In 1953, the lightbulb went on for Watson and Crick, who first published the famous double helix 3-D structure of DNA. Structural biology soon became a hot field. Using high intensity X-ray beams, NMR, and other hardware advances, coupled with exponential advances in software algorithims, molecular biologists can now easily solve the 3-D structure of many proteins (but not all, at least yet) with the resolution of single digit angstroms.
RNA is now entering the fray as the final frontier. After all, it is only the key link between DNA and proteins. It is much more diverse and complicated than either one. With all the splicing, refolding, and scaffolding, RNA is the true workhorse of evolution.
And if the tissue is not fixed properly, the rich information contained in RNA disappears like a puff of white smoke.
