RNAV8 Bio Joins ARPA-H Team to Pioneer Programmable RNA Medicines
The PROPEL program aims to control gene expression through RNA structure, building logic-gated RNA therapies that switch on only where and when intended, without altering the genome. The post RNAV8 Bio Joins ARPA-H Team to Pioneer Programmable RNA Medicines appeared first on GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News .
RNAV8 Bio, an AI-driven bio firm specializing in mRNA medicines, has been awarded a $4.4 million ARPA-H pilot grant to develop programmable RNA medicines. The project, PROPEL, led by the Rouskin Lab at Harvard Medical School and the Weissman Lab at MIT/Whitehead Institute, aims to leverage RNA's natural folding behavior for precise, drug-tunable control in RNA medicines.
RNAV8 Bio's Devan Shah explained that the team will learn the rules connecting RNA sequence to function, building them into logic-gated constructs that express where and when needed. The project focuses on therapeutic format, screening protein output from mRNA pools, engineering UTRs, and validating results at the cargo level. Unlike most medicines and genetic therapies, PROPEL pursues a unique control mechanism: small molecules binding to RNA's untranslated regions (UTRs) rearrange the structure, altering protein expression without changing the genome.
This approach, inspired by bacterial riboswitches, has been largely unexplored in human cells. RNAV8 Bio's Silvi Rouskin noted that the team will systematically map RNA folding and small molecule interactions to develop a generalizable, disease-agnostic foundation for RNA medicine.
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