UMass Chan professor awarded $1M NSF grant for mRNA genomics research

Photo | Timothy Doyle UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester

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By Isabel Tehan

Athma Pai, assistant professor of RNA therapeutics at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, has received a $1-million CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation.

Pai’s research uses new genomics approaches to study mRNA splicing and regulation. The NSF Faculty Early Career Development awards are five-year grants earmarked for junior faculty to use to fund their research and educational projects.

“The work proposed in this grant aims to use new experimental and computational methods to uncover when and why mistakes occur and use that information to refine our understanding of splicing processes in general. Ultimately, our hypothesis is that you can fine-tune the levels at which these mistakes are happening, depending on the context of the cells,” Pai said in a Thursday announcement from UMass Chan.

As part of the mission of the CAREER grant to educate broadly, Pai and her lab are aiming to make their methods and computational techniques available to students at the undergraduate level. The lab will be recruiting Worcester-based college students to work conducting computational biology research as summer interns.

A small portion of the grant will be used to build a program Pai co-founded called ScienceLIVE (Learning with Interactive Virtual Education). The program creates modules Worcester Public Schools teachers can use with their middle school students. With the funding, a small cohort of WPS teachers will be embedded in a UMass Chan lab to better understand the research.

“We’re eager to increase our knowledge about fundamental biological processes in cells through this research. Understanding the molecular logic behind how genes are regulated can result in unexpected and exciting discoveries that may result in new ways to improve human health,” Pai said.