Federal Project Grant Award Summary

Yale University received a $242,958 Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), effective July 7, 2026, with completion targeted for June 30, 2028. The award supports research investigating RNA helicases—a family of 58 human DEAD-/DEAH-box enzymes with emerging roles in innate immunity, inflammation, neurological disease, hematological disorders, and cancer. The project will develop and apply RNA structure probing methodologies, specifically co-transcriptional structure tracking (COSTSEQ) combined with DMS-MAPSEQ, to identify RNA substrates that helicases remodel and characterize the functional RNA regions affected during remodeling.

The research deliverables focus on advancing understanding of pro-inflammatory RNA helicases through chemical probing of nascent and mature RNA combined with helicase depletion and mutagenesis approaches. Key outputs will include identification of specific RNA substrates targeted by helicases and mapping of functional regions (such as 5' or 3' untranslated regions, exons, and introns) where helicase-mediated structural alterations occur. This work addresses a significant knowledge gap regarding helicase-RNA interactions that are difficult to measure in cellular contexts, with applications to understanding how helicase activities regulate pre-mRNA splicing, RNA export, stability, and translation in inflammatory pathways.