Preventing disease from ever occurring. Saving lives through specialized treatments.
The world saw—and experienced—the efficacy of mRNA-based vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time when millions of lives were lost, many millions more were saved once vaccines were available.
RNA may have burst into the public consciousness due to COVID, but scientists have been exploring its function for decades. A number of RNA-based therapies are in use, some for rare diseases like spinal muscular atrophy. And vaccines have already been developed for rabies and several cancers; clinical trials are still underway. There is much more to come, according to Dr. Mukesh K. Jain, senior vice president for health affairs and dean of medicine and biological sciences at Brown, as this is “just the tip of the iceberg. Literally, the tip of the iceberg.”
Jain’s vision for Brown to play a leading role in this new era of biomedical discovery has so far resulted in the creation of the Brown RNA Center. One caveat, however: scientists have not yet been able to identify, much less sequence, all of our RNA, in all of its forms. Doing so, Jain says, would require an undertaking that would be “one of the largest scientific endeavors since the Human Genome Project.”
That project spanned 13 years, cost just under $3 billion, and mapped and sequenced roughly 65,000 genes: an enormous success, but it did not yield the full genetic picture that scientists—and humanity—had hoped for.
The remainder resides at the level of RNA—a nucleic acid essential for most biological functions. But due to shortcomings in available technology, we know the function of, at most, 5% of all RNAs. The rest, says Juan Alfonzo, Mencoff Family Executive Director of the Brown RNA Center and professor of molecular biology, cell biology, and biochemistry, is “dark matter.”
Sequencing our RNA and its modifications “will likely be five times bigger” than the Human Genome Project, says Alfonzo. “But we have to try.”
