RNA Discoveries Leading to Cutting-Edge Cures
- lindsayvicars
- 4 days ago
- 1 min read
From the University of Rochester Medical Center Newsroom:
RNA, long overlooked in the research world, is having its moment.
The pandemic provided the rocket fuel, because mRNA vaccines essentially saved our way of life. Talk of RNA-based treatments and trials is suddenly commonplace.
Both the 2023 and 2024 Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine were awarded for research in RNA (ribonucleic acid). The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a $2 billion federal entity funding transformative ideas for health breakthroughs, focused its first multi-million-dollar grant on the development of mRNA technologies that strengthen the immune system to better fight cancer and other diseases. In 2022, more than $1 billion in private equity funds was invested in biotechnology start-ups to explore frontiers in RNA research. There are now more than 400 RNA-based drugs in development.
Less known is what happened before we were lining up to get shots in our arms to regain a semblance of normal life. The story of RNA research and its blossoming future began many decades earlier. The main characters were diligent, unsung scientists who believed in the importance of the work long before others did.
And key chapters are still being written by University of Rochester researchers who—decades prior—discovered properties of RNA that ended up being vital to the development of COVID-19 vaccines and that even launched an entire field of study on how mRNA activity contributes to disease. (click here to keep reading)
Author: Emily Boynton
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