The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman. 1 Read the full press release. Drew Weissman, M.D., Ph.D., will be featured as a keynote speaker at the Center for RNA Biomedicine’s 8th annual RNA Symposium in March, 2024 at the University of…
A University of Michigan researcher has been appointed a 2023-24 White House Fellow. Monica Dus, associate professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology in LSA, was chosen through a highly competitive selection process for her efforts in communicating science to the public. Dus was placed with the Department of the Navy. “I am so honored…
The discovery of insulin has saved the lives of millions of people with diabetes worldwide, but little is known about the first step of insulin synthesis. Researchers at the University of Michigan have uncovered part of this mystery. Examining messenger RNAs involved in the production of insulin in fruit flies, they found that a chemical…
We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Michelle Hastings has joined us as a faculty member in the Department of Pharmacology, and Director of the M-RNA Therapeutics Initiative at The Center for RNA Biomedicine. Dr. Hastings will lead one of the largest teams of RNA scientists in the world, as Director of M-RNA Therapeutics within…
We are thrilled to announce that Rachel Niederer as agreed to join us as a faculty member in Biological Chemistry, the Center for RNA Biomedicine, and the LSI. About Dr. Rachel Niederer: Dr. Niederer completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland, College Park in Biochemistry and Cell Biology/Molecular Genetics where she worked with Dr….
We are thrilled to announce that Jay Brito Querido as agreed to join us as a faculty member in Biological Chemistry, the Center for RNA Biomedicine, and the LSI. About Dr. Brito Querido: A native of Cape Verde, Dr. Querido received undergraduate and M.S. degrees at the University of Lisbon. For his Ph.D., Dr. Querido worked…
By Justin P. Hicks | jhicks3@mlive.com Vaccines to protect against severe illness and death from COVID-19 started as the key to a return to normal, but they could wind up unlocking much more for the future of health care. The mRNA vaccine technology used by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna for their respective coronavirus vaccines has been heavily…
Renowned U-M researcher is recognized by Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for pioneering prostate cancer discovery ANN ARBOR, Michigan — Arul M. Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D., S.P. Hicks Professor of Pathology and Urology at Michigan Medicine, was awarded the 2022 Sjöberg Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which also awards Nobel Prizes. Chinnaiyan is…
A University of Michigan team of biochemists, led by Kristin Koutmou, Ph.D., and Markos Koutmos, Ph.D., Assistant Professors in the Department of Chemistry and Department of Biophysics, is reframing the understanding of the biology of a class of enzymes called Pseudouridine Synthases (Pus enzymes). These enzymes modify many types of RNAs, and the Koutmou and…
The scientific journey of Bambarendage (Pini) Perera, Ph.D., Research Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health Diet, exercise, or environmental exposures have an impact on how our genes are activated or silenced. These factors do not permanently affect our DNA, but they can interfere with our gene expression by acting upon RNA…
While most efforts involving CRISPR are focused on genome editing, the CRISPR machinery could also be used as a molecular weapon to slice up chromosomes of cancer cells. Research has shown that chromosomes may undergo a “catastrophic” event early in the process of carcinogenesis causing multiple breakages. While many cells die in such events, some…
Congratulations to Dr. Rajesh Rao for receiving a Career Advancement Award from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB). The Career Advancement Award assists outstanding early-career vision scientists in pursuit of ongoing research of unusual significance and promise. This one-time award is available to candidates who have already received their first NIH R01 and are collecting new…
Sami Barmada, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Neurology and member of the Center for RNA Biomedicine, with Nathaniel Safren, Ph.D., from Northwestern University, and other UM colleagues, was awarded “Editor’s pick” by the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC). This recognition signals “a top-rated paper published in JBC across the field of biological chemistry, as determined by JBC’s Associate Editors, Editorial Board…
Exploring the mechanisms involved in sleep-dependent memory storage, a team of University of Michigan (U-M) cellular biologists found that RNAs associated with an understudied cell compartment in hippocampal neurons vary greatly between sleeping and sleep-deprived mice after learning. Sara Aton, Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, and James Delorme, a…
Congratulations to Amanda Garner, Ph.D., for receiving the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry 2022 David W. Robertson Award for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry! The David W. Robertson Award for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry, awarded in even-numbered years, is intended to recognize seminal contributions by young scientists to medicinal chemistry. The nominee must have had a primary role…
Congratulations to Chase Weidmann, Ph.D., for receiving a K22 grant from NCI for “Unraveling the MALAT1 lncRNA-protein interaction networks that drive lung cancer metastasis” This project’s goal is to integrate cutting-edge sequencing and quantitative proteomics technologies with cell-based functional approaches to understand how RNA-protein interaction networks of MALAT1 promote metastatic activity in human lung cancers. Chase…
By Morgan Sherburne, Michigan News Bacteria need to constantly adapt to compete against other species for nutrient sources and to survive against threats such as antibiotics and toxins. In an effort to understand how bacteria control and regulate this adaptation, University of Michigan researchers from the Center for RNA Biomedicine are examining how RNA polymerase—the…
An initiative to make the University of Michigan a world leader in RNA therapeutics, spearheaded by the Center for RNA Biomedicine and the Biointerfaces Institute Fueled by the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine success and the recent Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and elucidation of the bacterial CRISPR systems that can be harnessed for…
Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) constitute the new frontier of investigation for molecular biologists. However, lncRNA is inconsistently defined, which fails the research community in several ways. In a scientific review [2], Professor Andrzej Wierzbicki from the University of Michigan, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and collaborators challenge the contemporary ways of understanding lncRNAs…
Introducing Chase Weidmann, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and RNA Scholar Faculty of the Center for RNA Biomedicine.