RNA

RNA

Labs studying RNA

听

Allen Lab

The Allen Lab is focused on deciphering meaning in an individual person鈥檚 genome and how person-to-person DNA sequence variability contributes to personal traits, ultimately enabling personalized medicine. They devote special effort to understanding how conditions associated with Down syndrome arise from the extra copy of chromosome 21.听

Cech Lab

The Cech Lab specializes in functional RNAs, from the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of catalytic RNAs (ribozymes) to dissecting the RNA-protein complex telomerase that creates and maintains the protective ends of chromosomes to recent work on exploring the vast new territory of long noncoding RNAs to ascribe molecular function to these gene products.听

Dowell Lab

The Dowell Lab investigates transcriptional regulation through a combination of genetics and biologically informed machine learning approaches. They have developed techniques to interrogate the initial stages of RNA synthesis and dissect the role of the functional RNAs known as enhancer RNAs (鈥渆RNAs鈥). They apply these tools to understand cells with abnormal chromosome numbers, such as trisomy 21 (causing Down syndrome), many cancers, and liver regeneration.

Palmer Lab

The Palmer Lab investigates how cells regulate and respond to metal ions, how pathogens alter cell biology, and how to engineer dynamic fluorescent proteins to report on cellular changes. Their work lies at the interface of chemistry and biology and has included the development of novel, genetically encoded molecular tools.听

Perkins Lab

The Perkins Lab develops and applies high-precision single-molecule techniques鈥攁tomic force microscopy (AFM) and optical traps鈥攖o address outstanding questions in a wide range of biological systems, from DNA-protein interactions to protein folding mechanobiology.听

Rinn Lab

The Rinn Lab examines the mechanisms through which the class of functional RNAs known as long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) regulate essential biological processes. Thousands of lncRNAs exist, but only a handful are functionally understood. They combine computational and experimental sciences and develop new RNA-based tools when none exist for studying this unique category of molecules.听