Congratulations to Venkat Gopalan (Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Adjunct Professor of Molecular Genetics) and Anita Hopper (Professor of Molecular Genetics) who are co-PIs on a recently awarded CCC-CURES Accelerator Grant! The grant entitled "Evaluating the promise of RNase P, a catalytic ribonucleoprotein, as an anti-cancer target" examines RNase P, an essential ribonucleoprotein complex with a single catalytic RNA and one or more proteins, which catalyzes the removal of 5’ leaders of pre-tRNAs in all domains of life. Recently, this endonuclease also has been shown to act on additional cancer-relevant, noncoding RNAs.  The CCC-CUREs Accelerator Award funds exploratory research to test if yeast (eukaryotic) RNase P is “druggable”, a collaborative undertaking with Dr. John Schneekloth, NCI.