New Ligation Approach: Technology for High Quality Manufacturing of Over 150 mer RNA

Wataru Kurosawa, Ph.D., General Manager of Business Development at Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services

New Ligation Approach: Technology for High Quality Manufacturing of Over 150 mer RNA

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It has never been possible to synthesize partially or heavily modified RNA strands that are over 100 mer long with high quality and high yield using continuous solid phase synthesis or in vitro transcription...until now. In this presentation, I will introduce our new synthetic method for producing high-quality long RNA strands through the enzymatic ligation of several short oligonucleotides. At Aji Bio-Pharma, we have successfully produced RNA strands that are over 150 mer long with base modification. Using this method, we have also synthesized protein-encoding mRNA, which are over 500 mer long. Our revolutionary solution enables the synthesis of partially or heavily modified long RNA strands, which were previously unfeasible to produce using earlier methods.

Wataru Kurosawa is general manager of oligonucleotide business development at Osaka site of Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services. Prior to working in business development for 6 years, Wataru worked in the research institute of Ajinomoto for 15 years, during which time he spent 2 years as an academic visitor at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor Stephen G. Davies. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in the total synthesis of the natural product under the supervision of Professor Toru Fukuyama.