Jack W. Szostak

The paper introduces tinyRNA-seq, a method to sequence very short RNAs with reduced bias, and shows it outperforms commercial kits in capturing small RNA sequences.

This study uses nanopore sensing to profile PEGylation of pegaptanib, revealing PEG heterogeneity and stability in serum.

This paper discovers a ribozyme ligase that specifically catalyzes RNA ligation when the substrate has a 3'-phosphate group, suggesting a role in primordial RNA repair and offering new tools for RNA profiling.

The paper introduces RUNA, a reversible labeling chemistry to distinguish surface DNA from intracellular DNA on exosomes, revealing its role in immune cell interaction.

This study compares two phosphate-activation chemistries' effects on nucleotide modifications, showing that primordial nucleotides are more susceptible to modification, which may explain the selection of the canonical genetic alphabet.

This study examines how 2'-deoxyribo-purine substitutions affect RNA duplex stability and nonenzymatic template-directed primer extension.

This paper introduces a method to simultaneously measure tRNA sequence, modification, and aminoacylation using nanopore sequencing and machine learning.

This study shows prebiotic isocyanide chemistry activates RNA building blocks, enabling both nonenzymatic and ribozyme-catalyzed RNA ligation, supporting a unified model for RNA assembly on early Earth.

This study shows that aminoacyl-RNA loop-closing ligation is stereoselective, favoring L-amino acids over D-amino acids, and suggests this process could have contributed to the emergence of homochirality in amino acids.

This paper investigates a primordial genetic alphabet using 2-thiouridine (s2U), 2-thiocytidine (s2C), inosine (I), and adenine (A), showing that their base pairs are isoenergetic and isomorphic, enabling balanced nucleotide incorporation in nonenzymatic RNA copying.

This study describes an autocatalytic assembly pathway that generates a chimeric aminoacyl-RNA synthetase ribozyme capable of self-sustaining and assembling other ribozymes.

This study demonstrates a method to overcome nucleotide bias in nonenzymatic RNA copying using a prebiotically plausible mixture of nucleotides and oligonucleotides.

This study shows that an RNA ligase ribozyme evolved from using phosphorimidazole-activated substrates to triphosphate-activated substrates through neutral mutations, leading to a new structure and function.

The paper shows that specific RNA sequences can be nonenzymatically aminoacylated and ligated to form amino acid-bridged stem-loop RNAs, with structural and functional similarities to modern tRNA.

This paper investigates the thermodynamic and kinetic effects of coaxial stacking and dangling ends on RNA complex stability and binding kinetics.

This study investigates whether replacing adenine with diaminopurine in nonenzymatic RNA template copying improves efficiency and reduces bias.

This study investigates non-templated primer extension with alternative nucleotides to determine if RNA synthesis was biased against threo-nucleotides.

This study demonstrates nonenzymatic loop-closing ligation can assemble functional RNA hairpins without templates, enabling the formation of complex RNA structures.

The paper investigates error frequency in nonenzymatic RNA primer extension by analyzing sequence context and the competition between bridged dinucleotides and mononucleotides.

This study investigates whether early Mars could have supported RNA polymer stability by analyzing metal-catalyzed RNA degradation under simulated Martian conditions.

The paper introduces a deep-sequencing methodology to study nonenzymatic RNA primer extension and demonstrates its effectiveness in analyzing sequence access and fidelity.

This study identifies bacterial carotenoids as inhibitors of C. elegans translational surveillance and defense, with implications for human immune responses.

This study demonstrates that functional RNA ligase ribozymes can be assembled from short oligonucleotides using modified ligation chemistry.