Ribometr
Translational Medicine
F
or roughly a decade, Professor Kevin Weeks and his
laboratory colleagues have been developing chemi-
cal technologies for interrogating the structures of RNA
molecules and then using these technologies to under-
stand new features of biology. RNA is that funny little
molecule that lies between DNA and proteins accord-
ing to first-year biology textbooks. It turns out that RNA
functions in a much more complex way than that simple
picture and, in fact, drives central communication links
in all cells. The technologies developed in the Weeks lab
are now collectively called SHAPE and RING chemistries,
have been adopted by laboratories worldwide, and are
featured in several recent textbooks.
W
eeks lab members have used SHAPE and RING
technologies to understand the structures of HIV
18 | CHEMISTRY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
and HCV genomes and to define mechanisms that un-
derlie Huntington’s disease, leading to the proposal that
RNA structure comprises another level of the genetic
code. “This was all well and exciting” says Weeks, “but it
became clear to us that we could use this same technol-
ogy to potentially discover drugs to treat serious human
diseases.” It turns out that a much larger fraction of the
human genome is used to make RNA than to make pro-
teins, but only a handful of current drugs actually target
RNA. The bottom line was that RNA-targeted drugs rep-
resented a huge, exciting, and risky opportunity.
D
r. Weeks started Ribometrix to realize this goal and
recruited a former student, Katie Warner, to co-found
the company with him. The key insight that inspires Ribo-
metrix is that SHAPE and RING strategies can be used to
| CHEM.UNC.EDU
RNA Image by
Christine Hajdin