 After these initial observations in plants , laboratories searched for this phenomenon in other organisms . Craig C. Mello and Andrew Fire 's 1998 Nature paper reported a potent gene silencing effect after injecting double stranded RNA into C. elegans . In investigating the regulation of muscle protein production , they observed that neither mRNA nor antisense RNA injections had an effect on protein production , but double @-@ stranded RNA successfully silenced the targeted gene . As a result of this work , they coined the term RNAi . This discovery represented the first identification of the causative agent for the phenomenon . Fire and Mello were awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine . 
