The UNSW RNA Institute is Australia’s leading RNA science, therapeutics and translational facility. Established with a $25 million investment from UNSW Sydney as part of a NSW RNA Bioscience Alliance, a partnership across all universities in NSW and ACT, and the NSW Government-funded $15 million NSW RNA Production and Research Network. Together, we’re building a world-leading manufacturing capability in NSW that will yield jobs, skills, and innovation in an industry with the potential to transform lives.

The UNSW RNA Institute Accelerator, the pre-clinical scale manufacturing facility of the Institute, is pivotal in building up Australia’s own pipeline in RNA therapeutics. This facility will be able to accelerate current projects from around Australia to then utilise the $96m NSW Government funded RNA GMP Pilot facility in Sydney and other similar facilities that might be built in Australia in the near future.

The ISO 9001 certified UNSW RNA Institute Accelerator is a perfect bridge between a number of developmental facilities around the country. Importantly, the emerging national network of facilities, the UNSW RNA Institute Accelerator and the Sydney-based RNA GMP facility will ensure that Australian researchers and innovators in the RNA therapeutics space are able to maximise the value of their own intellectual property onshore from discovery to the approved clinical product.

Why work with us

The UNSW RNA Institute is open for business and collaborating with several companies and research institutes.

There are myriad ways in which we can collaborate with companies to solve problems and advance technologies.

These include, but are not limited to, scaling up (m)RNA or (lipid) nanoparticle delivery systems, developing quality control processes as well as compiling the ideal cross-disciplinary team of scientists, medical experts and engineers to advance your deep tech R&D program.

A core objective of the UNSW RNA Institute is to train the workforce for the RNA manufacturing industry and the next generation of leaders in RNA Science, Engineering and Medicine. Our research programs will be tailored to give graduate students and early career researchers the chance to collaborate in a cross-disciplinary environment, putting them in prime position to become tomorrow’s leaders in their field.

The RNA Accelerator and our strong commitment to industry collaboration will provide a great opportunity for students to get hands-on training in the techniques that underpin RNA manufacturing. Through its outreach program, the UNSW RNA Institute will also provide the broader community with educational material on RNA science, technology and therapeutics.

RNA resides both at the centre of our biology and at the frontier of biomedical research. In NSW and Australia, this frontier is being explored by the UNSW RNA Institute and our rich network of partners and collaborators.

The UNSW RNA Institute is part of the NSW RNA Production and Research Network (NSW-RPRN), a network that includes five NSW and ACT universities (UNSW, UTS, Macquarie Uni, Uni of Sydney and ANU), as well as institutions such as the Children’s Medical Research Institute, the Kirby Institute, the Westmead Institute of Medical Research, the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, the Children’s Cancer Institute and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.