“The age of RNA and how it is transforming biology and medicine”

Professor Pall Thordarson FRSN
UNSW RNA Institute and School of Chemistry
UNSW Sydney

Date: Thursday, 19 February 2026, 6.30–7.30 pm AEDT
Venue: RSL Mittagong, Carrington Room
Entry: Members, $5; Non-members, $10 (please note: cashless payments only)
All are welcome

Summary: This is the age of RNA. Ribonucleic acid (RNA) likely played a central role in the origin of life, yet for most of the twentieth century it was considered merely a ‘middleman’ in biology; transcribed from DNA into messenger RNA (mRNA) and then translated to proteins with no other significant roles. Today, we know that less than 2% of human DNA codes for proteins, while over 98% is transcribed into various non-coding RNAs, sometimes referred to as the dark genome. Equally importantly, we have now developed a powerful tool to study, make and even deliver man-made RNA molecules to our bodies.

In this talk, he will discuss the two facets of the ongoing RNA revolution: in biology and in medicine. In biology, we are slowly realising that RNA roles go way beyond being ‘just’ a messenger; it is a primary signal and architectural building block of the cell. The revolution in medicine is equally transformative. This is in part because RNA represents a totally different category of therapeutics, namely informational drugs, which differ from structural drugs such as small molecules and protein-based therapeutics. The world witnessed the power of this technology with mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines in 2020. However, vaccines are just the beginning; highly effective (and cheaper) RNA-based cancer therapeutics are now in late-stage clinical trials. The RNA-based CRISPR gene editing method has also been successfully employed to treat rare, lethal genetic disorders in infants.

Professor Pall Thordarson (Palli) obtained his BSc from the University of Iceland in 1996 and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Sydney in 2001. Following a Marie Curie Fellowship in the Netherlands, he returned to Australia in 2003 and was subsequently appointed as a Senior Lecturer at UNSW Sydney in 2007, where he was promoted to Full Professor in 2017. He is the Director of the UNSW RNA Institute and the program leader for the NSW RNA Production and Research Network. He served as the President of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) from 2022-2024.

Palli has published over 150 refereed papers, including in prestigious journals such as Nature and Nature Nanotechnology. His research interests range from RNA, nanomedicine, and peptides to supramolecular and systems chemistry. He is focused on advancing our understanding of how molecules interact with one another and ‘self-assemble’, and how self-assembly can then be harnessed to create novel functional materials and systems. He has received a number of awards, including the 2012 Le Fèvre Memorial Prize from the Australian Academy of Science for outstanding basic research in Chemistry by a Scientist under the age of 40 and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) Leighton Memorial Medal in 2026.

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