Masad J Damha

Our research group is interested in the chemical synthesis, biochemical properties, and molecular behaviour of nucleic acids and their analogues. We are particularly interested in developing new methods for the synthesis of nucleoside building blocks and RNA, including modified siRNA/miRNA, branched RNA and lariat RNA. We also devote an enormous effort to the study of nucleic acid structure.

More recently, our group reported the in situ synthesis of RNA on microarrays for the study and discovery of protein-RNA interactions that are relevant to important biological processes (e.g., RNAi, transcription, etc).

The main methods used in these investigations are solution and solid-phase synthesis; molecular biology techniques (gene silencing via RNAi, antisense, PCR, etc), high resolution NMR, UV and circular dichroism; and molecular modeling.