With this award, the Molecular Foundations for Biotechnology (MFB) Program is funding Dr. Oded Regev from New York University (NYU) and Dr. Jef Boeke from NYU Langone Health to develop a novel experimental method (PolySnap-seq) to probe the positions of ribosomes along individual RNA molecules. Ribosomes are molecular machines that produce proteins by “walking” along RNA and reading the instructions written in it. Despite being critical for life, it is currently not clear how ribosomes organize along an RNA molecule during gene expression. Are they equally spaced along the RNA molecule or do they cluster to form “convoys”? Do they maintain a safe distance from each other or pile up in “traffic jams”? The experimental method uses an enzyme to modify the bases of RNAs that are not protected by the ribosomes, thereby allowing researchers to take a snapshot of the simultaneous positions of all ribosomes along an RNA molecule. As such, the method provides novel insights into ribosome collective behavior and enables new biotechnology applications to, for example, optimize gene expression. This project provides graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with specialized training in method development, data analysis, and machine learning. Finally, an outreach component uses “yeast art” to introduce the general public to biotechnology. The efficiency in which ribosomes translate mRNA into proteins is affected by a complex regulatory logic encoded in RNA sequence and structure. Unde