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Tariq Rana, Ph.D., is the founding Director of the Program in Chemical Biology and Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS). A prominent biomedical researcher at UMMS, Dr. Rana is a leader in the application of Chemical Biology to the study of human gene regulation. Dr. Ranaâ€(tm)s laboratory has ongoing research in the areas of understanding the mechanism of RNAi in human cells, targeted gene disruption by RNAi and small molecules, RNA-protein interactions, nuclear export of mRNA, analysis of genome-wide expression patterns, combinatorial and bioorganic chemistry, and cellular functions of cyclin-dependent kinases. Recently, Dr. Rana has discovered the fundamental structural and functional features of siRNA required for gene silencing in human cells. His laboratory has developed rules for creating chemically modified functional siRNA molecules as a means to improve in vivo siRNA stability and delivery. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Dr. Rana was a Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey. Dr. Rana was an American Cancer Society fellow at the University of California at Berkeley in Dr. John Hearstâ€(tm)s laboratory. Dr. Rana received his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of California at Davis in the laboratory of Dr. Claude Meares where he discovered an artificial protease. | 