Current affiliations

• Position

  Head RNA Biology Laboratory

  Company

  Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute; University of New South Wales

  Further information

City:

None chosen

Hub:

None chosen

The core research activities in my laboratory are in-depth investigations of molecular mechanisms of translational control on the one hand, and the development and application of microarray-based methods to study post- transcriptional gene regulation on the other. The latter includes array analyses of mRNA association with RNA binding proteins or polysomal complexes, as well as measurements of poly(A) tail length. Our mechanistic studies are typically conducted in cultured cells or employ cell-free translation systems of yeast or mammalian origin. Much of my work relates in some way to the conundrum of the ‘closed-loop’ model of mRNA translation. This model posits that for efficient initiation, the mRNA 5’ cap structure and 3’ poly(A) tail have to be brought in close proximity through the bridging interactions of the cap- and poly(A) binding proteins with the adaptor protein eIF4G.

Specific aims of our research are: 1) To understand the cellular role of the essential translation factor p97, a homologue of eIF4G that cannot support a ‘closed-loop’, 2) to explore the mechanism of action and the mRNA targets of microRNAs, arguably one of the most prevalent class of translation regulators that we have shown to affect closed-loop formation, 3) to address how and to what extent poly(A) tail length is used to shape expression of eukaryotic transcriptomes, and 4) to investigate the temporal sequence of events during eukaryotic translation initiation.