Dundee University gets £4.4 mn to advance gene ‘video editing’ for cancer and neurodegenerative disease drug discovery

The researchers at the University of Dundee have received funding of £4.4 million to explore how our genes can be ‘video-edited’ to develop new drugs for cancer, neurodegeneration, and other diseases. Genes are the pieces of DNA that contain the information required to make different types of proteins that build and maintain living organisms. Alternative splicing enables the production of different messenger RNAs and proteins from a single gene.

Professors David Gray and Angus Lamond, from the School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee will work with colleagues in Germany and Spain on the UNLEASH project. The project aims to produce drug-like small molecules that can control a process called alternative splicing (AS), known to play a key role in disease development. Both of the Dundee researchers have been awarded funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) for UNLEASH, with their collaborators receiving a matching amount from the European Research Council (ERC).

The information in human genes is ‘split’, which allows a single gene to code for multiple proteins. If scientists can learn how to manipulate this process accurately, it will create opportunities to control how genes function and contribute to disease mechanisms. The team aims to precisely control this process to help pharma companies develop novel therapeutic approaches for treating human diseases. According to Professor Lamond, an analogy can be made with the more familiar process of video editing.

He further says, “The gene can be seen as the raw video