The Center for Nanoscale Imaging Sciences offers seed awards for research between Center PIs. The goal with these awards is to initiate new collaborative research directions and to support submissions of larger-scale proposals within the Center’s topical areas. The Center granted one $50,000 seed award in summer 2025 to the following project:
Development of a Single-Molecule Imaging Platform to Elucidate Z-RNA Dynamics and Immune Regulation
Yang Gao (Assistant Professor of BioSciences and CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research) and Quanbing Mou (Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Norman Hackerman-Welch Young Investigator, and Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Junior Faculty Chair) were awarded a seed grant to develop live-cell imaging tools to visualize Z-RNA—a left-handed double-stranded RNA structure that plays a critical role in innate immune activation. Although Z-RNA is thought to regulate immune responses via protein factors ADAR1 and ZBP1, current methods for detecting Z-RNA lack the sensitivity and specificity needed to observe it in living cells. The team will engineer a fluorescent, single-molecule Z-RNA sensor (smLiveZ) by fusing Z-RNA-binding domains to multivalent fluorophores, enabling real-time imaging of Z-RNA dynamics in mammalian cells. They will use this system to investigate how ADAR1 and ZBP1 recognize Z-RNA and trigger immune responses, offering insight into mechanisms of inflammation and autoimmunity. This technology has the potential to transform our understanding of RNA structure-mediated immunity and could inspire new therapeutic strategies in cancer and antiviral defense.
The Center granted one $40,000 seed award in fall 2025 to the following project:
Single-Molecule Imaging of RNA Modifications in Glioblastoma Malignancy
Yuan Ma (Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Norman Hackerman-Welch Young Investigator, and Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Junior Faculty Chair) and Anna-Karin Gustavsson (Assistant Professor of Chemistry, of BioSciences, and of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research) were awarded a seed grant to develop single-molecule imaging method of RNA modifications to investigate their function in glioblastoma malignancy. Glioblastoma is a lethal brain cancer in which tumor cells form intimate electrical and chemical connections with neurons, yet the molecular signals that mediate this crosstalk remain poorly defined. The team will develop 3D super-resolution imaging and live-cell single-molecule tracking tools to visualize N6-methyladenosine (m6A), the most abundant internal mRNA modification, on individual transcripts at nanoscale neuron–glioma contact sites and follow their dynamics in real time. By mapping where and when m6A marks appear during neuron–glioma interactions, this work will reveal how m6A-modified RNAs regulate tumor growth, invasion, and treatment response within neural circuits and could identify new therapeutic strategies that disrupt tumor-promoting neural activity rather than targeting tumor cells alone.