The University of Michigan Center for RNA Biomedicine brings together RNA scientists whose passion and research are at the frontier of RNA discoveries.

Recent scientific discoveries on RNA — the molecule of the cell that links all life processes — are leading a medical revolution.

Cancer, Alzheimer’s, and viral infections devastate millions of people and their families since for many of these diseases there is no definitive cure or even adequate treatment.

Less than two decades ago, the Human Genome Project revealed that only less than 2% of the genome codes for proteins. We are now discovering that non-coding RNAs play central roles in many aspects of cellular physiology and human diseases. Studying these functions has the potential to revolutionize medicine and will possibly eradicate all human diseases.

Understanding RNA is highly challenging and requires studies from single bacterial cells at nanometer scales to complex interactions between the 60 trillion cells of the human body. RNA research needs scientists from biology to engineering, computational science to medicine to come together and create synergies to lay the foundations for the therapies of the future.

With over 170 faculty and their affiliated labs across seven Schools and Colleges of the University of Michigan (U-M), the Center for RNA Biomedicine is one of the leading RNA research communities in the world.

The entire university’s research expenditures were $1.86 billion in 2023, the highest amount recorded in the University’s history, and an 8.1% increase compared to the 2022 fiscal year. About half of these are in the biosciences, with activity in medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, public health, nursing, engineering, kinesiology, biology, psychology, computer science, chemistry and physics. The U-M is ranked the largest public research university in the United States.

See the latest issue of our magazine and brief report, RNA Translated 2024 — M-RNA Therapeutics: Changing Tomorrow’s World of Medicine, Today.