Research
The UNSW RNA Institute is Australia’s leading RNA research institute.
Uniting researchers from the UNSW faculties of Science, Engineering and Medicine & Health, the scope of the institute’s research is ambitious and can be divided into four key challenge areas:
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Understanding sequence, structure and functional relationships of RNA.
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Delivery vehicles, targeted delivery, RNA design and stability, transport into cells, the fate of nanoparticles in vivo, crossing the blood brain barrier.
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The development of sensing technologies for commercialisation and advancement of scientific knowledge.
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RNA synthetic chemistry for sustainable manufacturing, lab-on-a-chip platform for synthesis and scale-up, scale-up of novel delivery systems, and documented production for pre-clinical studies.
Health areas
The UNSW RNA Institute will make critical contributions that advance human health, with a special emphasis on priority health areas:
- Infectious diseases – the treatments and vaccines for current and future infections (and their variants), including COVID-19
- Cancer – focus on hard-to-treat cancers in children
- Rare and genetic disorders – including neuromuscular diseases
- Neurodegenerative diseases – with emphasis on the fundamental role of non-coding RNA in diseases such as Alzheimer’s.