Welcome to the RNA Center!
The Center for Molecular Biology of RNA was founded at the University of California,
Santa Cruz, in 1992 with a grant from the Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust. Its mission
is to promote the interdisciplinary study of the structure, function and biological roles
of RNA. A major focus is to bring together researchers studying RNA structure by X-ray
crystallography and NMR spectroscopy with groups studying RNA function. Another focus is
to promote the interface between bioinformatics and RNA molecular biology. Among the
research topics under investigation in the Center are catalytic RNA ("ribozymes"), the
structure and function of ribosomes, the mechanism of pre-mRNA splicing, regulation of
alternative splicing in eukaryotic gene expression, computational analysis of small
cellular RNAs and RNA genomics.