
Kentucky - A judge on Friday granted a death row inmate's request for DNA testing on clothes worn when the victim was slain in 1979.
The tests could cast doubt on Brian Keith Moore's conviction in the death of Virgil Harris by putting another man at the crime scene, said defense lawyer David Barron.
Vicki Glass, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Greg Stumbo, said prosecutors may file an appeal "due to the overwhelming evidence of Moore's guilt."
"The evidence in this case has been handled by a multitude of people over 27 years," Glass said. "DNA evidence would be inherently unreliable at this late date."
Moore, 49, is the first Kentucky death row inmate to use a state law to seek testing on evidence stemming from a crime predating DNA tests.
Thirty-nine other states have similar laws, which have led to 14 inmates being freed from death row.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref06.html
Tennessee - A state appeals court refused Thursday to approve DNA testing sought by convicted killer Sedley Alley. He is scheduled for execution June 28th.
The Court of Criminal Appeals upheld a Memphis judge's ruling that Alley was not entitled to the testing on evidence gathered at the scene of the 1985 murder he was convicted of committing.
Judge Otis Higgs ruled May 30th that Alley failed to show DNA testing could have kept him from being indicted or convicted if the technology had existed at the time of his trial in 1987.
State law allows such post-conviction testing only for attempts to prove innocence.
Higgs said Alley's petition appeared aimed instead at delaying his execution.
Alley was convicted of killing 19-year-old Suzanne Collins, who was beaten and sexually assaulted with a sharpened tree limb.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref07.html
Tennessee - The attorney for Paul House, a death row inmate given a new chance by the Supreme Court to prove his innocence, says they're optimistic about their chances.
House's attorney, Steven Kissinger, spoke with 6 News about the possibilities the court's 5-3 vote creates.
"Obviously, after hearing the decision we are pleased with what has happened over the past couple of months because over that period of time, the court has carefully considered the evidence Mr. House is innocent. Today, we could not be happier," Kissinger says.
It's the first time a death row inmate has brought DNA evidence before the high court to prove his innocence.
House was on parole for a Utah sex offense at the time he was convicted and sentenced to death in the murder of Carolyn Muncey, who lived near him in rural Luttrell, about 25 miles north of Knoxville, in 1985.
House has been on Tennessee's death row for 20 years. No one saw the crime happen, and House maintains he did not do it.
In their decision, the nine Supreme Court justices stated that with new DNA evidence, no reasonable juror would vote to convict House.
First, the case will go before a federal district court judge in Knoxville. House's attorney will argue his client did not receive a fair trial in 1985.
If the ruling is in House's favor, a new trial could begin soon after the hearing.
If the ruling goes against House, he can petition Gov. Bredesen for release.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref08.html
Pennsylvania - DNA evidence presented in court Thursday linked accused cop killer Solomon Montgomery to the scene of the crime.
Officer Gary Skerski was gunned down during a robbery on May 8 at Pat's Cafe in Philadelphia.
A firearms expert testified that Montgomery's DNA matched DNA found on a shotgun bullet casing that crime investigators found inside Pat's Cafe.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref09.html
Ohio - A former Cincinnati man was indicted Wednesday in connection with a series of rapes over eight years.
According to Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, Lamont Wilks was indicted on 24 counts, including rape, aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery.
Investigators identified him as a suspect using the Combined DNA Index System, which takes DNA samples from inmates in Ohio prisons.
The violent attacks happened from 1995 to 2003 in Pleasant Ridge and Golf Manor. In each rape, the suspect used a knife to force his victims to cooperate.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref10.html
California - There was a time a few years ago when John Laurence Whitaker was a deep-voiced community activist in Pasadena who gave motivational speeches to students, ran for the school board and claimed to be a Vietnam War hero.
But Tuesday, Whitaker was an inmate standing slumped over in a courtroom hold cell in Newport Beach while his attorney entered not guilty pleas to two counts of murder.
Whitaker, also known as John Betances, was charged with killing Patricia Carpenter, a Los Angeles woman whose bruised and battered body was found in a Laguna Canyon parking lot in 1983, and Bodil Rasmussen, a school clerk who was found strangled and dumped in a Santa Monica parking lot in 1975.
Orange County Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy said that DNA specimens taken from both crime scenes link Whitaker to the slayings. Murphy hopes to try both killings in Orange County under a new state law that allows similar crimes to be tried together regardless of where all crimes took place.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref11.html
Florida - A determined and angry prosecutor who lost a "rock-solid" murder trial in Wisconsin last month retraced the suspect's steps to Sumter County, where a brutal double homicide had baffled investigators for six years.
The prosecutor was convinced Bill Paul Marquardt, 30, had killed his mother in Wisconsin in 2000 and two other women.
A bloody knife, he contends, said so.
The knife, seized from Marquardt on March 18, 2000, the day that he was arrested on charges he stabbed and shot his mother, bore the blood of four people -- Marquardt, his mother, Mary Jane, and "two biologically related females," according to DNA tests.
Scouring the Internet for unsolved double killings, Chippewa County District Attorney Jon Theisen cracked the case, authorities in Wisconsin and Florida said Tuesday. The blood of the unidentified women turned out to be that of Margarita Valdez Ruiz, 72, and her daughter, Esperanza Wells, 42, who were stabbed and shot to death March 15, 2000, at their home in the small Sumter community of Tarrytown as two toddlers looked on.
"This prosecutor really made our day," Sumter County Sheriff Bill Farmer said after a news conference in Bushnell where he announced Marquardt would be charged with the killings. "If he hadn't lost the one up there, we might never have solved two down here."
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref12.html
Colorado - It was 1980 when 15-year-old Nanine Grimes was found stabbed to death, more than 80 times.
Years later, DNA evidence has helped link Troy Brownlow to the murder.
Recently, Brownlow gave a DNA sample to an Arizona prison, when he was getting out after serving on theft charges.
That sample was put in a national database and linked him to the DNA found at the crime scene 26 years ago.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref13.html
Illinois - DNA evidence has linked a Chicago man already in custody for a May sexual assault of a woman in her Uptown apartment to an earlier sexual assault, according to authorities.
Benjamin Johnson, 40, was ordered held without bail by a Criminal Court judge on the new charge of aggravated criminal sexual assault of a 22-year-old woman in the 600 block of West Addison Street.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref14.html
Tennessee - One of the two bears captured at a national forest in Tennessee has been identified as the animal responsible for the fatal attack of a Clyde, Ohio, girl, on April 13, officials announced yesterday.
Ron Fox, assistant director of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, said DNA samples taken from the front claws determined a 211-pound bear that was captured four days after the attack was responsible for the fatal attack.
Elora Petrasek, 6, was killed; her mother, Susan Cenkus, 45, and her 2-year-old son, Luke, were mauled in the Cherokee National Forest at Benton Falls, near the Chilhowee Recreation Area.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref15.html
New Mexico- A homeless man from southern New Mexico has been charged with the brutal rape and murder of the South Valley grandmother, the Bernalillo County Sheriff' Office announced today.
Investigators said a tip from another transient first identified Arturo Alvarado, 32, as a possible suspect in the May 2 death of Mary Ellen Padilla. But it was a DNA match between evidence at the crime scene and a state database that led to the arrest.
Alvarado was arrested at a homeless shelter in Deming and allegedly confessed to the crime. Additional arrests are possible, investigators added.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref16.html
Did You Know?
Topic: DNA or RNA? Versatile Player Takes a Leading Role in Molecular Research
By NICHOLAS WADE
For decades, DNA has been the star of molecular biology. But it is increasingly having to share the stage as biologists discover more about the versatility of RNA, long viewed as a mere copyist of the genes encoded in the famous double helix.
Looked at from RNA's point of view, DNA is just a passive archive of information, a dull hunk of a telephone directory; it is RNA that looks up the numbers, establishes the connections and determines how long each call will last.
"Anything DNA can do, RNA can do better," was the slogan on a slide shown by one biologist, Susan Gottesman of the National Cancer Institute, at a symposium at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island.
In the past, RNA did not get this kind of respect. The central dogma of biology has been that DNA makes messenger RNA, messenger RNA makes proteins, and proteins do everything else that needs to be done in a living cell. Though still unchallenged, that dogma has begun to seem less comprehensive, after an explosion of findings about regulatory RNA, a different sort of RNA that is produced by animal and plant cells and by viruses.
Regulatory RNA is turning out to be a major player in some of a cell's most vital activities. It guards the integrity of the DNA in the egg and sperm cells that pass hereditary information to the next generation. It may help determine what genes are accessible to each type of cell, a crucial choice for multicellular animals that require a liver cell to read off one set of genes and a brain cell to be governed by a different set. And it coordinates suites of genes that may be under different control systems but need to act together in response to sudden stresses.
The new regulatory role of RNA began to emerge in the last 10 years as researchers discovered a class of short RNA molecules known as silencing RNA's and a second class called micro-RNA's. The two classes have turned out to share many common features. Both are generated from short genes, or pieces of DNA, in the genome. And both, researchers found, follow a different career path from messenger RNA.
With protein-coding genes, a copy of the gene's DNA is transcribed into RNA, and this messenger RNA, after processing, arrives at the cell's protein-making units where its information is used to manufacture a specific kind of protein molecule.
In the case of regulatory RNA, the RNA transcript of a gene is processed by a baroquely named troika of enzymes known as Dicer, Slicer and Argonaute, the end result being a slew of short fragments of RNA some 20 or so units in length.
Despite their brevity, these snippets of RNA are long enough to match specific sequences of RNA units within the cell's many different kinds of messenger RNA's.
When the snippets find a match to messenger RNA, the micro-RNA's curb the activity of the messenger RNA's and the silencing RNA's destroy their messenger RNA targets. This means that much less or none of a protein gets produced in the cell.
Having worked out how regulatory RNA's are generated, researchers are moving on to the next set of problems, which were the focus of last week's conference. One task is to catalog how many regulatory RNA genes exist in the cells of various species. Humans have more than 400 micro-RNA genes, the roundworm has 111 and the Arabidopsis mustard plant 133, David Bartel of M.I.T. said at the meeting.
Though 400 micro-RNA genes may seem small in relation to the 25,000 protein-coding genes in a human cell, each micro-RNA can interfere with many kinds of messenger RNA. This imposes an evolutionary constraint on all the cell's messenger RNA's, because the genes that do not need their proteins to be controlled by micro-RNA must avoid evolving the sequences that are recognized by them.
Dr. Bartel said he and colleagues estimated that more than one-third of human genes are under evolutionary pressure to maintain sequences in their messenger RNA's that can be controlled by regulatory RNA's, and many more must avoid acquiring such sequences.
Because regulatory RNA's can influence so many messenger RNA's at a time, they are likely to play important roles. Regulatory RNA, particularly silencing RNA, is active in eggs and sperm, presumably because it is needed to guard the heirloom DNA from viruses and other elements that might subvert it.
Regulatory RNA's are also involved in setting the chromatin state of a cell. Chromatin, the set of special protein spools around which each DNA molecule is wound, can be in an open state, meaning its genes can be read off by the cell, or in a closed state, in which its genes are silenced.
Robert Martienssen, of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, recently found that in the closed chromatin, contrary to all expectation, some genes were actively making RNA transcripts. These turned out to be silencing RNA genes. "That suggests that in order to silence DNA it has to be transcribed first," he said.
Dr. Martienssen and others reported evidence that the RNA transcripts from the silencing genes seem to stay in place on the DNA and recruit enzymes that are known to set switches on the chromatin, turning it into the closed form. Thus, the location of the RNA genes in the strands of DNA seems to help determine what regions will be marked for silencing.
So many questions about regulatory RNA's have arisen that Gary Ruvkun of M.I.T., who discovered one of the first RNA genes, announced a list of 23 problems, reflecting the list of 23 outstanding mathematical problems posed by David Hilbert in 1900.
Dr. Ruvkun described the puzzles raised by regulatory RNA to the symposium but stopped at No. 18 — whether to leave time for the rest of his talk or, as he explained, "Out of modesty."
One scientist at the conference, James D. Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, said, "This is a revolution."
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_21_jun_06/vol21_ref17.html
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