New technologies for the characterization of mRNA therapeutics/vaccines

mRNA technology has recently demonstrated the ability to
significantly change the timeline for developing and delivering a
new vaccine from years to months, highlighted by the successful
development and approval of two mRNA vaccines for COVID-19.
The development of new tools/technologies for the analysis of
mRNA therapeutics is critical to underpin manufacturing and the
development of new mRNA therapeutics/vaccines.
Direct RNA sequence mapping is a powerfull new method utilised
for the characterisation of mRNA therapetucs. However, there are
limited RNase enzymes that can be used, limiting the application
of such methods for the characterization of mRNA. It is proposed
to develop a toolbox of RNA restriction enzymes based on the
MazF endonucleases from different organisms that exhibit
different sequence specificities.
Training will be provided in a wide range of state of the art
equipment including HPLC/UHPLC, mass spectrometry, capillary
electrophoresis, protein expression and purification.