RNA Institute News

The RNA Institute will host a virtual symposium featuring Noble Laureate, Michael Rosbash, and nine trainee presentations on Wednesday, March 3, 2021, 2:30-5pm Eastern Time. Register for the Mini Symposium  

Performed by talented undergrads, new work from the Halvorsen Lab highlights orthogonal control of DNA nanoswitches using light, ribonuclease and nucleic acids.

Dr. Alan Chen, Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University at Albany and RNA Institute Faculty member, has teamed up with researchers at Ohio State and Northwestern University to develop a new method to better understand cotranscriptional RNA folding. 

Researchers from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany have identified small molecules that could inhibit intein self-splicing from the protein PrP8 in the fungal pathogens Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii, emerging pathogens that can cause fungal meningitis in immunocompromised patients. The team published its findings in the January 4, 2021, online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The function of inteins is still largely a mystery. But where they occur, they are "most commonly found in proteins that are critical to cell survival, so splicing inhibitors kill the cell," senior author Marlene Belfort told BioWorld Science.

(January 2021) - Dr.  Subodh Mishra, a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Andrew Berglund, has been awarded a fellowship from the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation UK to support his study titled Discovery of dietary natural compounds as potential therapeutics for DM.

Dr. Maksim Royzen, associate professor of Chemistry and RNA Institute Faculty member, has partnered with Shasqi to develop a click chemistry compound designed to target a powerful cancer drug at tumor cells while sparing healthy ones. This is the first time that click chemistry has been used inside a patient’s body. The treatment has just entered Phase 1 clinical trials. Read full article in Chemical & Engineering News.

Attracted by the chance to delve deep into RNA science and enhance career prospects, young PhD-level researchers continue to pursue The RNA Institute’s Fellows Program at record levels. The 15 new fellows in the program’s sixth year tops the previous high of 12 from a year ago. It was then that the program received a five-year $1.114 million training grant from the National Institutes of Health to build on its goal of fostering future science leaders exploring RNA pathways to better health and the treatment and eradication of diseases.

Developments by the RNA Institute have enabled the pooled testing program to isolate individual samples out of the pools being tested – ensuring that only potentially contagious people are referred for diagnostic PCR testing and transferred to isolation housing. This means that no longer will any person who is not presumed positive for COVID-19 (even if they are part of a positive pool) have to be placed into isolation housing or be referred for additional diagnostic testing.