RNA Switches: Design and Applications

This lecture by the instructor covers the design and applications of RNA switches in synthetic biology, focusing on exploiting nature's design principles of regulatory RNAs to build new biomolecular components, networks, and organisms with new abilities. The lecture delves into topics such as ribosomal protein translation, the architecture of mammalian cells, biological timescales, mRNA translation fundamentals, and the structure of eukaryotic mRNA. It also explores multifaceted RNA-based gene regulatory tools, including riboregulators, ribozymes, and riboswitches. The lecture concludes with discussions on ligand-controlled trans-acting riboregulators and ribozyme-mediated RNA switches.