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"We have gained control over many kinds of cancer, but control in bulk of cancers is still an issue. It is a hard problem," Baltimore said in Bangalore while delivering a lecture in the city.

Despite the enormous funding in the field of cancer research, a lot had yet to be achieved in this field, he said.

There was progress in some fields like prostrate and breast cancer, but there were still many kinds of cancers where similar progress had not been witnessed, said Baltimore, the American biologist and co-recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize.

Earlier, delivering a lecture on the topic `Micro RNAs in Inflammation and Cancer', he traced the RNA world as one which was hypothesised to have been the form in which life first evolved, but has now gone.

"There are remnants, clues that it existed," he said while talking about RNA viruses (where RNA is a genetic material), RNA enzymes (where RNA acts like proteins), Messenger RNAs (from where genetic code is translated), Micro RNAs (where RNA regulates protein amounts) and Scaffold RNAs (where RNAs orchestrates gene regulation).

Micro RNAs are small non coding RNAs involved in a "sequencing specific post transcription gene silencing", he said. Computer assisted estimates predicts nearly 1000 MiRNAs in the human genome.

MiRNAs have multiple targets and can regulate 30 per cent of the protein coding genome, said Baltimore, who shared the Nobel Prize with Renato Dulbecco and Howard Martin Temin "for their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour viruses and genetic material of the cell".

MiRNAs function in a variety of biological process, including tissue differentiation and organ development, control of cell proliferation, fat metabolism among others.

During the lecture, he presented highlights of research being conducted in the field and experiments like the effects of uncontrolled expression of `MIR 155' and `MIR 146' in rats.

Outlining the various studies conducted in Micro RNAs in inflammation and cancer, he said it appeared that "Micro RNAs are apparently regulators of genes involved in choice points during hematopoiesis and this may be a clue to their role in cancer".

The Nobel laureate, after seeing a packed crowd at the auditorium this evening said "This is the largest ever crowd I have ever had for my paper".

The range of questions on Micro RNAs that were shot at him from young students had the noble laureate bowled over.

"The members in this audience appear to know more about Micro RNAs than I do," he quipped, sending the audience into peals of laughter.