History

Since 1992, with the founding of the Center for Molecular Biology of RNA with a grant from the Markey Trust, faculty and students at UC Santa Cruz have made landmark contributions to the field of RNA research.

Under the leadership of distinguished faculty, such as Harry Noller, Carol Greider, and David Haussler, the university has attracted dozens of promising early-career researchers in diverse fields who have already made significant contributions to RNA discoveries, both basic and applied. 

One of the largest communities of RNA scientists in the world is at UCSC — biologists, geneticists, engineers, computer scientists — and their work is defining the future of this field. The center now encompasses 20 RNA faculty laboratories across the departments of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology; Chemistry and Biochemistry; Biomedical Engineering; and Computer Science and Engineering. This powerful interdisciplinary research community is poised to solve some of the most challenging scientific problems, such as unraveling the relationship between RNA structure and its biological functions, and developing computational tools to harvest biomedical information from the vast databases of genomic sequences. Research ranges from foundational science on RNA structure to tool building, and to methods for reshaping proteins to detect or treat specific diseases. Our RNA scientists inspire probing questions and novel collaborations, attracting resources, talented students and postdocs, entrepreneurs, and global partnerships.