Rayva Technology — Moonshot Challenge 2021

Introduction

Rayva Technologies is a moonshot idea for the TKS Moonshot Challenge 2021. It involves using RNAi (otherwise known as RNA interference) to edit genes that cause hereditary obesity, and the reason why this is such a big problem is that 36.5% of adults in the US are obese (a BMI of over 30).

That’s a lot.

And most people think that the difference with being obese and not being obese is a lifestyle change, when in reality, that might not be the case, and it might just be in your genes.

So, what genes cause hereditary obesity?

There are a wide variety of hereditary obesity genes, but the one that we will be focusing on today is the MC4R gene, aka the Melanocortin 4 receptor. This is the most common gene to cause hereditary obesity, and this might seem surprising but it accounts for 5% of the hereditary obesity cases, a.k.a 66.5 million people approximately.

And here is where the RNAi process starts.

Well, how does RNAi work then?

The RNAi process starts in the powerhouse factory of your body: cells. Your cells produce a double-stranded RNA molecule, which is sliced and diced by one of two aptly named proteins: Dicer. Then, RISC comes in, splits the already tiny pieces in half, looks for matching mRNA which slots in with the tiny bits we created earlier, and aptly named protein two (Slicer), comes in and chops it up into small bits as well.

After this, when the abnormally sized pieces of RNA and mRNA reach the ribosome, the ribosome says “Hmmm, I don’t recognize this!” and completely gets rid of these small bits, preventing them from becoming proteins. Voila!

Conclusion

So there you have it. Gene editing is super interesting, being very new to the topic prior to this. I definitely would say that this challenge was a great and fun experience, and I’m definitely looking forward to doing this again! 😄