Research Symposium

BIO

I am a second year biomedical engineering student. I run cross country and track for FSU. I am from Munster, Indiana and I currently live in Winter Park, Florida. My current research takes place in Dr. Silver's lab and it consists of analyzing RNA stability. Moving forward, I am interested in doing chemical, biomedical, or neurobiology research. I plan to continue doing research with riboswitch RNA and completing a directed individual study.

High-throughput Screening of RNA Stability Through Differential Scanning Fluorimetry

Abstract

The use of RNA has become prevalent in the development of new drugs. Current research has been done on using RNA molecules as drugs themselves. Additionally, RNA that contain riboswitches have shown potential as drug targets. The stability of the RNA plays a role in gene expression and is related to its specific function. The current approaches of analyzing RNA stability through techniques like ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis spectroscopy) are not efficient as they can only take a certain number of samples and require a large volume for each sample. Therefore, there is a need for a high throughput technique that analyzes RNA more efficiently. The purpose of this research is to establish an alternative technique that accurately measures RNA stability. We have established differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF) as a competent high throughput screening method for analyzing RNA stability.

Keywords: RNA stability, Differential Scanning Fluorimetry