Second grant to bring research to market

05/14/2019 - Getting an accurate picture of the real-time transcriptional activity of a cell: This is the goal of a new research project at the University of Würzburg which is funded by the European Research Council. If you paid attention during biology lessons, you may remember that genetic information in human cells is contained in the cell nucleus as a DNA double helix. When a gene is activated, this information needs to get out of the nucleus to allow the cell to take further action. This is where RNA comes into play: It transfers the genetic information from the DNA to the sites of protein biosynthesis in living cells. Economical use is the goal So in order to know which genes are active inside a cell at a given time, you have to determine with pinpoint accuracy which RNA molecules are being actively synthesized at any given moment. This allows conclusions to be drawn as to the corresponding genes and proteins. The required technique already exists; it is called high-throughput RNA sequencing.