The slopes of enlightenment

摘要

Gartner, an American consultancy, has a simple yet elegant way of describing the life of a promising new technology. First, it is talked up to a peak of inflated expectations. Then it falls into a trough of disillusionment. After that, if it survives, it begins climbing the slope of enlightenment. Finally, it reaches the plateau ofproductivity. In the world of biotechnology crispr/ Cas9, the subject of the previous article, is still ascending towards peak expectations. True to the Gartner hype-cycle, though, an earlier star, RNA interference, or RNAJ, is well and truly in the trough. The chart alongside, of Google searches for the two technologies, shows this, the question is, can RNAi climb the slope of enlightenment to become a productive and useful technology? And the answer looks increasingly likely to be "yes".