Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The National Cancer Institute awarded a Project Grant of $237,023 to Harvard Medical School (operating through President and Fellows of Harvard College) on March 13, 2026, under the Cancer Biology Research program (CFDA 93.396). This three-year award, with completion scheduled for February 28, 2029, supports the development and refinement of high-throughput technological tools to track the dynamics and fate of alternatively polyadenylated (APA) transcripts in cancer cells. Specifically, the research focuses on engineering subcellular Timelapse-seq (TL-seq), an innovative technology designed to simultaneously monitor the nuclear export, translation efficiency, and degradation patterns of APA transcripts across subcellular compartments—from synthesis through degradation—thereby providing comprehensive insights into RNA flow rates and transcript dynamics in cancer versus healthy cells.

The research addresses a critical gap in understanding post-transcriptional gene regulation mechanisms in cancer development. While APA events have been identified as drivers of oncogenesis in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, glioblastoma, and lung adenocarcinoma through inactivation of tumor suppressor genes, existing methodologies cannot concurrently track the multifaceted dynamics of alternatively processed transcripts. The project aims to establish technological capabilities that will identify critical regulatory nodes controlling oncogenic APA transcript usage and uncover cellular processes that promote their expression across different cancer types, ultimately supporting the Cancer Biology Research program's objective of providing fundamental information on cancer mechanisms to improve prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment methods.