What happens when cutting-edge RNA science meets Hollywood? Apparently, you get Spider-Man discussing siRNA with Bruce Banner.
In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter Parker and Bruce Banner venture surprisingly deep into molecular biology, discussing “target-specific short interfering RNA” and the idea of suppressing gene expression by targeting messenger RNA.
In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter Parker and Bruce Banner venture surprisingly deep into molecular biology, discussing “target-specific short interfering RNA” and the idea of suppressing gene expression by targeting messenger RNA.
Of course, this is the Marvel universe, not a molecular biology lecture. But the underlying principle comes remarkably close to the real biology of RNA interference (RNAi).
Small interfering RNAs, or siRNAs, are designed to recognize specific messenger RNA (mRNA) and trigger its degradation, thereby preventing the corresponding protein from being produced – effectively silencing the targeted gene.
Scientifically, the scene combines a real biological mechanism with a healthy dose of superhero fiction. The central idea is sound: siRNA can reduce gene expression by targeting a specific mRNA and promoting its degradation, thereby lowering production of the corresponding protein.
Where the movie takes greater liberties is in how this process relates to DNA. RNA interference acts at the RNA level after genetic information has been transcribed. It can reduce the expression of a gene, but it does not rewrite the underlying DNA sequence. In other words, gene silencing and genome editing are two fundamentally different things.
The fact that the movie uses concepts such as siRNA and mRNA at all has also caught the attention of scientists working in the field. RNAi researcher Muthiah "Mano" Manoharan of Alnylam, for example, highlighted the scene on LinkedIn.
It is not the first time that modern nucleic acid technologies have entered the Marvel universe. Back in 2016, Netflix's Luke Cage incorporated CRISPR into the fictional experiment behind its hero's extraordinary resilience.
What makes the appearance of siRNA particularly interesting, however, is how far the technology itself has come.
RNA interference was discovered in the late 1990s. What began as a fascinating biological mechanism has since developed into an established therapeutic modality. In 2018, the first siRNA therapeutic was approved, and advances in oligonucleotide chemistry and delivery technologies such as GalNAc conjugation have continued to expand the possibilities of RNAi therapeutics.
Perhaps that is the most remarkable part of the Spider-Man scene: terms such as siRNA, mRNA and gene silencing, once largely confined to laboratories and scientific conferences, have become recognizable enough to find their way into mainstream entertainment.
For us at BioSpring, that is particularly exciting to see. Oligonucleotides are at the heart of what we do – from development and analytics to the manufacture of therapeutic oligonucleotides. Technologies such as RNAi demonstrate what can become possible when decades of research in nucleic acid science are translated into medicines.
So when siRNA makes its way into a conversation between Peter Parker and Bruce Banner, it is a small but telling sign of just how far the field has come.
After all, the science behind tomorrow's medicines has officially made it to Hollywood.