SBME Research Seminar: The RNA folding problem remains open – Dr. Rhiju Das
The discovery and design of biologically important RNA molecules has lagged behind proteins, in part due to the general difficulty of three-dimensional RNA structural characterization. What are the prospects for an ‘AlphaFold moment’ for RNA? I’ll describe some recent progress in modeling RNA structure from old-fashioned and new machine learning, cryoelectron microscopy, and current and upcoming internet-scale competitions hosted on the Eterna, Kaggle, and CASP platforms.
SBME Research Seminar: The RNA folding problem remains open – Dr. Rhiju Das
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Research Seminar: Balancing performance and degradation of RNA nanoparticles through targeted changes in ionizable lipid molecular structure – Dr. Omar F. Khan
September 28, 2023 @ 11:00 am - 12:00 pm PDT
Balancing performance and degradation of RNA nanoparticles through targeted changes in ionizable lipid molecular structure
Dr. Omar F. Khan | Institute of Biomedical Engineering; University of Toronto
Talk Description:
Ionizable lipid are combined with excipients and nucleic acids to form lipid nanoparticles. The molecular design of these ionizable lipids have an incredible impact on the performance of the resulting lipid nanoparticles. In this talk, I will discuss how my lab incorporates supramolecular, biomaterial and immunological concepts into our design process to create chemically diverse and efficacious ionizable lipids. Using both rational design and structure-function studies, I’ll review how my group has successfully used internal molecular motifs, noncovalent binding and heteroatomic positioning to control payload capacity, mRNA expression, safety, pharmacokinetics and stability. As an accessible (and enjoyable) introduction to chemistry, biomaterial and immunology concepts, this talk will also illustrate how seemingly disparately fields can be effectively integrated through engineering.
Location:
Life Sciences Institute
Lecture Theatre 1003 (LSC 1003)