Day 2Thursday, October 16, 2025 - UTC+08:00

The Nucleic Acid Therapeutics Initiative (NATi) is Singapore’s national platform to accelerate RNA drug and vaccine development through a robust translational engine. In this keynote, Dr Mohamed ElSayed will share how NATi is transforming Singapore into a globally competitive hub for RNA innovation. By integrating public research, biotech agility, and strategic partnerships, NATi bridges the translational gap enabling rapid progression from discovery to early clinical development. The initiative focuses on high-value clinical assets, modular technology platforms, targeting unmet needs in immunology, ophthalmology, and cardiometabolic diseases. NATi also plays a critical role in pandemic preparedness, leveraging RNA’s speed and scalability. This presentation will highlight how NATi catalyzes biotech formation, enriches local talent, and drives commercial value—positioning Singapore at the forefront of RNA medicine.

• Overview of mRNA and its traditional role in vaccine
• Overview of mRNA applications beyond vaccines
• 2-3 examples of alternative mRNA use
• Current challenges in the application of mRNA beyond vaccines

• Synthetic, enzymatically produced DNA is shaping the future of mRNA manufacture: rapid, scalable GMP-grade production capable of handling complex sequences and long poly A tails without the bacterial contaminants.
• Explore opDNA®, an application-specific IVT template open at the 3’ end, facilitating direct use in the IVT reaction without enzymatic linearization. As a linear template without bacterial backbone sequences, equivalent mRNA yields are achieved with less DNA mass.
• Homologous recombination of polyA tails in bacterial hosts is a major limitation of plasmid DNA. 4basebio’s enzymatic platform can handle long polyA tails (>180 bp) encoded directly into the template, while our novel polyA analytics ensure homogeneity in every construct.
• Clinically validated and regulatory-ready, opDNA® supports efficient, flexible, and compliant manufacturing. This approach can support clinical programs at every scale, from large-scale production to small-batch and scale-out demands of personalized immunotherapies.

• Identification of conserved structural motifs in viral RNA using computational and experimental approaches, revealing functional elements applicable to synthetic mRNA design for enhanced stability and translation
• Analysis of structure-function relationships in viral RNA regions and their application in optimizing mRNA therapeutics for improved cellular uptake, reduced immunogenicity, and controlled protein expression

• Insights and innovations in the scale-up of oligonucleotide synthesis
• Holistic approach to CMC challenges to advance pipelines to Clinic

• Detailing the development of ASO research that promotes targeted exon skipping in the dystrophin gene, restoring the reading frame to enable production of functional dystrophin protein in DMD patients.
• Highlighting preclinical and clinical data on efficacy, biodistribution, and safety, as well as advances in delivery systems to enhance uptake in muscle tissues and improve therapeutic outcomes

• Unlocking strategic investment opportunities by connecting global pharma and venture capital with emerging RNA innovators and startups across APAC.
• Driving collaborative pipelines between international pharma and APAC biotech through co-development deals, technology sharing, and regional commercialization strategies.
• Showcasing Asia-Pacific as a hub for external innovation, with growing biotech ecosystems, supportive policy environments, and robust clinical trial and manufacturing capabilities.