This week Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna receive the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for the development of a method for genome editing" and in 2006 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Andrew Fire and Craig Mello for “for their discovery of RNA interference – gene silencing by double-stranded RNA” . Both systems are being programmed by guide RNAs to their targets, but were these the two first systems with guide RNAs discovered?
Spoiler alert: No.
In a "Science & Society" essay in EMBO Reports entitled "A short history of guide RNAs The intricate path that led to the discovery of a basic biological concept" André Schneider gives his account of the discovery of the first guide RNAs.
Read the Essay in EMBO Reports