Editorial Oliver Mühlemann - The Messenger No.18
Dear colleagues,
The NCCR RNA & Disease entered its twelfth and final year in May 2025. However, the end of the NCCR will not be the end of the network and some of its established activities. The Swiss Institute for RNA & Disease (SIRD) is set to succeed the NCCR. What will end is the network leadership by Frédéric Allain and me. Norbert Polacek and Stefanie Jonas will take over the torch to steer the SIRD into a hopefully great future.
Efforts are underway to facilitate this transition and secure enough resources for the SIRD to maintain all desired NCCR activities. To mark this transition and celebrate the NCCR’s achievements together with RNA researchers from Austria, Germany, and France, the NCCR’s final symposium on “Molecular Mechanisms of RNA in Disease” will be held in January 2026 in St. Moritz.
After a longer break than intended, we can finally present you a new edition of our Newsletter The Messenger which features an interview with Jeannie T. Lee, who discusses her career, her lab’s research on X-chromosome silencing by the non-coding RNA XIST, and their goal to develop a treatment for X-linked diseases by targeting RNA with small molecules. Continuing the theme of non-coding RNAs and treatment development, one highlight covers two papers from the Johnson lab on the role of long non-coding RNAs in cancer and their targeting with antisense oligonucleotides. A second highlight showcases groundbreaking work by the Jinek lab and collaborators on the structural basis of Cas9 off-target activity.
Enjoy your reading!
Oliver Mühlemann – Director NCCR RNA & Disease