In 1977, Richard Roberts and Philip Sharp independently discovered RNA splicing, showing that genes are not continuous stretches of DNA but contain introns, non-coding segments that get cut out when RNA is made. This overturned the assumption that genes were simple uninterrupted sequences and revealed that only a small fraction of DNA directly codes for proteins. The discovery earned them the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1993.
135 words · auto-generated from the episode video
1:02:02and Uranus come from these missions. And this was also, you know, one of the first missions to categorize things like Jupiter's moons, um, Saturn's moons. It was, it was a huge, huge deal. Revolutionized planetary science. >> 1977 discovery of RNA splicing. >> Yes. Um, this was Richard Roberts and Philip Sharp. They independently discovered that genes aren't continuous pieces of DNA. There are things called introns. You know all the stuff that we talked about like junk DNA only a small fraction of our DNA actually makes proteins.
1:02:42>> This was that. Okay. It showed that like you know a gene can actually be a giant thing with a bunch of spots that get spliced out when the RNA is made. Okay. This is the discovery of introns. 1993 Nobel Prize in medicine.