e study how tRNAs, sORFs and other ncRNAs influence cellular physiology. At the molecular level, these changes are implicated in many important processes such as stress resistance, cell survival, apoptosis, cell signaling, RNAi, and protein synthesis. Manifestation of these changes is implicated in several human diseases including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS/Lou Gehrig’s disease) and Parkinson’s Disease. tRNAs, sORFs and other ncRNAs and can also accelerate the virulence of bacterial pathogens and viruses.
Our laboratory uses state-of-the-art, genome-scale methods such as a specialized RNA-seq method coupled with Ribo-seq to identify which RNAs are altered in conditions that mimic diseases. We complement these approaches with other genome-wide methods such as proteomics, metabolomics, and bioinformatics to pinpoint how the RNAs reprogram cells to cause disease.