Medical Xpress September 11, 2024
It all started in the lab. Two Boston University doctoral students, Joshua McGee and Jack Kirsch, were creating and testing different types of RNA—strands of ribonucleic acid, built from chains of chemical compounds called nucleotides that help carry out genetic instructions in cells. They were determined to see whether RNA sequences crafted with small changes to their nucleotides can still work. After running dozens of experiments, they hit a dead end.
“At first, it was a failure,” McGee says.
Decades of research have uncovered the mysteries of RNA in living cells. Without it, our cells couldn’t perform fundamental tasks, like constructing other cells, carrying amino acids from one part of the cell to the other, or mounting immune responses to...
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