News Release

Yale professor receives Johnson & Johnson Focused Giving award

Grant and Award Announcement

Yale University

New Haven, Conn. -- Sidney Altman, Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University has been awarded a three-year, Focused Giving Grant by Johnson & Johnson to support his work on coordinated regulation of the protein subunits of RNase P in HeLa Cells.

Professor Altman received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1989 for his work on RNaseP demonstrating that RNA as well as protein can have catalytic properties. The RNaseP enzyme in mammals contains at least 10 protein subunits in addition to the RNA subunit.

With this grant Altman's group will pursue the basis of their observation that directly inhibiting expression of one of the protein subunits (Rpp38) in human nuclear RNase P turned off the expression of some, but not all, subunits without further cell manipulation.

The research will use external guide sequences (EGS), RNA sequences that bind to the target RNA so that the complex looks like a normal substrate for RNase P, to identify and inactivate messages for the protein subunits. The presence of the EGS in cells subsequently works rapidly and specifically and has been used in the past to target essential virus genes and decrease infection. Understanding how to affect the expression of multiple genes in a coordinated manner has important implications for many basic biological functions, and disease treatments.

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Since the inception of the Focused Giving Program at Johnson & Johnson in 1980, more than $46 million have been awarded to academic investigators doing basic research to advance science and technology in medical fields. This competitive program opens doors to new scientific developments, as well as promotes mutually beneficial relationships between scientists working for the Johnson & Johnson family of companies and researchers who carry out their work at universities or research centers.

Previous Focused Giving Grant recipients from Yale University are: Charles Janeway (1985); Carolyn Slayman (1987); Kay Tanaka (1991); and David Austin (1999).

According to Theodore Torphy, corporate vice-president of Science and Technology, "We are achieving significant expansion of our own scientific capabilities and opportunities to the focused giving network, and this cannot help but lead to more and better health care products from Johnson & Johnson in the future."


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