Guest Seminar - Engineering Advanced Synthetic mRNAs for New Vaccines, Therapies and Devices

Synthetic mRNAs, which have the ability to directly produce functional proteins inside living cells, hold the power to revolutionize the biomedical industry. The work by Karikó, Weissman, and other researchers realized the first clinical use of base-modified synthetic mRNA as vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. Nevertheless, current synthetic mRNAs are still challenged by limited translatability and stability, which constrain the development of new mRNA tools. In this talk, I will discuss our current efforts in enhancing the performance of synthetic mRNAs using base modification and tail sequence optimization. Facilitated by these newly discovered enhancement technologies, we have engineered a model anti-cancer vaccine to stimulate stronger immune response for tumor suppression. We have also developed several mRNA devices that can manipulate cell fate through controlled supramolecular assembly. In addition, I will introduce our on-going work on designing therapeutic mRNA to inhibit cancer progression. Engineering advanced synthetic mRNAs not only unveils new mRNA regulatory mechanisms that deepen our understanding of mRNA biology but also opens new avenues for building new mRNA tools to mitigate healthcare challenges.