About Us

 

The central dogma of molecular biology is that RNA carries information from DNA to make proteins. We now know that mRNA constitutes a minority of all RNA species.  Other types of RNA have non-informational roles as enzymes, sensors, regulators and structural building blocks. The lab is interested in this spectrum of RNA biology and focuses currently on a phenomenon called RNA-mediated silencing.

The Nobel Prize in 2006 was awarded for the discovery of RNA silencing, whereby short RNA (~21 nucleotides) silence expression of complementary genes. In humans, approximately 1000 unique genome-encoded microRNA (miRNA) regulate extended gene networks, essential for many processes including tumorgensis and neuronal differentiation.  MiRNA bind to Argonaute proteins to post-transcriptionally regulate partially complementary mRNA in partnership with a second protein called TNRC6. The endogenous miRNA system is also appropriated for a promising new class of therapeutics (RNAi) which can treat diseases for which drugs are not currently available by using short synthetic RNA to silence expression of specific disease genes with minimal side-effects.

 

Often, for simplicity, we portray processes involving RNA as occurring in a kind of cytoplasmic void governed by random encounters. However, RNA exists in proportionally vast, complex environments. To accommodate this, RNA is trafficked, dynamically activated, repressed and degraded in precise locales in response to environmental cues. The lab aims to understand the complex life of RNA in a dense cellular milieu interacting with vesicles, organelles and regulatory complexes in the context of disease.