Research Projects

micro RNA (miRNA) are small non-coding RNA molecules that regulate the expression of other genes in a mammalian cell. Differential miRNA signatures have been identified for different cancer cells. These small noncoding RNA molecules are ideal for their utilization as toehold-riboswitch trigger molecules. miR-21 is one of the micro RNAs that is overexpressed in Breast Cancer Patients and Breast Cancer cell lines. For targeting cancer cells we need to find signatures specific to cancer cells which could be utilized to specifically kill cancer cells. These signatures specific to Cancerous cells can provide a vantage point so that we can induce expression of proteins in cancerous cells in response to the increasing signatures like microRNA (miRNA). This work will generate different expression platforms which will respond to miRNA levels in the breast cancer cell. Increased levels of miR-21 will be able to drive the expression of miR-21-responsive toehold controlled Cas9, p53 and Killer Red genes in the breast cancer cell lines. We envisage that differential miRNA expression driven toehold switches could be utilized to modulate gene expression in Cancer Cells and thus laying a foundation for their future application in finding new therapeutic interventions.