Beyond basic science questions in ribosome biology, we aim to “translate” ribosome- and RNA-centric technologies into RNA biotechnology and therapeutic applications. We have generated, in a massive collaboration involving academics, industry leaders and citizen scientists, a platform to systematically improve mRNA therapeutics called PERSIST-seq (Leppek, Byeon, Kladwang, Wayment-Steele, Kerr et al., 2022) (also see Inceptive Inc). We also recently developed and patented improvements of the use of IRESes in circRNAs (Koch, Zhang, Genuth et al., 2025), a new generation of mRNA therapeutics.
A central question is: What regulatory principles from basic science studies can we transfer and apply to mRNA therapeutics?