TransCode Therapeutics, Inc. announced the appointment of Frank J. Slack, PhD, to its advisory board. Dr. Slack is the Shields Warren Mallinckrodt Professor, Department of Pathology, and Director of the Harvard Medical School Initiative for RNA Medicine (HIRM),Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Directed by Dr. Slack, the HIRM Initiative harnesses the potential of RNA to revolutionize the way cancer and other diseases are treated and diagnosed.

Dr. Slack received his BSc from the University of Cape Town in South Africa before completing his PhD in molecular biology at Tufts University School of Medicine. He began work on microRNAs as a postdoctoral fellow in Gary Ruvkun's laboratory at Harvard Medical School, where he co-discovered the first human microRNA, let-7. Dr. Slack's laboratory is at the forefront of the small RNA revolution. In addition to co-discovering let-7 and showing that it is a tumor suppressor that controls key cancer genes such as RAS, MYC and LIN28, the Slack lab also proved that microRNAs act as key oncogenes and developed strategies to target these oncomiRs for cancer therapy.

Their research also extends to discovery of additional small RNAs in cancer, aging and diabetes as well as identifying novel SNPs in the non-coding portions of the genome with an eye to identifying the next generation of actionable targets in cancer.