Exploring the wild unknowns of gene regulation
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Jane Austen’s iconic opening to Pride & Prejudice doesn’t just begin a novel, it announces its destination: courtship, marriage, fate. In our lab, we study how molecules do something remarkably similar. We explore how the opening chapter of a protein’s life determines its fate – how much of it is made, how it is processed, how long it survives, and, even more fascinatingly, what happens to the book itself.
The ribosome is the molecular machine that translates genetic information in RNA molecules into proteins. But it also serves as a control center that integrates what happens to the messenger RNA, what happens to the newly made protein, what is happening in the cellular internal and external environment, and what is happening in development. In other words, the ribosome isn’t just a machine of protein synthesis, it is a site of profound decision-making. The ribosome regulates gene expression. The ribosome itself is controlled, and the ribosome evolves.
And this is the world we explore in our research.
“One day, long ago,
RNA learned how to move,
and so life began.”
