News

November 11, 2022

Dipanwita Banerjee (FIBER Postdoctoral Researcher) of the Frontier Institute for Biomolecular Engineering Research (FIBER) has been awarded the “Ohtsuka Award (ISNAC Outstanding Oral Presentation Award for Young Scientist 2022)” at the “6th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Nucleic Acid Chemistry and the 49th International Symposium on Nucleic Acid Chemistry (ISNAC2022)”.

The Ohtsuka Award is an outstanding young scientist presentation award established to honor the achievements of Dr. Eiko Ohtsuka (currently Professor Emeritus at Hokkaido University and Honorary Fellow at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology), who made significant contributions to nucleic acid chemistry in Japan. For 2022, the selection was conducted among oral presenters aged 35 or younger at the “6th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Nucleic Acid Chemistry (ISNAC2022) 49th International Symposium on Nucleic Acid Chemistry” held from Wednesday, November 2 to Friday, November 4 (Katsushika Campus, Tokyo University of Science).
The selection was made by the review committee based on: 1. Research content, 2. Content of the oral presentation, and 3. Question and answer session. This year, the award was presented to three researchers, including Dr. Banerjee. 

Abstract: This study marks the world’s first successful development of a system to predict the stability of RNA/DNA hybrid structures under conditions approximating the cellular environment. Using this stability prediction system, we were able to rigorously predict the efficiency of CRISPRCas9 based on nucleotide sequences. Since RNA/DNA hybrids form during biological reactions such as transcription and replication, the developed structure prediction system is expected to be utilized in fields including drug discovery, biochemistry, and pesticide development.