Ryan Flynn of Harvard on Non-Coding RNA
About this episode
Dr. Ryan Flynn discusses the emerging role of non-coding RNA and cell surface architecture in biology.
On today’s show, Dr. Ryan Flynn of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital takes us into a newly emerging layer of biology: the architecture of the cell surface itself. Flynn first gained attention for the discovery of glycoRNA — RNA molecules displayed on the outside of cells — a finding that challenged the traditional picture of the cell surface as a world composed primarily of proteins and glycans. RNA has long been understood mainly as a carrier of genetic information (messenger RNA), but Flynn’s work has show that it has other functions critical to basic processes in the cell. As we’ve been hearing on the program, biology has largely been a science of inventory. Throughout today’s conversation, Flynn argues that molecular organization itself may be a fundamental biological variable. Not simply whether a molecule exists, but where it exists, what it is adjacent to. Using technologies such as Pixelgen’s Proximity Network Assay, his lab is beginning to map the “cell surface architecture,” or the arrangement of proteins, glycans, and nucleic acids that together govern signaling and cellular behavior. The implications stretch across biology. Flynn describes early…
People in this episode
Host: Theral Timpson
Guest: Dr. Ryan Flynn
Topics covered
- non-coding RNA
- cell surface architecture
- glycoRNA
- molecular organization
- cell signaling
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital, Pixelgen, VEGF
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