Circular RNA Production Gets 7x More Efficient Opening New Doors for Longevity Medicine
South Korean biotech Rznomics redesigned its circular RNA platform, achieving sevenfold efficiency gains and unlocking larger therapeutic genes.
Summary
Circular RNA (circRNA) is more stable inside the body than standard linear RNA, making it attractive for vaccines, protein therapies, and cancer treatments. But manufacturing it reliably — especially for larger genes — has been a persistent bottleneck. South Korean biotech Rznomics says it has cracked a key piece of that problem. By identifying optimal folding sites within RNA sequences and modifying a structural component called the P1 construct with a polyA10 and antisense sequence, the company achieved up to sevenfold improvements in self-circularization efficiency. The upgraded platform outperformed the field's standard PIE method by roughly twofold when producing a large Factor VIII-encoding sequence nearly 8 kilobases long. This matters for longevity and regenerative medicine because durable, efficient RNA components are foundational to next-generation therapies including CAR-T cancer treatments and long-lasting protein therapeutics.
Detailed Summary
Circular RNA has long attracted attention in medicine because its closed-loop structure resists degradation by the body's enzymes far better than linear RNA. That durability translates into steadier protein output, fewer required doses, and a more robust platform for building the vaccines and regenerative therapies that longevity medicine increasingly depends on. Yet manufacturing circRNA efficiently — particularly for larger genetic sequences — has remained a stubborn technical obstacle. Rznomics, a South Korean biopharmaceutical company, has now published a significant advance addressing that bottleneck.
The company's Self-Targeting and Splicing (STS) platform allows RNA molecules to fold and circularize during transcription without external stitching. The new study, published in Nucleic Acids Research, identified that the precise location of the folding site within the RNA sequence is critical — a detail previously underappreciated. By running a systematic screen, researchers found optimal sites that dramatically improved closure rates.
Building on that insight, the team modified the P1 structural construct by adding a polyA10 sequence and a complementary antisense sequence to grip the target site more tightly. Combined with smarter site selection, this yielded up to sevenfold greater self-circularization efficiency compared to the original STS design. When tested on a Factor VIII-encoding RNA of roughly 7.8 kilobases — a therapeutically relevant gene of substantial size — the optimized method outperformed the widely used Permuted Intron-Exon technique by approximately twofold.
The implications extend across multiple therapeutic areas. Factor VIII replacement is relevant to hemophilia, but the broader significance is the platform's new ability to handle genes of 8 kilobases or more — large enough to encode a meaningful range of therapeutic proteins. The company has signaled plans to apply the technology to CAR-T cell therapies, an area already transforming cancer treatment.
Caveats remain: this is early-stage platform research from a company with commercial interests, and clinical validation lies ahead. Still, removing upstream manufacturing constraints could meaningfully accelerate the timeline for circRNA-based longevity, cancer, and regenerative medicine applications.
Key Findings
- Rznomics' redesigned circRNA platform achieves up to sevenfold higher self-circularization efficiency versus the original method.
- Optimal folding-site selection within RNA sequences is a critical, previously underappreciated variable in circRNA production.
- The upgraded system outperformed the standard PIE technique twofold when producing a large ~7.8 kb Factor VIII-encoding RNA.
- Improved efficiency unlocks production of circRNA from genes approaching 8 kilobases, expanding the range of treatable conditions.
- The platform is being developed for CAR-T cancer therapies, which depend on stable, high-performing RNA components.
Methodology
This is a news report summarizing a peer-reviewed study published in Nucleic Acids Research on 4 September 2026. The source, Longevity.Technology, is a credible science-news outlet covering the field; the underlying research is company-conducted but published in a respected journal. Evidence is based on laboratory efficiency measurements comparing the upgraded STS platform against the PIE method.
Study Limitations
The research is early-stage laboratory work conducted by the company itself, raising potential conflicts of interest. No human clinical data are presented, and translation from platform optimization to approved therapy involves many additional steps. Readers should consult the primary Nucleic Acids Research paper for full methodological detail and raw efficiency metrics.
Enjoyed this summary?
Get the latest longevity research delivered to your inbox every week.
Enter your email to subscribe: