Celebrating RNA: Columbia Symposium Highlights a Molecule Transforming Biomedical Science
RNA researchers who’ve been around a while remember the days when the molecule was often overlooked. For decades, RNA was known primarily as the messenger that carries genetic information from DNA to proteins. One of RNA biology’s pioneers, Tom Cech, wrote that the molecule was dismissed as a “biochemical back-up singer,” working in support of the true star of the cell, DNA.
Today, scientists know that RNA does far more: it regulates genes, shapes cellular identity, responds to the environment, defends cells against infection, and can itself be harnessed as a powerful therapeutic tool, as the world witnessed during the COVID pandemic.
That transformation is reflected across Columbia, where more than 30 laboratories now directly study some aspect of RNA biology, with many more encountering RNA through research spanning neuroscience, cancer, infectious disease, structural biology, gene regulation, and therapeutics.
To help Columbia researchers keep up with the RNA science happening across the University, the Columbia RNA Day symposium was created in 2023 to provide a place to come together, exchange ideas, and discover unexpected scientific connections. The symposium is typically held on August 1—a playful reference to AUG, the start codon on messenger RNAs that initiates protein synthesis.
This year’s keynote speaker, Robert B. Darnell of Rockefeller University, has helped shape scientists’ understanding of RNA regulation for decades. Darnell took the audience on a journey through his scientific career. Beginning with his pioneering studies of paraneoplastic neurologic disorders, Darnell described the discovery of neuron-specific RNA-binding proteins and the development of CLIP, a groundbreaking technology that transformed how scientists map protein–RNA interactions. He concluded with his laboratory’s latest work uncovering activity-dependent regulation of RNA translation in neuronal dendrites, and its critical role in formation of memories.
A hub for RNA research
This year’s annual RNA Day symposium was the largest yet, bringing together many more than 100 participants from over 20 laboratories across Columbia’s three campuses plus Barnard students conducting summer research. The half-day symposium combines a keynote lecture with a poster session showcasing RNA research by scientists at all career stages, from high-school and undergraduate researchers to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
“Since we started, we’ve attracted more and more researchers, even those who are a bit outside the field,” says Sara Zaccara, assistant professor of systems biology at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, who has co-organized RNA Day since 2023 with Anna-Lena Steckelberg, assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics.
Trainees took a leading role behind the scenes of this year's RNA Day. PhD students Megan Korn, John Yin, Feiyue Yang joined the 2026 organizing committee, gaining experience in organizing a scientific meeting while helping shape an event for their own research community.
Undergraduate and high-school researchers working in Columbia laboratories over the summer are specifically encouraged to present at RNA Day, alongside graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and there are prizes at different levels. Nearly half of this year’s posters were presented by very early-career researchers.
“Over the past few years, RNA biology has become increasingly central to nearly every area of biomedical science, and Columbia is a hub for RNA research, with investigators studying nearly every aspect of RNA biology—from fundamental molecular mechanisms to its rapidly expanding therapeutic applications,” says Zaccara.“RNA Day brings all these scientists together, creating opportunities for conversations across disciplines and for unexpected collaborations to emerge,” adds Steckelberg.
RNA became a household word during the COVID pandemic when mRNA was tapped for the rapid production of vaccines that saved millions of lives around the world.
But RNA comes in a dazzling array of varieties and performs many more jobs in the cell than researchers imagined since the discovery of messenger RNA 65 years ago. In fact, "there have already been a dozen Nobel prizes for RNA-related breakthroughs since 2000, "including the one for mRNA vaccine technology," says Laura Landweber, professor of biochemistry & molecular biophysics and biological sciences and co-founder of Columbia’s RNA Initiative.
Where RNA Meets Frosting. Because building community does not happen through lectures and posters alone, RNA Day still leaves room for some less serious competition in baking. Five teams of scientist-bakers took the opportunity to interpret RNA biology as buttercream; symposium attendees served as judges. Scientific discussions continued over cake-testing, a bustling poster session, and pizza. Postdoc Ashton Curry-Hyde, one of the bakers behind the Zaccara lab's winning entry (far right), describes their entry as a “vanilla sponge cake layered with berries and whipped almond cream cheese that shows mRNA biogenesis and turnover in a eukaryotic cell. The title, "May your half-life be long" references mRNA stability and turnover, a core focus of the lab's research.” See more cake entries on the RNA Initiative webpage.
The poster session at RNA Day highlighted just how broadly RNA biology now reaches, from RNA therapeutic approaches to basic RNA biology to new technology to decode RNA. The winning projects ranged from RNA-guided CRISPR technologies designed to selectively eliminate specific cell types, to alternative RNA-splicing programs that help control neuronal maturation, to unusual RNA structures that viruses use to manipulate infected cells.
Landweber adds, “We’ve come to realize that RNA is not just an intermediary between two conventional platforms of DNA and proteins, but a sculptor of biological information as well, an artisan that can rewrite and reframe how information plays out, with very different biological outcomes.
"Our vision of RNA biology at Columbia is to increase our fundamental understanding of RNA and to use that knowledge to develop new routes to target RNAs, especially those associated with disease."