UChicago researchers receive grant from Mathers Foundation to study role of RNA processing in disease

During the first step of converting genetic information into functional proteins, cells transcribe the double-stranded helix of DNA into single strands of RNA. Many RNA molecules are first made as precursors that contain intervening regions (called introns) that must be cut out, and the flanking regions (exons) are knit back together to make the final RNA transcript, a process called splicing. Mistakes in RNA splicing are linked to a growing list of human diseases, including cancer and neurological disease, though scientists are still trying to understand the machinery responsible for this process.

Two researchers from the University of Chicago recently received a $700,000 grant from the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation to study RNA splicing machinery in healthy and diseased cells. Cassandra Hayne, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Scott Oakes, MD, Professor of Pathology and Vice Dean for Clinical Science Research, have teamed up to study how a specific cellular machine identifies its targets, how it is controlled within cells, and how it adjusts its function in response to stressful conditions.

The Mathers Foundation focuses on supporting basic science research that explores fundamental mechanisms underlying natural phenomena. This type of basic biological research builds the foundation for later translation into clinical applications by identifying what happens inside genetic and cellular processes to cause disease, and how scientists can use that knowledge to develop potential treatments. This is the first such grant awarded by the Mathers Foundation to researchers in the Biological Sciences Division (BSD) at UChicago.

“For a new investigator like me, who is still early in her career, philanthropic gifts like this give us flexibility to support the kind of fundamental research that is integral to the values of our lab,” Hayne said.

Hayne is an expert on the biochemical processes that are involved in processing RNA; Oakes focuses on how cells respond under conditions of stress, and what goes wrong with these stress responses in diseases such as diabetes or cancer. The machinery inside cells doesn’t always work the same way under stressful conditions, like too much heat or a lack of the right nutrients. By combining their expertise, Oakes and Hayne want to learn more about how changes in cellular stress responses impact RNA splicing, which appear to have implications for disease.

The UChicago Office of Foundation and Corporate Relations and Office of Research Development connected Hayne and Oakes with the Mathers Foundation. They then worked with the BSD Research Development Team, which helps facilitate multidisciplinary research proposals, to edit and then successfully submit their application for the grant. The collaboration has already formed a burgeoning community among their two labs, who traditionally may not have had the opportunity to work together across two separate departments.

“It’s built a really nice community,” Oakes said. “Our students and trainees are getting to know each other and share their expertise. It’s a fun collaboration that continues to deepen, which is really cool.”

Both researchers agree that the partnership can build toward something greater than the sum of its parts. “Scott's lab has a lot of expertise that my lab can benefit from, and we have specific talents that his lab didn’t have access to at the university,” Hayne said. “So, it is the right combination where both of us needed help with something, and now we’re able to work on it together.”