Grant: Project Grant

Infectious disease represents a major burden on our health care system. Our innate immune system represents one of the first barriers to viral infection, and improved understanding of the mechanisms regulating this response is crucial to the development of potent anti-virals. While research has been focused on understanding the proteins critical to this pathway, recent work has revealed important roles for small ribonucleic acids in gene regulation. In this grant, we aim to study the role of a family of small RNAs, called microRNAs-183/182/96, in the innate immune system's recognition and subsequent inhibition of viruses. Specifically, we want to understand how these small RNAs improve our ability to combat viral infection. We will investigate the function of these small RNAs using highly innovative genomics tools as well as small animal models of viral infection. Our work-to-date suggests that this family of small RNAs turns off genes which suppress our innate immune response. We believe these small RNAs play an important role in regulating our innate immunity, so, as a long-term extension of this study, therapies targeting these biomolecules will have broad applications as potential antivirals, or immunomodulatory drugs.