UNBC Conference at the Frontier of Science
July 20, 2005 for immediate release
Next week, UNBC will be hosting the first
conference that will bring together scientists from around western Canada who
study RNA, a key component of our genetic code that is implicated in diseases
such as cancer and cystic fibrosis. Last year, Science magazine called RNA its “Molecule of the Year” because
of the large number of biological processes that RNA has recently been found to
regulate.
“The fields covered by RNA
science are extremely broad, and many of them are at the cutting edge of modern
biology,” says UNBC Biochemistry professor Stephen Rader. “Scientists
continue to be surprised at the number of things that RNA can do that have
traditionally been viewed as the exclusive domain of proteins.”
Dr.
Rader
conducts research on how RNA molecules are spliced together to create
different
genetic combinations. He came to UNBC from the University
of California at San Francisco and currently has five UNBC
students working in his research lab; four of them have received
funding from
the prestigious Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. The
photo here depicts Dr. Rader (second from right) with the student
researchers funded by MSFHR. About 50
scientists are expected to attend the conference, which will take place from
July 25-27 at UNBC’s Prince George
campus. It is being sponsored by GenomeBC, GenomePrairie, and UNBC. The keynote
speaker for the conference is Dr. Olke Uhlenbeck, Professor of Biochemistry,
Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology at Northwestern
University in Illinois.
Dr. Uhlenbeck is a past president of the international RNA Society and
has been studying how RNA works since 1970.
