2018 Symposium
Advancing Basic RNA Biosciences into Medicine
Friday, March 30, 2018 8:30am – 4:00pm
University of Michigan, Biomedical Research Science Building, 109 Zina Pitcher
The Center for RNA Biomedicine Symposium brings together national leaders of the scientific, medical and engineering communities working on recent advances of our understanding of RNA. It will provide a means of exchanging new ideas across disciplines, spurring new collaborations across nationwide while supporting a rapidly growing RNA community at the University of Michigan.
Our educational objective: to provide the latest information on how RNA molecules impact cellular function in health and disease. After this symposium, participants will be able to apply advanced knowledge of genetic testing and therapies to patient care for diseases involving RNA dysregulation.
We expect that 200-300 participants from across the country, including funding decision makers and potential donors interested in investing in our RNA center at Michigan, will engage with each other and the scientific community on campus on a range of topics involving RNA. This symposium is open to University of Michigan clinicians and research scientists, as well as other primary care practitioners and public health scholars interested in the most recent discoveries regarding the role of RNA in health and disease.
| 8:00am | - | 8:30am | Coffee | On-Site Registration |
| 8:30am | - | 8:40am | Welcome & Introductions: | Martin Philbert, PhD, Dean, School of Public Health, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Professor of Toxicology |
| 8:40am | - | 9:25am | Keynote 1:  | Melissa Moore, PhD Moderna Therapeutics "RNA as Medicine" |
| 9:25am | - | 9:35am | Data Blitz 1: | Yan Zhang, PhD Assistant Professor, Biological Chemistry “Programmable RNA Recognition and Cleavage by N. meningitidis CRISPR-Cas9” |
| 9:35am | - | 10:20am | Keynote 2: | Eric Fearon, MD, PhD University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center "Genetic Models of Colorectal Tumorigenesis" |
| 10:20am | - | 10:30am | Data Blitz 2 2018 RNA Pilot Grant Awardees: | Mats Ljungman, PhD Associate Professor, Radiation Oncology and Environmental Health Sciences and Maria Castro, PhD R. C. Schneider Collegiate Professor of Neurosurgery, Professor, Cell and Developmental Biology “Identification of Novel Glioblastoma-associated lncRNAs” |
| 10:30am | - | 10:45am | Coffee Break | |
| 10:45am | - | 10:55am | Data Blitz 3: | Marissa Cloutier, MPH Graduate Student, Kalantry Lab “ Differential Roles of Xist RNA vs. Xist DNA in X-chromosome Inactivation” |
| 10:55am | - | 11:40am | Keynote 3:  | Jonathan Weissman, PhD University of California, San Francisco "Monitoring Translation in Space and Time with Ribosome Profiling" |
| 11:40am | - | 11:50am | Data Blitz 4: | Adrien Chauvier, PhD Postdoctoral Fellow, Walter Lab “Co-transcriptional Folding of a Riboswitch Controls the Fate of the Transcriptional Machinery” |
| 11:50am | - | 12:00pm | Data Blitz 5 2018 RNA Pilot Grant Awardees: | Sami Barmada, MD, PhD Angela Dobson Welch and Lyndon Welch Research Professor, Assistant Professor, Neurology and Claudia Figueroa-Romero, PhD Research Investigator, Program for Neurology Research & Discovery, Biological Chemistry “Abnormal RNA Stability Impacts Ribosomal and Mitochondrial Function in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis” |
| 12:00pm | - | 1:00pm | Box Lunch | with Speakers, Faculty and Students (or on your own Click here for nearby lunch options) |
| 1:00pm | - | 1:10pm | Welcome Back & Introduction : | Bishr Omary, MD, PhD Chief Scientific Officer of Michigan Medicine, Professor, Molecular & Integrative Physiology, H Marvin Pollard Professor of Gastroenterology Professor, Internal Medicine |
| 1:10pm | - | 1:55pm | Keynote 4:  | Roy Parker, PhD University of Colorado "RNP Granules in Health and Disease" |
| 1:55pm | - | 2:05pm | Data Blitz 6 2018 RNA Pilot Grant Awardees: | Akira Ono, PhD Assosiate Professor, Microbiology and Immunology, Medical School and Sarah Veatch, PhD Associate Professor of Biophysics and Physics "Identifying Sites of HIV-1 RNA Translation" |
| 2:05pm | - | 2:40pm | Keynote 5:  | Anastasia Khvorova, PhD University of Massachusetts Medical School "Expanding the Chemical Diversity of Therapeutic Oligonucleotides" |
| 2:55pm | - | 3:55pm | Coffee & Panel Discussion: | "Advancing RNA Biosciences into Medicine" Panel: Anastasia Khvorova, Eric Fearon, Jonathan Weissman, Melissa Moore, Roy Parker, Jeanne Wright, MICHR Moderated by: Bradley Martin, PhD, Fast Forward Medical Innovation |
| 3:55pm | - | 4:00pm | Closing |
