National University of Singapore (NUS) researchers have devised a method to safely and temporarily "switch off" and then "turn on" ribonucleic acid (RNA) inside cells. This is achieved using structurally optimized disulfide-containing chemical groups that attach to RNA and keep it inactive until conditions inside the cell naturally remove these groups, restoring normal RNA function. This strategy could potentially open new avenues in more precise RNA-based therapeutics and gene editing.