1961 Discovery of messenger RNA ‘tape copy’. Messenger RNA plays a key role in protein synthesis. Messenger RNA, also known as mRNA, are RNA molecules that carry genetic information from the DNA in the cell nucleus to the protein-making machinery in the cell cytoplasm. For some time after the discovery of DNA’s genetic role and the deciphering of its double-stranded structure (by Crick and Watson), researchers remained perplexed about how exactly the genetic information was conveyed from the genes to the cytoplasm to produce the proteins required for cellular functions. The French biologists Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their part in this research in 1965.