RNA Engineering Holds Key to Curing Cancer

The University of Montreal's Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC), in Canada, is proud to announce that it will host the country's first ribonucleic acid (RNA) engineering laboratory. The facility will play an instrumental part in learning how to influence the behavior of RNA, small pieces of genetic material that play an instrumental part inside all living cells. Gaining more control on it will eventually grant bioengineers more control over cellular programming.

The ultimate goal of the new facility is using modified RNA to create cells that can prevent, and even treat, cancer. IRIC principal investigator in bioinformatics, Francois Major, will manage the new laboratory together with colleague Gerardo Ferbeyre. He is a member of the university's Faculty of Medicine, where he is a biochemistry researcher. The team says that the facility will be located at the IRIC Marcelle-Coutu Pavilion.

“The results we have obtained so far in the laboratory are very promising in terms of personalized cancer therapeutics. We are also planning to design microRNAs capable of protecting the cell, acting similarly to antivirus software that identifies and eliminates attacks before they can cause damage to the computer. This would be a tremendous weapon against cancer, wouldn't it?” Major explains.

“It is rare for a computer scientist to direct his own experiments in a wet laboratory. Informatics generally serves as a tool or a means to obtain results in biology, and not the other way around,” adds the IRIC chief executive officer and scientific director, Dr Guy Sauvageau. “However, Francois Major's research projects and the integrated approach he proposes to accomplish them are very promising, which explains the enthusiasm of the funding agencies and our industrial partners for IRIC's new RNA Engineering Research Unit. Dr. Major is a pioneer in his field and the creation of this new team is the latest example of his exceptional innovative spirit,” he continues.

With the aid of the new laboratory, experts working on RNA-related experiments will be able to apply the data they derive from their studies directly into computer model at the same site. This will ease their effort, and will allow for results to be obtained faster. The RNA Engineering Research Unit will also integrate expertise from specialists in biochemistry, molecular biology and informatics, among other fields of research.