Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine
Dr Sean McKenna’s seminar will take place on Thursday April 9 at 1pm. It will be held in Joseph-Armand-Bombardier pavilion, room 1035.
Towards understanding transcript-specific regulation by short and highly structured non-coding RNAs. ”
Exploring nucleic acid molecules as cancer biomarkers and targets for drug development is a very promising alternative to historically studied proteins. A recently uncovered class of nucleic acid molecules (known as non-coding RNA) has emerged as strong candidates for regulating a variety of cancer-related cellular processes. BC200 RNA is a 200 nucleotide, primate-specific, non-coding RNA that is produced at high levels in invasive carcinomas, whereas in normal tissue or benign tumors BC200 is not detectable at significant levels. Remarkably, studies of BC200 knockdown by our group and others demonstrate tumour-cell specific suppression of cell growth. We therefore are focused on the role that BC200 plays in tumour cell proliferation/migration and investigating possible therapeutic approaches to disrupt BC200 function. Our work suggests that this nucleic acid molecule presents a cancer-specific target. We aim to characterize its predictive usefulness as a prognosis of cancer outcome and define the potential for therapeutic development. I will present recent work from my research group using molecular biology and biochemistry approaches.
See Dr Sean McKenna’s poster
Please note that the seminar will be shared live on Zoom. To take part, please click on the link below.
https://umontreal.zoom.us/j/81389605571?pwd=fyJBkewdCvnbTL3UsRFpOtXz0ev7BI.1
Meeting ID: 813 8960 5571
Secret code: 902586