Established in 1988 by Russell E. Marker (B.S. '23, M.S. '24, chemistry), the annual Russell Marker Lecture in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Maryland focuses on natural products chemistry. Marker was an award-winning chemist who invented the octane rating system for gasoline. He also developed a proprietary chemical process—known as Marker degradation—that led to numerous hormone therapies, including the birth control pill.

RNA’s evolution from an eccentric molecule to the cause and cure of a global pandemic
 

RNA was initially discovered as an odd molecule related to DNA before the turn of the 20th century.  Shortly after the structure of the DNA double helix was discovered in the 1950’s, RNA was thought to play an important, intermediate role in a cell to decode our DNA genetic material into protein molecules that carry out function.  In the early 2000’s, the Human Genome Project revealed that humans encode far fewer proteins than was predicted, and that observation had many functional implications.  It is now known that 2% of our genome encodes for protein and yet 80% of it encodes for RNA.  We have since learned that our cells are essentially bags of RNA.  This molecule directs many essential functions in cells.  Our sex is derived from adaptable functions of RNA.  
 
Many diseases are caused by malfunctioning RNAs including cancer, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), autism, and Alzheimer’s disease.  In fact, it is now thought that nearly all diseases could be cured by targeting RNA.  Recent world events have shown the importance of RNA.  Global pandemics, both new and old, are cause by RNA.  Covid and influenza viruses have genetic material only composed of RNA.   We are now in an era where RNA is also the cure, for example vaccines for various viruses are composed of RNA; short RNAs disable previously incurable genetic diseases.  Small molecules taken as a pill can also be used to disable disease-causing RNAs or repair defective ones, turning a death sentence into a manageable disease.  The eccentric RNA biomolecule that started off as a scientific oddity is now at the front of biomedical innovation.  In this talk, I will describe the vast potential of RNA and the critical role that basic science plays in advancing medicine in important and yet unanticipated ways.