BIOMG 4380

RNA in Biology and Medicine

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2024-2025.

It is hypothesized that RNA may have been the earliest life form on earth. Nowadays RNA plays three vital roles in biology. It serves as an information carrier to guide biological processes; it adopts sophisticated 3D structures to promote recognition and catalysis; and it promotes cellular compartmentalization. Each of these properties has been exploited for therapeutics and medicine. This course explores the idea of a prehistorical "RNA World", dives deep into interesting topics in the RNA biology, and explains their connection to modern medicine. Representative topics include the mechanisms of CRISPR-Cas and RNA interference and their wide-spread applications in research and medicine, ribosome as an antibiotic target, perturbing splicing to cure genetic diseases, connection between telomerase and cancer/aging, etc. Classical experiments as well as up-to-date research are covered in this class. A portion of each class is devoted to student presentations and discussion. After completing this class, students should:

When Offered Fall.

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: BIOMG 3300, or BIOMG 3350 or BIOMG 3310/BIOMG 3320 or permission of instructor.

Distribution Category (BIO-AS) (OPHLS-AG)

• Understand the chemical structure of RNA.
• Understand the structure motifs in RNA.
• Have a good understanding of the experimental and computational methods in RNA biology research.
• Understand the catalytic strategies in ribozymes.
• Understand the ligand recognition mechanism in riboswitches.
• Understand the role of RNA in important RNA-protein complexes.
• Understand the important topics in translation.
• Understand the RNA splicing/processing/editing process.
• Understand the mechanism of RNA interference in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes.

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