Over the last decade, RNA biology has emerged as one of the most influential areas in modern biomedicine. The discovery of numerous new classes of RNA and their functions in a variety of cellular processes has revolutionized cancer biology and will have profound implications for clinical sciences. In addition, the use of microarray techniques to identify small molecules that specifically bind structured RNA motifs is a promising step towards developing novel therapeutic strategies.
In my research projects, I have used biochemical and molecular approaches to study the structure and function of viral coding (minigenomic RNAs) and non-coding RNAs (viral lncRNA) through application of high-resolution chemo-enzymatic probing techniques and high-throughput deep-sequencing methods in combination with novel computational tools.
An area of special interest to me is defining how RNA structure governs its function in cellular processes, and how structured motifs can function as molecular scaffolds for various effector molecules such as DNA, RNA and proteins.
