University of Birmingham researchers, in collaboration with colleagues from the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute in Glasgow, have received a £3.1million Wellcome Discovery Award to study messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), specifically how changes in the instructions to build mRNA can impact on development and tumorigenesis.
The programme, led by Professor Ferenc Mueller from the Department of Cancer and Genomics and Professor Martin Bushell from CRUK Scotland Institute Glasgow, will run for a period of eight years.
It aims to understand how the way in which mRNA is built can control how cells adjust their protein production, responding to environmental change and what this means for development and for cancer cell survival and proliferation. The two universities are partnering to bring together two distinct research areas in molecular biology that are rarely studied alongside each other.
The collaborating team, consisting of experts in the transcription of mRNAs and translation of proteins, will investigate the causes and consequences of mRNA variation, looking at how growth signals, and various stresses the cells experience, drive the cells to adjust their protein production and adapt to changing environments. This is of particular interest in tumour cells or cells of the growing embryo, both of which may have limited access to nutrients.
