Challenges in RNA Structural Modeling and Design

Date:          June 21-25, 2016

Location:  Telluride Elementary School, 447 West Columbia Ave, Telluride, CO 81435
 

Organizers:
                  Tamar Schlick, New York University, schlick@nyu.edu
                  Anna Marie Pyle, Yale University, anna.pyle@yale.edu

 

The heightened appreciation for the central role of RNA molecules in all cellular processes --- from catalysis to control of gene expression to cellular differentiation --- combined with the practical applications of synthetic RNAs in biomedicine and biomolecular engineering has raised new challenges regarding RNA structure analysis, prediction, and design to both experimental and theoretical scientists. These challenges have produced many innovative approaches, including interdisciplinary efforts, to analyze, predict, simulate, and design RNA molecules. While many successes have been reported, progress in the field has been hampered by limited experimental resolution and an incomplete understanding of RNA
tertiary structure, especially for large RNAs. Though RNA structure is believed to be hierarchical, the difficult problem of understanding and predicting its tertiary structure from its primary as well as secondary structure remains unsolved in general.

To advance this important scientific frontier, we will bring leading experimentalists and modelers to discuss and advance the field. We aim to bring together scientists working on both the genomic and molecular levels of RNA using novel experimental, mathematical, statistical, and computational methods. Ideally, these scientists should be broad and appreciative of the many possible disciplinary approaches to the problem. By familiarizing scientists from disparate disciplines with the challenges and presenting current efforts,
advances, and ideas, we hope to catalyze new approaches and collaborations in this important field.

 

Participants and Talks:


Cigdem Sevim Bayrak (NYU): Coarse-grained graph approaches to RNA motif enumeration and design
Rhiju Das (Stanford): Improving de novo structure modeling of RNA motifs
Christine Heitsch (Georgia Tech): Mining RNA structural information from the Boltzmann ensemble
Swati Jain (NYU): Coarse-grained graph approaches to RNA motif enumeration and design
Alain Laederach (UNC): A quantitative RNA structure mediated model of 5Y UTR ribosomal leaky scanning
David Mathews (U. Rochester): Using structure mapping data to model RNA structures with multiple conformations
Juyong Lee (NIH): Investigating the structure and conformational changes of biomolecules via global optimization
Xiang-Jun Lu (Columbia): DSSR: an integrated software tool for dissecting the spatial structure of RNA
David Lilley (U Dundee): The k-turn as a key building element in RNA architecture; figuring out the rules
Anna Marie Pyle (Yale): Identifying and characterizing functional motifs in RNA secondary and tertiary structure
Karissa Y. Sanbonmatsu (LANL): Exploring the secondary structure of steroid receptor RNA activator lncRNA using SHAPE and 3S
Tamar Schlick (NYU): Coarse-grained graph approaches to RNA motif enumeration and design
Blake Alexander Sweeney (Bowling Green State): Toward Automated RNA 3D Motif Quality Assessment and Annotation, Extraction and Clustering, and Data-mining for RNA 3D Structure Prediction
Sarah Woodson (Johns Hopkins): Conformational space and RNA folding landscapes in the test tube and the cell
Kevin Weeks (UNC): The Pervasive Role of RNA Structure in lncRNA Function
Darrin York (Rutgers): Ribozyme Catalysis with a Twist

 

Workshop Details

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