ChemBio Seminar - Samie Jaffrey

The ChemBio Seminar Series presents: Samie Jaffrey 

Weill Cornell Medicine

Host: Yi Lu

Title: RNA Synthetic Biology: Probing and controlling cellular function with genetically encoded RNA devices

Location: WEL 2.122

Refreshments served at 3:15pm

RNA synthetic biology involves designing novel RNAs that can be expressed in cells in order to either image cellular processes or to manipulate cellular function and physiology.  In this talk, we will describe new tools that enable RNA aptamers and RNA devices to be potent intracellular regulators of cellular function.  We will describe new fluorogenic aptamer technologies for imaging RNA and RNA devices in cells.  We will also describe RNAs that bind and regulate protein function, including novel RNAs that control specific cellular processes.  We describe the Tornado (‘Twister-optimized RNA for durable overexpression’) expression system that allow heterologously expressed RNAs to circularize in cells.  We will show how the Tornado system overcomes the problem of RNA instability, thus allowing RNA-based tools to accumulate to levels that are needed for them to affect cell physiology.  We will also show how RNA synthetic biology systems can be controlled by small molecules, thus allowing these systems to be regulated in a tunable manner to control the magnitude of the cellular effects and to allow reversibility. We will discuss how these RNA synthetic biology concepts enable the design of novel regulatory RNAs and their potential uses in regulating cell biology and for therapeutic development.