Dicer yields its structural secrets

The first crystal structure of Dicer, an enzyme that initiates RNA interference (RNAi), was obtained by a team led by Jennifer A. Doudna, a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Doudna's research team used X-ray Crystallography to assemble a detailed three-dimensional picture of the enzyme. Dicer cleaves double-stranded RNA into smaller fragments, this precise mechanism explains how cells are able to turn off genes selectively to control critical events of development.