Conference Day Two
Thursday, June 6 2024

8:10 am Morning Networking Coffee

8:50 am Chair’s Opening Remarks

  • Gautam Goel Chief Data Science Officer, HC Bioscience Inc

Deep Diving into Non-Coding RNA-Based Therapeutics Discovery with Computational Tools to Harness Their Full Therapeutic Potential

9:00 am The Limits of Imperfect: What Do We Know About Low-Homology siRNA Off-Targets?

  • Eliot Morrison Senior Scientist & Bioinformatics Group Leader, Silence Therapeutics

Synopsis

  • siRNA therapeutics are rigorously designed and screened to minimize off-target effects; this is done initially in silico by sequence alignment-based approaches, traditionally using relatively high homology thresholds
  • Surprisingly, performing unbiased RNAseq experiments reveals that a significant number of DEGs with low-homology alignments may also be regulated. Here we present a global analysis of what these alignments look like and how they may be informed by our understanding of RNAi biology
  • This global analysis was validated by a series of experiments designed to probe the limits of these “imperfect” alignments. Taken together, these findings can help inform future in-silico off-target predictions while minimizing the number of false positives

9:30 am Leveraging Computational Algorithms for Optimal RNAi Design

  • Liang Huang Full Professor - Biochemistry & Biophysics, Oregon State University

Synopsis

  • Highlighting linear-time algorithms RNA folding
  • Harnessing design algorithms to fight Covid-19 with RNAi therapeutics

10:00 am Morning Networking Break

11:00 am Roundtable Discussion: Harnessing AI to Optimally Design tRNA for Enhanced tRNA Durability & Delivery

  • Gautam Goel Chief Data Science Officer, HC Bioscience Inc

Synopsis

  • How can we control tRNA expression, durability and delivery for tRNA therapeutics?
  • How can we harness sequence and chemical modifications for tRNA design?
  • Leveraging learnings from siRNA therapeutic design and delivery with computational tools

11:45 am Unlocking In Vivo AI Driven tRNA Suppressor Evolution at Single Cell Resolution

  • Peixin Zhu Chief Executive Officer, Horizon Biosciences

Synopsis

  • Outlining novel in vivo tRNA suppressor reporter mouse models
  • Highlighting library design combining generative and predictive LLM models
  • Deep mining tRNA suppressor library using single cell RNAseq

12:15 pm Networking Lunch

RNA Programming & Logic Gates: The Future of Smart Computation to Unlock CellResponsive & Real-Time Expression RNA Therapeutics

1:15 pm Exploring & Understanding Programmable RNA Therapeutics to Unlock a New Wave of Cellular Control Mechanisms

Synopsis

  • Outlining the concept of RNA programming and logic gates to regulate protein expression or gene expression in a cell
  • Revealing successes and future applications of RNA logic gates for logic computation in mammalian cells
  • Extracting key factors and setbacks that are hindering the successful implementation of RNA reprogramming technologies into the clinic

1:45 pm Mastermind Discussion: Controlling the System: Leveraging Computational Tools to Control the Level of Expression for mRNA and RNAi Programmable Therapeutics to Develop ‘Smart RNA’

Synopsis

  • How can computational tools be utilized in the development of mRNA & RNAi programmable therapeutics?
  • What is the potential for leveraging ‘smart RNA’ to optimize dosage, timing and minimizing off-target effects?

2:30 pm Leveraging AI & RNA Technology to Design Programmable RNA Medicines

  • Yue Jiang Director & Head of Machine Learning, Shape Therapeutics

Synopsis

  • Harnessing high throughput screening to enable accurate modeling of ADAR-mediated RNA editing in vitro
  • Utilizing generative modeling to allow de novo guide RNA designs for RNA editing
  • Spotlighting transfer learning to leverage smaller datasets to optimize guide RNA designs for in cell performance  

3:00 pm Chair’s Closing Remarks

3:10 pm End of Inaugural Computational RNA Design & Delivery Summit 2024