Wednesday, 28th October Australasian RNA Biology and Biotechnology Association 2026 Conference

 Prof Prashant Mali
University of California San Diego (USA)

A/Prof Phil Gregory
Adelaide University, South Australia

Dr Lorey Smith
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Victoria

Dr Ianthe Pitout
The Personalised Medicine Centre, Murdoch University, Western Australia

• Metastasis of triple negative breast cancer is regulated by a targetable miR-342-E2F network - Philip A Gregory
• Investigating the role of mRNA transcript diversity in melanoma progression and therapy resistance. - Lorey Smith
• Preclinical Development of a Novel Morpholino Oligomer for Treating C9ORF72-Linked MND/ALS - Ianthe Pitout
• ZCCHC24 a novel stress granule-associated RNA-binding protein that regulates breast cancer cell plasticity and metastasis - Michael Ortiz
• Lost in Translation: Flavivirus infection and the production of tRNA halves - Lachlan De Hayr
• Modulating eIF5A-dependent mRNA translation to target cancer stem cells - Heloisa Helena H Milioli

Emily Pilkington
Monash University, Victoria

Dr Hao Song
Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, University of Queensland, Queensland

• Exploring the biological fate of clinical and novel mRNA-lipid nanoparticle delivery systems - Emily H. Pilkington
• Engineering Lipid Nanoparticles for mRNA-based Cancer and Cancer Immunotherpies - Hao Song
• The Mac-LNP platform: Enabling precise delivery of RNA therapeutics to disease-driving macrophage populations in vivo - Jan Schaefer
• Rapid Cell-Free DNA Template Manufacturing for Personalised mRNA Medicines - Jonathan Peters

Dr Jochem Vink
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Dr Chris Brosnan
QAAFI, University of Queensland, Queensland

Dr Toby Newman
Curtin University, ACT

• Adapting RNA therapeutics beyond model organisms - Jochem Vink
• Optimising cellular uptake and functionality of exogenously applied RNAi for plant protection and trait modification   - Chris Brosnan
• A broad-host-range fungal pathogen deploys small RNAs that hijack host AGO1 to silence plant immunity genes - Toby E Newman
• From Target Discovery to Field-Ready Delivery: An Integrated RNAi Pipeline for Control of the Australian Sheep Blowfly (Lucilia cuprina)     - Karishma T Mody
• Structural Conservation of Long Non-Coding RNAs Across the Brassicaceae - Selene L Fernandez-Valverde
• Host-induced gene silencing confers plant resistance to the fungal pathogen Verticillium dahliae - Sidra Anwar

Dr Helen Gunter
BASE mRNA, Queensland

• Decoding the temporal landscape of mRNA modifications at single-molecule resolution - Eduardo Eyras
• mRNArchitect: a toolkit for the design of mRNA sequences - Helen M Gunter
• Programmable RNA-Dependent Splicing Activation via Engineered Group I Ribozymes - Zana Karimi Kurdistani
• Single-step isothermal synthesis of mRNA medicines - Theodore TL Leonard

Dr Yuka Iwasaki
RIKEN Centre of Integrative Medical Sciences (Japan)

• Recognition and silencing of nascent transposon RNAs - Yuka W. Iwasaki

A/Prof Justin Wong - A-RNA Mid-Career Researcher Award Winner
University of Sydney, NSW

Awards and Concluding Presentation

• The Road to Reliable RNA Editing: Importance, Challenges, and Critical Controls in Programmable m⁶A Manipulation - Justin Wong