Laboratory of Nucleic Acids

Alumni 50 South Dr, Bethesda, MD, 20814, US 301-496-4096 Laboratory of Nucleic Acids The Laboratory of Nucleic Acids studies RNA molecules in their many guises. Led by Dr. Adrian R. Ferr-D'Amare, the lab employs fundamental biophysical approaches to understanding the function of non-coding RNAs, and seeks to leverage this knowledge for the development of new therapeutics and biotechnological tools. Methods

Methods
New methods drive progress in the experimental sciences. In addition to the development of techniques for the synthesis and characterization of biological molecules, we have a long-standing interest in methods to enable the preparation of highly-ordered crystals of nucleic acids, proteins, and their complexes. These are key to their structure determination by X-ray crystallography. Important advances include domain elucidation by mass spectrometry, construct engineering to improve crystallizability, and pre-crystallization analysis of monodispersity. Another area of biomedical research where we have contributed new methods is in the analysis of in vitro selection experiments.

• Lau, M.W. & Ferré-D'Amaré, A.R. In vitro evolution of coenzyme-independent variants from the glmS ribozyme structural scaffold. Methods (2016). [ abstract ]

• Baird, N.J., Inglese, J., & Ferré-D'Amaré, A.R. Rapid RNA-ligand interaction analysis through high-information content conformational and stability landscapes. Nature Comm. 6, 8898 (2015). [ abstract ]

• Warner, K.D., Homan, P., Weeks, K.M., Smith, A.G., Abell, C. & Ferré-D'Amaré, A.R. Validating fragment-based drug discovery for biological RNAs: lead fragments bind and remodel the TPP riboswitch specifically. Chem. Biol. 21, 591-595 (2014). [ abstract ]

• Zhang, J., & Ferré-D'Amaré, A.R. Dramatic improvement of crystals of large RNAs by cation replacement and dehydration. Structure 22, 1363-1371 (2014). [ abstract ]

• Pitt, J.N., Rajapakse, I., & Ferré-D'Amaré, A.R. SEWAL: an open-source platform for next-generation sequence analysis and visualization. Nucleic Acids Res. 38, 7908-7915 (2010). [ abstract ]

The Science The Laboratory of RNA Biophysics and Cellular Physiology studies RNA molecules in their many guises. Led by Dr. Adrian R. Ferr-D'Amar, the lab employs fundament