To date, it would be impossible to image a world without drugs. However, have you ever thought
about the working mechanism of a drug in the body or with which specific molecules this drug
interacts? When developing a drug, this is the first question that needs to be addressed. Most
approved drugs to date interact with certain proteins, however other interaction partners are
required to expand the scope of treatable diseases. New identified drug targets are ribonucleic
acids (RNAs) and the need exist for the development of drugs that either interact with a certain
RNA or acts as an RNA mimic. However, this is only possible when all the different interaction
partners of that specific RNA are known. Our research therefore focuses on the identification of
such RNA interaction partners, more specifically a subclass of these RNAs called long non-coding
RNAs (lncRNAs), which are correlated with diseases like cancer. A methodology will be developed
to pull the lncRNA and its targets out of a complex environment, enabling its identification.