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Jonathan Watts, PhD

Associate Professor, RNA Therapeutics Institute

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Research Focus - Medicinal Chemistry of Therapeutic RNAs

  • Chemistry and chemical biology of oligonucleotides
  • Nucleic acid drug development

Representative Publications

  • 5'-Modifications improve potency and efficacy of DNA donors for precision genome editing. Ghanta KS, Chen Z, Mir A, Dokshin GA, Krishnamurthy PM, Yoon Y, Gallant J, Xu P, Zhang XO, Ozturk AR, Shin M, Idrizi F, Liu P, Gneid H, Edraki A, Lawson ND, Rivera-Pérez JA, Sontheimer EJ, Watts JK, Mello CC.Elife. 2021 Oct 19;10:e72216. doi: 10.7554/eLife.72216.PMID: 34665130 Read Publication
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In the News

  • UMass Chan, QurAlis Corporation partnership expands on biomedical research by Joel Richter
    Jun 25, 2024

    UMass Chan, QurAlis Corporation partnership expands on biomedical research by Joel Richter

    UMass Chan Medical School and QurAlis Corporation, a clinical-stage biotechnology company investigating treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia and other neurodegenerative and neurological diseases, have formed a collaboration to investigate an antisense oligonucleotide technology for the potential treatment of fragile X syndrome.  

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  • UMass Chan scientists receive $2.3 million from Rett Syndrome Research Trust for new research
    Mar 4, 2024

    UMass Chan scientists receive $2.3 million from Rett Syndrome Research Trust for new research

    Rett syndrome is a rare genetic neurological disorder that occurs primarily in girls, eventually robbing them of the ability to speak, walk or use their hands, among other devastating effects.

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  • UMass Chan helps ‘Crack the Code’ at biotech career day in Worcester
    Oct 25, 2023

    UMass Chan helps ‘Crack the Code’ at biotech career day in Worcester

    Representatives from UMass Chan presented on several topics and career paths, including RNA Therapeutics Institute, ScienceLive, community and government relations, diversity and inclusion and media and arts in sciences.

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  • Antisense therapy restores fragile X protein production in human cells
    Jul 3, 2023

    Antisense therapy restores fragile X protein production in human cells

    An antisense therapy developed by Joel D. Richter, PhD, Sneha Shah, PhD, and Jonathan K. Watts, PhD, at UMass Chan Medical School and Elizabeth Berry-Kravis, MD, PhD, at RUSH University Medical Center, restores production of the protein FMRP in cell samples taken from patients with fragile X syndrome. 

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  • UMass Chan scientists deliver siRNA therapy to lung
    Apr 12, 2023

    UMass Chan scientists deliver siRNA therapy to lung

    A multidisciplinary team of UMass Chan scientists has developed a technology for delivering siRNA molecules locally to lung tissue, providing the first evidence of a platform capable of delivering chemically modified siRNAs to the lungs nasally and achieving robust genetic silencing.

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  • Head shot of David Keener, Phd candidate in the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
    Feb 2, 2023

    PhD candidate awarded NIH Kirschstein Award for research on Rett syndrome

    PhD candidate David Keener has received a National Institutes of Health grant to fund his research project on Rett syndrome, a genetic neurodevelopmental disease generally diagnosed in girls ages 6 to 18 months.

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  • UMass Chan ALS paper selected for STAT Madness
    Mar 1, 2022

    UMass Chan ALS paper selected for STAT Madness

    Robert H. Brown Jr., DPhil, MD, Jonathan Watts, PhD, and colleagues showed the ability to suppress mutant forms of the ALS gene known as C9ORF72 in a single-patient pilot study. The paper reporting the results is part of the 2022 STAT News STAT Madness competition.

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  • UMass Chan clinical trial shows antisense oligonucleotide safely suppresses mutant ALS gene in pilot human study
    Dec 23, 2021

    UMass Chan clinical trial shows antisense oligonucleotide safely suppresses mutant ALS gene in pilot human study

    Robert H. Brown Jr., DPhil, MD, Jonathan Watts, PhD, and colleagues have shown the ability to suppress mutant forms of an ALS gene in a single-patient pilot study.

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  • Erik Sontheimer co-leading efforts to develop gene editing toolkit by NIH Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortium
    Apr 7, 2021

    Erik Sontheimer co-leading efforts to develop gene editing toolkit by NIH Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortium

    Six UMass Medical School scientists are among the members of the National Institutes of Health’s Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortium to publish a paper in Nature outlining the program’s goals.

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  • Inside the new mRNA vaccines for COVID-19
    Dec 18, 2020

    Inside the new mRNA vaccines for COVID-19

    The new vaccines by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna use messenger RNA to stimulate the immune system to protect against COVID-19. These vaccines are the first of their kind and researchers at UMass Medical School are among the leading RNA biologists in the world.

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