Byron Purse
San Diego State University, CA·Chemistry
DNA and RNA are hard to watch inside cells because their natural building blocks barely glow. Glowing (fluorescent) mimics of these building blocks can reveal where nucleic acids go and what binds to them.
- Fields
Chemistry
Biochemistry
Pharmacology
- Topics
fluorescent nucleoside analogues
fluorescent nucleobase analogues
RNA therapeutics
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Apr 2030
What they work on
- Create ASO and siRNA stand-ins carrying a pair of fluorescent ribonucleosides, one a steady reference and one pH-sensitive, to image cell uptake and measure escape from acidic endosomes in live cells.
- Build riboswitch and RNA hairpin constructs containing fluorescent nucleoside analogues that detect specific, biologically meaningful small-molecule binding, for high-throughput discovery of RNA-targeting drug leads.
- Develop milder and broader synthetic methods for making C-ribonucleosides, building blocks useful in medicinal chemistry, chemical biology and fluorescent probe design.
- Determine how the cytosine mimic DEAtC and related fluorescent nucleobase analogues light up when they base-pair with guanine and stack with neighboring bases.
- Improve the photostability of pyrimidine-like fluorescent probes, and test new scaffolds that are small but bright and can be excited above 450 nm, for confocal and smTIRF microscopy.
More about the research
Such tools matter for RNA-based medicine. This includes using RNA itself as a drug, as in antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs, short strands that block a target RNA), short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and mRNA vaccines. It also includes treating RNA as a drug target. Both approaches could reach diseases that conventional drugs have not been able to treat. The lab designs and makes fluorescent nucleosides, which are modified building blocks of nucleic acids. It studies the chemistry behind their light emission and applies them to problems in RNA therapeutics.
Why it matters
Most RNA drugs, including ASOs, siRNAs and mRNA vaccines, never escape the endosome to reach their target. Probes that measure this escape could help researchers design better delivery strategies. Fluorescent RNA constructs could speed the discovery of selective small molecules that bind RNA and serve as drug leads. These advances may help treat diseases that conventional medicinal chemistry has struggled with. Brighter, longer-lasting probes would also give biotechnology and genetics labs better tools.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
James MacKay
Elizabethtown College, PA·Chemistry
Design and synthesize new PNA nucleobases that improve pi-pi stacking of the peptide nucleic acid strand within PNA-double-stranded RNA triple helices, strengthening binding.
Bruce Armitage
Carnegie Mellon University, PA·Chemistry
Design fluorescent peptide nucleic acid (PNA) probes that bind unmodified C9orf72 repeat RNAs, so these RNAs can be seen in biomolecular condensates by microscopy.
Eric T. Kool
Stanford University, CA·Chemistry
Develop new acylating reagents that attach labels, biotin or crosslinkers at specific sites on native RNAs through the 2'-OH group, the hydroxyl group found on every RNA nucleotide.
The school
San Diego State University: 13 labs on PI Pages, $182M a year on research, 142 research doctorates a year.
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