Craig Martin

Professor Martin’s lab at UMass Amherst has studied the enzymology of T7 RNA polymerase for more than 35 years. This enzyme is widely used to manufacture RNA for a wide variety of applications, including the SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines. Exploiting their vast knowledge base, and in collaboration with a chemical engineer at UMass, they are developing novel flow manufacturing approaches for the synthesis of RNA free of dsRNA at the outset. These approaches will also yield significant manufacturing cost reductions.