Federal Project Grant Award Summary

Northwestern University's Sponsored Research Division has received a $382,751 Project Grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859), effective May 1, 2026 through April 30, 2031. The award supports fundamental research investigating dynamic RNA folding and function, with a focus on understanding how nascent RNA structures influence gene expression during transcription. The research program centers on riboswitches—non-coding regulatory RNAs that bind specific ligands and control gene expression—as model systems to uncover quantitative relationships between RNA sequence, cotranscriptional folding, and downstream processes including transcription termination and translation.

The funded research will advance molecular understanding of how cotranscriptional RNA folding regulates cellular gene expression through two primary research themes. The first theme employs diverse riboswitches and eukaryotic RNA polymerase III transcription termination as model systems to establish general principles governing RNA behavior. The second theme involves development of technologies to measure and model nascent RNA folding across broad RNA systems, with findings expected to have broader applications in non-coding RNA biogenesis and other biological processes. This five-year research initiative will be conducted at Northwestern University's Evanston, Illinois facility and aims to generate principles applicable to engineering synthetic biological systems with practical benefits to society.