In 2021, research led by Ryan Flynn, MD, Ph.D., and his mentor, Nobel laureate Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D., opened a new chapter in biology, characterizing a new kind of player on the cell surface: glycoRNAs. Extending this discovery recently in Cell, Flynn and colleagues showed that glycoRNAs form highly organized clusters with RNA-binding proteins on the cell surface. These clusters appear to regulate communication between cells and their environment.

Now, reporting in Nature Biotechnology, Flynn’s team in the Stem Cell Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center demonstrate a first application of this newfound biology: fighting cancer.

With collaborators at the Cambridge (UK) Stem Cell Institute, led by Konstantinos Tzelepis, Ph.D., and Maria Eleftheriou, Ph.D., they show that one RNA-binding protein on the cell surface, NPM1, could be a potent, selective target for treating acute myeloid leukemia (AML), as well as solid tumors.