The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has partnered with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide approximately $15.4 million over three years for research into the structures, functions and interactions of ribonucleic acid (RNA), as well as the creation of RNA-based technologies. RNA sequencing and the mapping of RNA modifications have gained significant momentum in the genomics community in recent years, with a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine outlining a roadmap for the field to build technology and infrastructure to allow researchers to more completely study and catalog RNA and its modifications.
“A deeper understanding of RNA and its potential applications can advance our knowledge of living systems and can have profound impacts on human health.” said Carolyn Hutter, Ph.D., director of the Division of Genome Sciences at the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of NIH.
NIH will provide approximately $2.7 million, pending availability of funds, to support the work of two research groups while NSF has awarded over $12.7 million among nine research groups through NSF’s Molecular Foundations for Biotechnology program.
The NIH-funded projects include:
"Discoveries about RNA and its applications in the last several decades have transformed the field of science and medicine,” said Ian Nova, Ph.D., program director in NHGRI’s Division of Genome Sciences. “Our continued exploration of RNA and its associated innovations will inevitably shape the future of biomedicine.”
RNA is a molecule that is in all living cells and plays a role in nearly all biological processes, including carrying instructions for making proteins, helping build proteins and turning genes on and off. While RNA was discovered over a century ago, researchers are still uncovering new RNA-related pathways and RNA structures. Recent scientific advances have harnessed RNA to develop technologies and therapeutics such as small interfering RNA-based drugs and messenger RNA-based vaccines against cancers and infectious diseases.