In 2006 , Professor Mello and Andrew Z. Fire were awarded the Nobel Prize for work that began in 1998 , when Mello and Fire along with their colleagues ( SiQun Xu , Mary Montgomery , Stephen Kostas , and Sam Driver ) published research work in the journal `` Nature '' . The research was about tiny pieces of RNA causing the cell into destroy the genes Messenger RNA ( mRNA ) before it can produce a protein - stopping certain genes from working . In 2006 , Mello and Fire received the Nobel Prize for work that began in 1998 , when Mello and Fire along with their colleagues ( SiQun Xu , Mary Montgomery , Stephen Kostas , and Sam Driver ) published a paper in the journal Nature detailing how tiny snippets of RNA fool the cell into destroying the gene 's messenger RNA ( mRNA ) before it can produce a protein - effectively shutting specific genes down .