misciwriterseditors blog, RNA2021

Dr. Christopher Lima: Control of RNA degradation in the exosome

This piece was written LIVE during the 5th annual RNA Symposium: Processing RNA. Follow us on Twitter or the tag #umichrna!

Live blogger: Logan Walker

Editor: Alyse Krausz

Over the last two days, we have heard talks all about how RNA is a key building block in myriad biochemical processes, both natural and artificial. But, with all of this RNA floating around, we are left with a simple question: what happens to the RNA molecules once our cells are “done” with them? The answer turns out to be a constellation of proteins that work together to detect incorrect sequences, turnover old RNA molecules, perform post-translational modifications, and remove invasive sequences, such as viral RNA molecules. In the case of RNA turnover, much of this processing is performed by the RNA exosome complex, making it an important target of study for diseases where it is dysregulated, such as multiple myeloma, pulmonary fibrosis, and many subtypes of cancer.

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misciwriterseditors blog, RNA2021

Dr. Feng Zhang: Harnessing Biological Diversity for COVID-19 Diagnostics

Coming to you LIVE from the 5th annual RNA Symposium: Processing RNA. Follow us on Twitter or the tag #umichrna!

Live blogger: Alyse Krausz

Editor: Logan Walker

CRISPR-Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is well-known as “molecular scissors” that enables scientists to edit DNA. But there’s more to CRISPR technology than just cutting and pasting DNA! In bacteria, the many CRISPR-Cas systems provide a defense system against viral infections, and viruses use DNA or RNA as their genetic material. Nature has evolved some CRISPR-Cas systems that target DNA, such as CRISPR-Cas9, and others that target RNA, such as CRISPR-Cas13. Dr. Feng Zhang, a Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and of Biological Engineering at MIT, and his lab have discovered and developed the CRISPR-Cas13a system for use as a diagnostic tool. Their lab has harnessed CRISPR-Cas13a as a biotechnology to create a molecular detection platform called SHERLOCK (Specific High-sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter unLOCKing) capable of detecting RNA or DNA with high sensitivity and specificity.   

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misciwriterseditors blog, RNA2021

Dr. Kevin Weeks: a MaP of RNA structural landscapes

Coming to you LIVE from the 5th annual RNA Symposium: Processing RNA. Follow us on Twitter or the tag #umichrna!

Live blogger: Zoe Yeoh

Editor: Alyse Krausz

Recently, RNA has risen to the forefront of nucleic acid research due to its newly characterized, integral roles in cellular regulation. Many of the secrets in RNA regulation lie in its ability to form complex secondary and tertiary structures that relate to its function. However, many of these structure-function relationships are poorly characterized due to a lack of rigorous tools used to study them. Dr. Kevin Weeks and his group at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill have developed “novel chemical microscopes that reveal quantitative structure and function interrelationships for RNA” to study these complex RNA structures and answer important biological questions.

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misciwriterseditors blog

Undoing the Damage of ‘America-First’ on Scientific Progress

Written by: Elana Goldenkoff

Editors: Jacob Flaherty, Genesis Rodriguez, and Emily Glass

The coronavirus pandemic is the most immediate crisis that President Joe Biden is facing and, because of the global impact of the virus, it is not a fight the United States can win alone. Managing the effects of the virus requires concerted international efforts to address.  However, in recent years the U.S. has disengaged from the political affairs of other countries. Unfortunately, the increased American isolationism and ‘America First’ policy of the previous administration hindered foreign relationship-building and limited the connections and resources that the U.S. has at its disposal.

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misciwriterseditors blog, RNA2021

The Right Technology at the Right Time: The backstory of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine

This piece was written LIVE during the University of Michigan RNA Seminar featuring Dr. Melissa Moore of Moderna Therapeutics.

Live blogger: Alyse Krausz

Editor: Emily Glass

The saying goes that when something is too good to be true, it typically is. So when the FDA authorized the use of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine less than a year into the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, many people were skeptical. Is the vaccine safe? Is it effective? How was this vaccine developed so quickly when others have taken years?

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misciwriterseditors blog

What did Rev-Erbβ say to heme? ‘Never let go. Your chemistry drives my biology.’

Written by: Anindita Sarkar

Edited by: Isabel Colon-Bernal, Christina Del Greco, & Alyse Krausz

My pet dog would be scratching and pawing me at roughly the same time every day without fail. My mother believes that he had a better sense of time than me and my sister. I would always convince my mom that the credit for his sense of time should be given to his internal biological clock. This internal biological clock, better known as the circadian rhythm, tunes different physiological processes in not just my dog but also other living beings, to a 24-hour cycle. That is why we tend to feel sleepy or hungry at almost the same time every day. Needless to say, this biological time-tracking system functions as a result of an intricate interplay of several genes and proteins. In fact, I work on one important member of this family of proteins, Rev-Erbβ, which is responsible for the proper upkeep of the circadian rhythm.

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misciwriterseditors blog, Chemistry

With experiments, comes waste: Scientific waste and where it ends up

Written by: Lirong Shi and Manaswini Sarangi

Editor: Sarah Kearns and Alyse Krausz

Introduction

As a scientist working around scientists, we may not realize how much scientific waste we and our colleagues produce every day, just like everyone else who may not pay attention to how much household waste we produce in our kitchen. We are so used to the waste in the lab, and compared to the large garbage bin outside, we might think the small plastic bucket in the lab should be negligible. But that is not true. Accounting for only 0.1% of the population, scientists create approximately 5.5 million tons of plastic waste annually in life science alone, which accounts for approximately 2% of the plastic waste produced worldwide [1]. The large amount of plastic waste wandering around the oceans can disrupt carbon balance, poison fish, and end up on humans’ tables. Through experiments, scientists are attempting to improve everyone’s life while also literally contributing to the detriment of the world.

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misciwriterseditors blog, Physics

A journey towards quantum gravity: merging theories to understand our cosmos

Written by: Marina David

Editors: Lisa Pinatti, Christina Del Greco, and Sarah Kearns

Imagine you are waiting at a broken traffic light and both the green and red light are on. Should you keep waiting in hopes that it will fix itself eventually? Or should you pretend that you only see the green light and continue driving? You don’t want to cause a traffic jam, but you will be late for that 8 am meeting if you continue just sitting in the car. You would be confused about what to do, right? Quite surprisingly, this is similar to our current understanding of gravity.

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misciwriterseditors blog, Public health, Science communication

A Lesson in Science Communication from Dr. Anthony Fauci


Written by: Alyse Krausz

Editors: Sophie Hill, Lihan Xie, and Noah Steinfeld

I remember thinking, “Who is this Dr. Fauci?” as he took the stage in Ohio Stadium to give the commencement speech at my college graduation ceremony. It turned out that he was the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), but I was hoping for someone a little more exciting, or at least someone I had heard of before. Little did I know that a mere four years later, Fauci’s name would be all over the news as the most prominent scientific voice in a pandemic. The recent media coverage has confirmed what I discovered on my graduation day: Dr. Fauci is an exceptional communicator with plenty of lessons to teach.

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misciwriterseditors blog

Why We Should Be Concerned about the Long-Term Effects of COVID-19

Written by: Gabrielle Huizinga

Editors: William Dean, Rebecca Dzombak, and Noah Steinfeld

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, first emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and quickly spread to the United States beginning in January 2020. At the time of writing, there have been over 39 million cases worldwide with a fatality rate around 2.8%. While hospitals and public health officials are primarily concerned with the short-term effects of COVID-19, such as hospitalization rates, shortages of supplies, and the spread of the virus, many viruses can cause long-term illness. There have already been reports that people who have recovered from COVID-19 experience lingering myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle. This can cause the heart to not function properly and puts excess strain on the body. Patients infected in the 2003 outbreak of SARS, a virus similar to SARS-CoV-2, experience chronic illnesses, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, abnormal lung function, and decreased exercise capacity. Our ability to understand the long-term effects of a newly-emerged virus like SARS-CoV-2 are limited, but the long-term symptoms of similar, more well-understood viruses may be informative when thinking about why we need to take action now to limit the spread of the disease through increased sanitization, the wearing of face coverings, and minimizing contact with others.

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