Fei Chen (Photo credit: Casey Atkins)

Broad and MIT sci­en­tists re­pur­pose hot RNA edit­ing tech as ‘radar’ with us­es in can­cer and brain re­search

RNA edit­ing biotechs pitch im­per­ma­nence. In­stead of mak­ing last­ing changes to the DNA, RNA ed­i­tors rewrite the in­ter­me­di­ate mes­sage be­fore it is trans­lat­ed in­to pro­teins. And many RNA edit­ing biotechs, such as Shape Ther­a­peu­tics, Wave Life Sci­ences, Ko­r­ro Bio, and ap­pro­pri­ate­ly named ADARx Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, take ad­van­tage of ma­chin­ery al­ready found in the body — ADAR edit­ing.

ADAR edit­ing con­verts the RNA code from A to I, which is in­ter­pret­ed as a G. While found in hu­mans, it’s a method used much more ac­tive­ly by oc­topi and squid to dras­ti­cal­ly change the code of their ner­vous sys­tem pro­teins.

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Alexandria Real Estate Equities

Cambridge, MA, USA