With the support of two new funding sources — including a gift from a Brown trustee and a grant from the National Institutes of Health — Brown is expanding RNA research on campus in a continued effort to become a global leader in the field.
The first of these funds comes from a recent gift from Brown trustee Giammaria Giuliani P’28 and Sabrina Giuliani P’28. Faculty and researchers say the gift will fund innovative research projects and faculty recruitment efforts at Brown’s RNA research center, which will be renamed the Giuliani RNA Center in recognition of the donation.
“It’s rare to find one scientific field that touches so many aspects of human well-being,” Giammaria Giuliani said in a Brown press release. “That is why Sabrina and I felt this is the right moment to step in and support this work.”
A separate five-year, $11.1 million Center of Biomedical Research Excellence grant from the NIH will support five early-career researchers and fund advanced RNA technology and equipment.
“One of the main functions of the COBRE is to create an environment where we help early-career faculty members build their research programs and transition to fully independent scientific research careers,” said William Fairbrother, a professor of biology who will be the principal investigator of the COBRE grant, in a Brown press release.
Research funded by the grant will focus on the role of RNA in health and disease. The grant will also allow scientists and physician-scientists at Brown’s hospital affiliates to conduct RNA research.
“The long-term goal of the COBRE is to build an RNA biology infrastructure for the greater Brown and hospital environments that will benefit the study of human disease across all of Rhode Island,” wrote Mukesh Jain, the senior vice president for health affairs and dean of medicine and biological sciences, in an email to The Herald.
RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is a molecule found in all living cells. RNA primarily functions by using the genetic material encoded in DNA as a template to create proteins, although it also plays many other cellular roles. But modifications to RNA can cause mutations implicated in various illnesses, as RNA possesses a mutation rate that is much higher than DNA’s.
“When the human genome was sequenced in the early 2000s, everyone thought we’d immediately start to see huge advances in our understanding of and ability to treat gene-related diseases,” Jain wrote. “But it turns out that we really needed to understand RNA before we could do that.”
While RNA’s mechanisms of action are still largely unknown, its relatively short cellular lifespan makes it a valuable tool to produce therapeutics, said Juan Alfonzo, the executive director of the Giuliani RNA Center.
Unlike DNA-based therapies, which often involve making permanent changes to an individual’s genetic code, RNA therapeutics can induce more controlled effects, according to Alfonzo. In DNA, “if your technology makes a mistake, you could place a mutation that is even worse,” he said. “That doesn’t happen with RNA because it’s just transient in the cell.”
RNA research is behind many health-related advancements. For example, the discovery of RNA interference in 1998 has led to important developments in therapeutics for liver conditions, as well as new treatments in development for conditions of the brain and central nervous system like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, according to University of Massachusetts Medical School Professor of Molecular Medicine Craig Mello ’82 P’15 P’22.
For discovering RNA interference, Mello was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006 alongside Stanford University School of Medicine Professor of Molecular and Genetic Medicine Andrew Fire.
“It’s really exciting right now in RNA biology because it seems like everyday we’re learning more about the incredible intricacies and complexities in which RNA is playing a major role in controlling (genetic) information and human health,” Mello said.
In RNA interference, double-stranded RNA is made to bind to a strand of corresponding messenger RNA, which prevents the messenger RNA from producing proteins. “If you’ve got a gene that’s driving a disease, it’s now possible to turn that gene off and have a therapy for these patients,” Mello explained.
Beyond its role in medicine, RNA research can potentially improve food security by increasing crop yields, prevent “RNA-based bioterrorism threats” and enhance data storage, according to Jain.
Jain celebrated the interdisciplinary nature of the Giuliani RNA Center. “Doing this requires a coalition of biologists, physicians, computer scientists and biomedical engineers, so it exemplifies what Brown does best: collaborate across disciplines on shared problems,” he wrote.
Alfonzo added that the excitement for his work stems from Brown’s emphasis on fostering collaboration among research teams.
With a growing center and new researchers, “it’s just nonstop science fun,” he said. “We’re talking science from the moment we get here until the minute we go home.”
Before the center was established, Alfonzo was working on the Human RNome Project, a global effort aiming to map all human RNA sequences and modifications.
The project — which was started in 2020 by Vivian Cheung, now a professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry at Brown — came from “complete pandemic boredom,” Alfonzo said.
Four years later, a committee within the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine released a report providing a roadmap for sequencing all modifications and unlocking RNA’s potential to advance scientific discoveries.
Alfonzo expressed his excitement for continued innovation in the field with the Giulianis’ gift, which he said will give the RNA Center the ability to explore innovative ideas without the traditional constraints that might come with a federal research grant.
“When you get a gift like that to support the center’s academic mission, you quickly realize that as long as you hire a bunch of smart people who can play together, magic is going to happen,” he said.
Jonathan Kim is a senior staff writer covering Science and Research. He is a second-year student from Culver City, California planning to study Public Health or Health and Human Biology. In his free time, you can find him going for a run, working on the NYT crossword or following the Dodgers.
