MetaRNA at the 9th Young Scientist Symposium 2016

On the 26th and 27th May 2016, MetaRNA was present at 9th Young Scientist Symposium 2016 in IECB – Pessac (France). Stefano briefs us on the topics that were discussed at this meeting and tells us a little about what he presented there.

Mixing chemistry and biology, the YSS, as the name suggests, is organised for young researchers from both disciplines and from all over the world. With several oral sessions and two poster sessions, PhD students got the opportunity to present their work, discuss the presented research among themselves and with invited researchers from industry and academia.

MetaRNAers Stefano and Sara at the poster session.

All the talks presented an interdisciplinary research approach by combining both chemistry and biology.. This year, we had talks concerning:

•    Nucleic Acids
•    Supramolecular Chemistry
•    Chemistry of 5 senses
•    Pharmaceutical Chemistry
•    Genomics
•    Cancer and Physiology
•    Career, Industry, Scientific Journalism

I had the opportunity to present some of my results of my PhD project in the first session. My talk was titled Biophysical characterisation of RNA-metabolite complexes by native mass spectrometry.

Stefano giving his talk at YSS.

A few of the MetaRNA members will soon meet again in Bordeaux at the Aptamers in Bordeaux with talks from Beatrix Suess, Jean-Jacques Toulmé, Günter Mayer and posters from Adrien Boussebayle and Stefano Piccolo.

See you soon!

Sara and Stefano

 

Advertisements

Cell Penetrating Peptides: A System for Delivery

One aspect of design of RNA molecules that serve specific functions is figuring out how to get those molecules inside the cell. In this post, Adrien delves into a system used for drug delivery, known as CPP, or cell-penetrating peptides. Analogues of such technology may be used for delivering RNA molecules developed in vitro into cells.

The ability to have a drug that can be taken up to a very specific location in the body is a long-standing problem. In 1906, the concept of the “magic bullet” was imagined by Paul Ehrlich (a Nobel Laureate for his work in immunology). This concept supposes that we could have what is known as  a magic bullet bring a drug, in a specific way, toward the active site of the drug.

Paul Ehrlich is considered the father of chemotherapy.

The field of drug delivery systems has improved during the last century and there are several types of nano-carriers which are already developed. One of these systems is the Cell Penetrating Peptides (or CPP). CPP are short peptides that are designed to carry molecules (nucleic acids, fluorophore, proteins…) inside the cells by going through the membrane.