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11:30听尝鲍狈颁贬听begins for poster presenters

12:00 NETWORKING LUNCH / STUDENT POSTER SESSION

2:00听Opening Remarks Sharon Weiss

2:20 Research Talks VINSE Faculty & Students

3:40 Networking Break 鈥� Refreshments Served

4:10 Keynote Lecture 鈥� Modified Self-Amplifying RNAs Are the Next Frontier in RNA Therapeutics听Mark Grinstaff

5:00 Networking Reception 鈥� Poster Awards / Jacket Drawing

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Dr. Mark Grinstaff
Boston 溏心vlog免费B站

Mark W. Grinstaff is the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, and a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering, and Medicine at Boston 溏心vlog免费B站. He is also the Director of BU鈥檚 Nanotechnology Innovation Center and the Director of the NIH T32 Biomaterials Program. Mark's awards include the ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award, NSF Career Award, Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Edward M. Kennedy Award for Health Care Innovation, the Clemson Award for Applied Research, the ACS Award in Applied Polymer Science, the RSC Centenary Prize, and the National Science Foundation Trailblazer Engineering Impact Award. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Academy of Nanomedicine, the American Institute of Chemists, the Biomedical Engineering Society, the Royal Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Medicine, the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Controlled Release Society, and a Founding Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. Over the course of his tenure, Grinstaff鈥檚 groundbreaking research has yielded more than 450 peer-reviewed publications, more than 250 patents and patent applications, and more than 400 oral presentations. His work has been cited more than 57,000 times (h-index = 105). He is a co-founder of several companies, and his innovative ideas and efforts have led to new regulatory products including a pharmaceutical product (Abraxane^TM), adhesive products (OcuSeal^庐 and Adherus Surgical Sealants^庐), and biopsy markers (Trilogy鈩� Breast Tissue Markers) that are now the standard of care and helping millions of patients.

Modified self-amplifying RNAs are the next frontier in RNA therapeutics

Mark W. Grinstaff
Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, and Medicine, Boston 溏心vlog免费B站, Boston, MA听 02215

Karik贸 and Weissman discovery of the role of modified nucleotides in RNA catalyzed the advancement of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) to the forefront of modern medicine. Unfortunately, the inherent short half-life of mRNA necessitates a large dose to be effective, which increases the risk of adverse side effects, limits global accessibility, and restricts applications. More recently developed RNA technologies, such as self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) offers the potential of potent vaccines and in situ therapeutics by enabling protein expression for longer duration at lower doses. However, a major barrier to saRNA efficacy is the potent early interferon response triggered upon cellular entry, resulting in saRNA degradation and translational inhibition. Substitution of mRNA with the modified nucleotide - N1-methylpseudouridine (N1m唯) - reduces the interferon response and enhances protein expression. Multiple attempts to use modified nucleoside triphosphates (modNTPs) in saRNA have been unsuccessful, leading to the decades鈥� long dogma that modNTPs are incompatible with saRNA. We unexpectedly discovered several modNTPs (e.g., 5-methylcytidine triphosphate, m5C) that, when incorporated into saRNA at 100% substitution, confer immune evasion and enhance protein expression potency and duration (Nature Biotechnology, 2025. ). Transfection of m5C saRNA, encoding for mCherry protein, significantly enhances protein expression in mouse muscle myoblast C2C12 cells as well as human immortalized HEK293-T and Jurkat cells, and primary foreskin fibroblasts (HFF) and CD3+ T cells. A single intra-muscular injection of m5C saRNA, encoding for luciferase, results in 30+ day protein expression and significantly greater performance than N1m唯 mRNA. Further, the type I interferon response is less in transfected human PBMCs in vitro and after intra-muscular administration in vivo compared to wild-type saRNA. As a first case study, we created a m5C saRNA COVID vaccine, and observed significant in vitro expression of viral antigen and in vivo protection against a lethal challenge with a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV-2 strain. At a 10 ng dose, the m5C saRNA vaccine confers statistically improved survival with increased antibody titers compared to unmodified saRNA or N1m唯 mRNA. This discovery considerably broadens the potential scope of saRNA, enabling vaccines with increased potency, entry into previously impossible cell types, as well as the potential to apply saRNA technology to non-vaccine modalities such as cell therapy and protein replacement.听

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1st $500 | 2nd $250 | 3rd $100

• Each participant is given a 48鈥� wide and 36鈥� tall space on which to mount their poster, and must submit their poster title and abstract.

• Judging is based on scientific content, visual and oral presentation.

• Students are expected to be at their poster during viewing sessions.听

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