The Chemical Biology of Long Noncoding RNAs (RNA Technologies)

This book offers a comprehensive and detailed overview of various aspects of long non-coding RNAs. It discusses their emerging significance in molecular medicine, ranging from human cancers to cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.

Transcriptomic studies have demonstrated that the majority of genomes found in complex organisms are expressed in highly dynamic and cell-specific patterns, producing huge numbers of intergenic, antisense and intronic long non-protein-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). Thousands of lncRNAs have been identified, and unlike mRNA, they have no protein-coding capacity. A large repertoire of ncRNAs, actively transcribed from the mammalian genome, control diverse cellular processes, both in terms of development and diseases, through a variety of gene regulatory mechanisms. IncRNAs have emerged as a new paradigm in epigenetic regulation of the genome.

Given its scope, the book will be of particular interest to molecular, chemical, cell and developmental biologists, as well as specialists in translational medicine involved in disease-oriented research. It also offers a valuable resource for in silico experts seeking a deeper understanding of lncRNA expression and function through computational analysis of the NGS data. 

Professor Stefan Jurga conducts interdisciplinary scientific research in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology, covering the physical, chemical, biological and medical sciences. He has authored over 270 publications in the interdisciplinary database Journal Citation Reports. He has served as a Visiting Professor at e.g. Cornell University, North Carolina State University, and the University of South Africa in Pretoria. Professor Jurga was a laureate of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and a scholarship holder at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz (Germany). He has also worked at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, at the Józef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, and at many other international scientific institutions.

Professor Jurga has served as Vice-Rector and Rector of the Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań (AMU), and also created the interdisciplinary NanoBioMedical Center at the AMU, which he has been the director of since 2010. From2005 to 2007 he was appointed as the Under Secretary and Secretary of State for research and higher education at the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Jan Barciszewski is a Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) in Poznań, Poland and at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań, Poland where he has worked since 1974. He studied organic chemistry at the AMU. During his PhD studies he worked on the structure and function of modified bases and nucleoside sequences of plant phenylalanine specific transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA), including cytokinins. He was subsequently granted a Doctor of Science degree for his work on the properties of plant tRNAs and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. In the 1990s he began working on the diagnosis and therapy of brain tumors. He developed a new method for the transformation of plant mitochondria based on catalytic RNAs, and is currently involved in studies on a new type of catalytic RNAs (enantiomeric ribozymes) for efficient RNA target cleavage in vivo, as well as the search for new anti-aging agents.