Fall 2024 Grantee Highlight:
Ryan Flynn

Ryan Flynn, MD, PhD
Principal Investigator, Stem Cell Program, Boston Children’s Hospital

Many tissue-level queues come from the extracellular space, communicating their information via membrane-embedded receptors, a process traditionally thought to be exclusively governed by interactions between proteins and glycans.  The Flynn Lab’s recent discovery of glycosylated RNAs and separately clustered domains of RNA-binding proteins on the cell surface opens the possibility that these new surface-exposed ligands have a functional role. This work will address and define the molecular logic and scope of the cell’s use of glycoRNAs to modulate growth factors activity across multiple key cell and tissue contexts. Overall, their work will further extend, physically and conceptually, the role that RNA plays in the mechanistic control of mammalian cells.