Two separate laboratory breakthroughs have produced RNA molecules that can build copies of themselves or assemble functional structures without any help from proteins or DNA. These results offer the ...

Although there are striking differences between the cells that make up your eyes, kidneys, brain and toes, the DNA blueprint for these cells is essentially the same. Where do those differences come ...

UC Vice President for Research Patrick Limbach is a key figure in the National Academies’ massive undertaking to sequence RNA in the next 15 years. A chemist who leads the University of Cincinnati’s ...

Now, a pair of Scripps Research Institute scientists has taken a significant step toward answering that question. The scientists have synthesized for the first time RNA enzymes that can replicate ...

These random molecules were fed a collection of three-base-long RNAs, each linked to a chemical tag. The idea was that if a molecule is capable of ligating one of these short RNA fragments to itself, ...

Researchers have sequenced the oldest RNA ever recovered, taken from a woolly mammoth frozen for nearly 40,000 years. The RNA reveals which genes were active in its tissues, offering a rare glimpse ...

In 2020, Juan Alfonzo, a professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry, began a project out of “pure COVID boredom.” Now, that project may become the largest scientific undertaking ...