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Date October 9, 2025
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$11 million federal award to launch Brown-based center to accelerate RNA research in Rhode Island

With support from the National Institutes of Health, the COBRE Center for RNA Biology in Health and Disease will create a critical mass of trained RNA researchers and fund cutting-edge RNA technology for scientific use.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Backed by a five-year, $11.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, a new Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) at Brown University will expand RNA research and provide key infrastructure to support a growing array of RNA scientists across Rhode Island.

The COBRE Center for RNA Biology in Health and Disease, based in the Brown’s Division of Biology and Medicine, will support a new cohort of early-career researchers, the acquisition of advanced research technology and equipment, and the administrative structure for a research facility based at Brown’s Giuliani RNA Center.

“The motivation for this effort is the promise that new developments in RNA biology will drive a better understanding and treatment of human disease,” said William Fairbrother, a professor of biology at Brown who will lead the new center as principal investigator. “The COVID-19 global pandemic illustrated the importance of understanding RNA viruses and the power of nanoparticle RNA delivery. In addition, advances in structural mapping of RNAs and a new appreciation of the promise of modified RNAs are already driving new models for gene expression and human disease.”

Ribonucleic acid, or RNA, is found in the cells of all living organisms and is essential to biological function. While DNA stores genetic information, RNA brings that information to life by carrying instructions from DNA to build proteins, regulate genes and perform other cellular functions. Scientists are realizing the massive potential of RNA for disease treatments and cures and other applications, but there is much yet to learn, Fairbrother said.  

With the goal of creating a critical mass of RNA biologists, the federal grant will support the research of five early-career scientists, primarily at Brown, who have complementary backgrounds in biophysics, chemistry, computational biology and infectious disease.

“One of the main functions of the COBRE is to create an environment where we help early-career faculty members build their research programs and transition to fully independent scientific research careers,” Fairbrother said.

Among the initial cohort members are Theresa Raimondo, an assistant professor of engineering at Brown who is researching ways to deliver mRNA-based immunotherapies to people with cancer; Katherine Siddle, an assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology who is studying the genomic determinants of virulence in the RNA-encoded Lassa virus; and Daniel Spade, an assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine who studies the RNA connections in toxicology and fertility.

The motivation for this effort is the promise that new developments in RNA biology will drive a better understanding and treatment of human disease.

William Fairbrother Professor of Biology, Principal Investigator of the COBRE Center for RNA Biology in Health and Disease
 
William Fairbrother

The grant will also increase the ability of these researchers and others to incorporate cutting-edge RNA techniques into their work and educate the larger scientific community in Rhode Island, Fairbrother said. For example, it allows Brown scientists to train researchers to perform advanced techniques that preserve the integrity of RNA samples, as well as to use sophisticated RNA-specific sequencing methods that allow for more complex and revealing genomic RNA analyses. This is important, he noted, because adapting currently available DNA genomic techniques to suit RNA research is an imperfect and limiting method. While RNA shares many similarities to DNA, there are key differences — for example, RNA is less stable than its double-stranded cousin. 

While the principal mission of the COBRE is to support early-career scientists, it will also create opportunities physician-scientists from Brown’s affiliated hospitals and the broader Rhode Island scientific community to conduct RNA research. These resources are a vital next step toward making Brown and Rhode Island a global hub for RNA research, Fairbrother said. In 2024, Brown launched what is now the Giuliani RNA Center and recently received a generous giftto support its research mission. 

“With this funding, we will bring cutting-edge RNA technologies to the state of Rhode Island,” Fairbrother said. “The long-term goal of the COBRE is to build an RNA biology infrastructure for the greater Brown and hospital environments that will benefit the study of human disease across all of Rhode Island.”

The COBRE Center for RNA Biology in Health and Disease is part of a competitive National Institute for General Medical Sciences program (grant number 1P20GM156712-01). Brown and its affiliated hospitals have earned prior COBRE grants for research in areas ranging from computational biology of human disease to substance misuse and addiction to central nervous system function. Following the initial five-year award, COBRE grants can be renewed for an additional two five-year periods. 

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