Congratulations to Harish Vasudevan, MD, PhD, for his recent award by the U.S. Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP). This Synergistic Idea Award under the Neurofibromatosis Research Program (NFRP – FY2024) supports “Mapping the RNA Splicing Landscape of NF1 and Its Impact on Neurofibromin Function Across Tissues” for a 36 month project duration.
Principal Investigator Dr. Vasudevan, assistant professor of Radiation Oncology and Neurological Surgery and his team along with Principal Investigator Dr. Olga Anczukow (The Jackson Laboratory) will colead this project. Dr. Anczukow offers expertise in RNA splicing while Dr. Vasudevan provides expertise in neurofibromin/Ras cell signaling.
“Although NF1 is a large gene mutated in 15% of all human cancers and causing neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF-1) in 1/2500 live births, we still understand precious little about how its mRNA expression and splicing is regulated. This grant will leverage new long read based sequencing approaches to define how NF1 RNA is processed, opening the door to new basic insights into the NF1 gene and better therapeutic strategies for people with NF-1 related disease,” shared Vasudevan.
See CDRMP Announcement: https://cdmrp.health.mil/nfrp/awards/24siaawards.aspx
Vasudevan Lab: https://vasudevanlab.ucsf.edu/