To celebrate the 2006 science Nobel Prizes, DISCOVER fired a string of questions at this year's honorees. They are:

Andrew Fire and Craig Mello, who won the prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of RNA interference, or RNAi, a means by which cells use the genetic molecule RNA to silence or regulate genes;

John Mather and George Smoot, who won the physics prize for using the COBE satellite to analyze the cosmic microwave background radiation, a relic of the Big Bang and the earliest observable phase of the newborn universe;

Roger Kornberg, who captured the chemistry prize for creating the first images of cells transcribing DNA into RNA. His father, Arthur Kornberg, shared the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for describing how genetic information is transferred from a mother cell to its daughters.

Courtesy of Robert Carlin

DISCOVER: What was your first brush with science?
MELLO: Mine was doing field trips and looking for fossils. One of the things that I first remember wanting to be was a "geolisty"—that was the best I could say when I was a kid. That was right after I stopped wanting to be a fireman or a truck driver. Because my dad is a paleontologist who worked with the Smithsonian, I got to see the bones up close and the exhibits behind the scenes there.

What were you doing when you heard you'd won the Nobel?
I was doing a blood-sugar check for my 6-year-old daughter, who has diabetes, so I happened to be awake. When I came back into my bedroom my wife said, "Don't answer the phone, it's a prank call," because when she picked it up before there was no answer. When I saw the phone ringing again, I knew that the Nobel was going to be announced that night or morning, so I was sort of shocked instead. I told my wife, "It might be the Nobels calling."

Who's the first person you called?
I called my parents. They were thrilled, just very excited, and they said the usual congratulatory things, but my mom was very funny about it. In a glib question-as-a-joke sort of way she asked me, "Can you win it again?" My dad was more direct; he always used to say, "There's room for improvement" when he looked at my report cards.

What are you going to do with the money?
I am going to be making a gift of some of the money to our public school system. But we can't afford to give all the money away. We want to use some of it to create some momentum in the field.

Whom do you most admire?
This is a hard question. What I really admire are people like my daughter, Victoria, who don't give up, who have daily medical challenges and medical conditions. They go on with their lives and make the best of it, not giving up even when it's not easy.

What impact has your discovery had on the world?
I think it's too early. Only in 2001 were the first applications in human cells described. This is so new that policy decisions in government haven't occurred yet—I don't think the word RNAi is in even the NIH Roadmap. It's so new, but it's such a tremendous opportunity.

One reason the Nobel community is recognizing it so early is to help publicize the discovery. We need to dramatically increase funding for this type of research, and I want the current administration to take hold of this. My dad likes to compare it to Lewis and Clark's discoveries; if you have these guys come back and say, "Hey, there's this huge continent out there," you should listen to them. This research is like the opening of a new world in medical science. People are, quite literally, dying from a lack of understanding of human disease—we are poised to understand it all. And it doesn't cost that much.

I also want to make sure it's clear that this discovery wouldn't have happened without the work of hundreds or thousands of scientists around the world—they made RNAi readily able to function with genes in organisms.

Where do you have your best ideas?
The absolute best ideas come from talking to my students and colleagues. There's nothing else like it. That's what Andy and I did during the collaboration that ultimately won the prize—Andy is just full of great ideas.

What do you do when you're not doing research?
I love to do things like sail and hike, but they don't give me the satisfaction of knowing the potential of something you've learned in the lab.

What do you want to do next?
I want to make a difference in the world because I believe that's what science is for.

Courtesy of Stanford University

DISCOVER: What was your first brush with science?
FIRE: I grew up around science, actually, in an area that wasn't quite Silicon Valley but is now. There were always a lot of people around doing technological and scientific development. My father was working in communications coding theory, developing the kind of software that makes floppy disks have very few errors.

Who's the first person you called?
Partly as a consequence of not wanting to wake people up in the wee hours of the morning, I called a couple of the institutions I thought would be interested in the news. I called the Carnegie Mellon Institute in Washington and the National Institutes of Health. I also called Stanford—I figured they might have a busy day ahead of them too.

What are you going to do with the money?
I'm probably going to set it aside for the moment—it's a very nice thing. The hope is that it can benefit people through research and also benefit [Craig Mello and me] by making sure we don't go bankrupt on a trip to Sweden.

What impact has your discovery had on the world?
It hasn't created a revolution in day-to-day life yet, but obviously we think it's really, really interesting science. The particular impact of this will be through clinical trial treatments involving RNAi. Our research is already starting to help to guide development of treatments.

Why do you do what you do?
I enjoy it. One does research as part of a bigger sense, like going to grad school or aiming for an academic career, but ultimately I wanted to help people. To sustain life in a lab, you need to enjoy day-to-day science.

Where do you have your best ideas?
My sparks come from talking to other scientists. But it's not always so clear because I could be talking to anyone, ranging from high school students to people at the most hard-boiled scientific meetings. It's very hard for me to have ideas come out of a vacuum.

What do you do when you're not doing research?
When I'm not at the lab, it's family time.

What's the last book you read?
Duck for President by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin. I read it every night for the past several weeks. It's about a duck who runs for president. I don't know if it's meant to be comedic—it's sometimes hard to tell.