Post-transcriptional regulation of genes is critical for the proper temporal and spatial expression of gene products. mRNA transcripts contain cis AU-rich elements (AUREs) in their 3’ untranslated region (UTR) that facilitate the binding of trans acting stability factors. AUREs however remain poorly characterized. Using regular expressions inherent in the PERL programming language, coupled to the Ensemble Human Transcriptome database, we confirm trends observed in already characterized 3’ UTRs as well as identify several significant and novel 3’ UTR flanking sequences that may have biological significance.