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17-20 SEPTEMBER 2019

Cambridge, UK

RNA epigenetics in human disease

Speakers

The organisers are delighted to confirm the following speakers will be presenting at the conference.

Shankar Balasubramanian


Shankar Balasubramanian

Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry

University of Cambridge

Sir Shankar Balasubramanian is the Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and senior group leader at the Cambridge Institute. He works on the chemistry, structure and function of nucleic acids. He is a co-inventor of the leading next generation DNA sequencing methodology, Solexa sequencing (now Illumina) that has made routine, accurate, low-cost sequencing of human genomes a reality and has revolutionised biology. He has worked on the identification, elucidation and manipulation of non-coding genetic elements, particularly four-stranded structures called G-quadruplexes. His work on the intervention of nucleic acid function using small molecules has revealed a number of molecular mechanisms that can be exploited, e.g. to modulate the biology of cancer. His more recent contributions include the development of methods for sequencing the epigenetic DNA bases 5-methylcytosine, 5-hydroxymethylcytosine and 5-formylcytosine at single base resolution, as part of a broader investigation of the importance of wider, natural DNA alphabet. His collective contributions span fundamental chemistry and its application to the biological and medical sciences. Sir Shankar was knighted in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours in 2017 for his services to science and medicine and awarded the Royal Society’s Royal Medal in 2018.

Thomas Carell


Thomas Carell

Professor for Chemistry

LMU Munich

Thomas Carell (Ph. D) was raised in Bad-Salzuflen (Germany). He studied chemistry at the Universities of Münster and Heidelberg. In 1993 he obtained his doctorate with Prof. H. A. Staab at the Max Planck Institute of Medical Research in Heidelberg. After postdoctoral training with Prof. J. Rebek at MIT (Cambridge, USA) in 1993-1995, Thomas Carell moved to the ETH Zürich (Switzerland) as an assistant professor to start independent research. He obtained his habilitation (tenure) in 2000. He subsequently accepted a full professor position for Organic Chemistry at the Philipps-Universität in Marburg (Germany). In 2004 Thomas Carell moved to the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich (Germany), where he is heading a research group centered around chemical biology. The current focus is to analyze the chemistry of epigenetic programming in DNA and RNA. Thomas Carell founded the company Baseclick GmBH in 2008. He is a member of the National German Academy, Leopoldina and of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a recipient of the Cross of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany. Thomas Carell obtained the Leibniz award from the DFG in 2003 (comparable to an HHMI investigator in the USA) and an ERC advanced grant in 2017. Thomas Carell is the speaker of the Excellence Cluster (EXC114) on protein chemistry and of the collaborative research center (SFB749) on Chemical Dynamics.

Pierre Close


Pierre Close

Dr

University of Liege

During my PhD with Pr Alain Chariot at the University of Liege (Belgium), my work focused on understanding molecular and cellular functions of Elongator, a six subunits complex (Elp1 to Elp6), which harbors an atypical acetyltransferase activity involved in cancer cell migration as well as in neuronal migration and development 1–3. I was awarded with an EMBO fellowship and I joined the lab of Pr Jesper Svejstrup at London Research Institute (Cancer Research UK, Clare Hall Laboratories), with the ambition to establish connections between gene transcription - mRNA biology and proteome expression. We biochemically purified nascent, chromatin-associated mRNP particles and we identified a novel protein complex that acts at the interface between mRNP particles and RNAPII, integrating transcript elongation to alternative splicing and proteome expression 4. Since 2013, I established my lab at the GIGA- Institute of the University of Liege. Our work is dedicated to understanding the mechanisms underlying cancer development through changes in proteome expression, mRNA translation and tRNA regulation. Using a combination of classical biochemistry, proteomics analysis, in vivo models of cancer, and patient-derived material, our goal is to uncover crucial regulation mechanisms supporting cancer cell adaptation during disease progression and resistance to therapy. Over the last years, my lab uncovered the essential role of wobble uridine tRNA modification in cancer by regulating specific mRNA translation. We found that wobble uridine tRNA modification is crucial for tumor initiation in the intestine 5, metastasis formation in breast cancer 6 through regulation of the synthesis of specific oncoproteins 7. More recently, we discovered that wobble tRNA modification promotes codon-specific translation reprogramming in melanoma and is one such mechanism promoting resistance to targeted therapy 8-9.

  1. Close P. et al, Molecular Cell 2006
  2. Creppe C. et al, Cell 2009
  3. Close P. et al, Journal of Biological Chemistry 2012
  4. Close P. et al, Nature 2012
  5. Ladang A. et al, Journal of Experimental Medicine 2015
  6. Delaunay S. et al, Journal of Experimental Medicine 2016
  7. Rapino et al, Trends in Cancer 2017
  8. Rapino et al, Nature 2018
  9. Rapino & Close, Molecular and Cellular Oncology 2018

Robert Copeland


Robert A. Copeland

President, Chief Scientific Officer & Co-founder

Accent Therapeutics, Inc.

Robert A. Copeland, Ph.D. is President, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder of Accent Therapeutics and also President of the independent consulting firm, Ki Consultant, LLC. He was formerly President of Research and Chief Scientific Officer of Epizyme, Inc. and before that, Vice President of Cancer Biology, Oncology Center of Excellence in Drug Discovery, GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Copeland received his doctorate in chemistry from Princeton University and did postdoctoral studies as the Chaim Weizmann Fellow at the California Institute of Technology. He has contributed to drug discovery and development efforts leading to 18 investigational new drugs entering human clinical trials. These include the cancer drugs foretinib, afuresertib, pinometostat, tazemetostat, Tafinlar (dabrafenib) and Mekinist (trametinib) and the antibiotic Altabax (retapamulin). Dr. Copeland has contributed more than 200 publications to the scientific literature, holds 14 issued U.S. patents and has authored 5 books in the areas of protein science and enzymology. His most recent book, Evaluation of Enzyme Inhibitors in Drug Discovery: A Guide for Medicinal Chemists and Pharmacologists, 2nd Edition (Wiley, Hoboken, NJ), published in March 2013. In 2016 Dr. Copeland was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Valérie de Crécy-Lagard


Valérie de Crécy-Lagard

Professor

University of Florida

After a PhD in microbial genetics at the Pasteur Institute (Paris), Valérie de Crécy-Lagard worked in academic and industrial settings using the power of bacterial genetics to study primary and secondary metabolism as well as mechanisms of regulation by proteolysis. In the past 20 years, her work has focused on combining comparative genomic analysis with experimental methods to discover the function of the many ‘unknowns’ found in sequenced genomes, first at the Scripps Research Institute and then, since 2004, in the Microbiology and Cell Science Department at the University of Florida. This led to solving many long-standing mysteries, particularly in the fields of coenzyme metabolism and transfer RNA (tRNA) modification. In parallel, she collaborates with biotech groups on using long-term cultures to evolve microorganisms with specific traits. Full Bibliography: 136 peer reviewed publications, h-index 45 Google Scholar Profile

Michaela Frye


Michaela Frye

Principal Investigator

German Cancer Research Center - DKFZ

Michaela Frye completed her PhD in Frankfurt/Main in Germany in 2000 studying the role of epithelial defensins in Cystic Fibrosis. In 2001, she joined Cancer Research UK (CR-UK) in London as a Postdoctoral Fellow, where she developed her fascination for the question how stem cells form and maintain adult tissues. In 2007, Michaela started her independent research group at the Wellcome Trust – Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. She received a CR-UK Career Development Fellowship in 2007 and a CR-UK Senior Fellowship and an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2013 to study how dysregulation of stem cell function contributes to human diseases and cancer. In 2019 she has accepted a Professorship at the DKFZ in Heidelberg Germany.

Francois Fuks


Francois Fuks

ULB – University of Brussels and EPICS Therapeuticss

François Fuks received a postgraduate degree in molecular biology at University of Brussels (ULB), Belgium, and performed his PhD thesis at the DKFZ in Heidelberg, Germany. Next, F. Fuks joined the laboratory of Prof. Tony Kouzarides at the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, UK, where he initiated his work on epigenetics. He then established his own laboratory at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Brussels. Currently, François is the Director of the Laboratory of Cancer Epigenetics and Full Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, ULB, Brussels. He is also the Director of the ULB-Cancer Research Center (Brussels). Dr. Fuks’ research focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying epigenetic alterations in cancer, with a particular interest in the study of DNA modifications. His recent research concerns RNA modifications in health and disease. François also founded with Jean Combalbert Epics Therapeutics, a drug discovery company that aims to develop small molecule drugs targeting RNA epigenetics.

Richard Gregory


Richard Gregory

Principal Investigator

Boston Children's Hospital

Richard I. Gregory. Ph.D. is Professor in the Departments of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, and Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and Principal Investigator in The Stem Cell Program in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Boston Children’s Hospital. He is also co-Director and executive committee member of the Harvard Initiative for RNA Medicine, and Principal faculty member of The Harvard Stem Cell Institute. His undergraduate studies were at the University of Liverpool, UK, and he received a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 2001, for research performed at the Babraham Institute, Cambridge. He did his postdoctoral work at the Fox Chase Cancer Center and the Wistar Institute, Philadelphia. His postdoctoral research focused on mechanisms of microRNA biogenesis, and was supported by a Jane Coffin Childs Research Fellowship. Since its establishment in 2006 research in the Gregory laboratory has focused on understanding molecular and cellular mechanisms of RNA regulation and the relevance of these pathways in stem cell biology, development, and human diseases including cancer.

Chuan He


Chuan He

Professor

The University of Chicago

Dr. He is the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago. He received his bachelor of science degree in 1994 from the University of Science and Technology of China and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000, studying under professor Stephen J. Lippard. After training as a Damon-Runyon postdoctoral fellow with professor Gregory L. Verdine at Harvard University, he joined the University of Chicago as an assistant professor, rising to associate professor in 2008 and full professor in 2010. He was selected as an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2013. Dr. He’s research spans a broad range of fields including chemical biology, RNA biology, epigenetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, and genomics. His recent research concerns reversible RNA and DNA methylation in biological regulation. His laboratory has spearheaded the development of enabling technologies to study the biology of 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) in mammalian genomes. In 2011, his group discovered reversible RNA methylation as a new mechanism of gene expression regulation.

Stacy Horner


Stacy Horner

Assistant Professor

Duke University Medical Center

Dr. Stacy M. Horner is currently an Assistant Professor in the departments of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology and Medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine, where she is also the Co-director for the Duke Center for RNA Biology. Stacy received her Ph.D. in 2007 from Yale University, where she studied human papillomaviruses under the mentorship of Dr. Daniel DiMaio. Her postdoctoral research, sponsored by Irvington Institute Fellowship Program of the Cancer Research Institute, was with Dr. Michael Gale at the University of Washington, and focused on hepatitis C virus regulation of antiviral innate immunity. She started her independent lab at Duke in 2013. Research in her laboratory is defining the virus-host interactions that control the outcome of infection to hepatitis C virus and other viruses in the Flaviviridae family. She and her team are also identifying the molecular mechanisms of how these viruses activate and evade host innate immune defenses, as well as deciphering how the RNA modification N6-methyladeonsine regulates Flaviviridae virus infection and antiviral innate immunity. Stacy has received the Ann Palmenberg Junior Investigator Award from the American Society for Virology, the ASM Microbe Junior Investigator Award, and both the Milstein Young Investigator Award and the Christina Fleischmann Award from the Cytokines Society. She is also currently a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease.

Samie Jaffrey


Samie Jaffrey

Professor

Weill Medical College, Cornell University

Dr. Samie Jaffrey is the Greenberg-Starr Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the Weill Cornell Medical College. He received an M.D. and Ph.D. in 1999 from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he studied mechanisms of nitric oxide signaling with Dr. Solomon H. Snyder and started his own laboratory at Weill Cornell Medical College in 2001. Dr. Jaffrey’s work has fundamentally advanced our understanding of RNA biology and gene regulation. His lab developed genetically encoded fluorescent RNAs for imaging RNA localization and trafficking in live cells, including the Spinach-tagged RNAs. He has extended this technology to create a new class of genetically encoded biosensors composed of RNA that allows signaling molecules to be imaged in living cells. Most recently, he has helped to launch the field of “epitranscriptomics,” which relates to the diverse nucleotide modifications that impact the fate and function of mRNA and long noncoding RNAs in cells. Dr. Jaffrey’s transcriptome-wide mapping of N6-methyladenosine (m6A) in 2012 revealed that m6A is a pervasive modification in the transcriptome, thereby identifying this modification as a fundamentally novel form post-transcriptional mRNA regulation. Since this seminal study, Dr. Jaffrey mapped dimethyladenosine (m6Am) and established functions of m6A and m6Am as well as m6A and m6Am reader, writer, and eraser proteins.

Narry Kim


Narry Kim

Professor

Institute for Basic Science and Seoul National University

Narry Kim has made major contributions to RNA biology. She has been studying how microRNAs and mRNAs are made and regulated, and what microRNAs and mRNAs do to modulate cell signaling in cancer and embryonic stem cells. Her research group found and investigated several key factors in the microRNA pathway including Drosha, DGCR8, and Lin28, and discovered many pluripotent stem cell-specific microRNAs. More recently, Kim uncovered new gene regulatory mechanisms through RNA tailing such as uridylation and adenylation, and identified the factors and biological functions of RNA tailing. Narry Kim currently serves as the Director of RNA Research Center at Institute for Basic Science and a Professor of Biological Sciences at Seoul National University. She received her Ph.D. in 1998 from Oxford University, UK, where she studied the functions of retroviral proteins in the construction of gene transfer vectors in the Kingsman lab. She then carried out her postdoctoral research on mRNA surveillance in the laboratory of Gideon Dreyfuss at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. She set up her own research group at Seoul National University in 2001. Narry Kim received L’Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science Award (2008), the Ho-Am Prize in Medicine (2009), the S-Oil Fellowship (2013), the Korea S&T Award (2013), Chen Award (2017) and Asan Awards in Medicine (2019), and was elected as Foreign Associate of European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO, 2013), Foreign Associate of National Academy of Science (NAS, 2014), and Member of Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST, 2014).

Tony Kouzarides


Tony Kouzarides

Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge and STORM Therapeutics

Tony Kouzarides is professor of Cancer Biology at the University of Cambridge. He is a senior group leader at the Gurdon Institute and founder/director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute. Tony did his PhD at the University of Cambridge and postdoctoral work at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and at New York University Medical Center. His research group at the Gurdon Institute is focused on epigenetic modifications and their involvement in cancer. Tony is founder/director of Cambridge Gravity, Cambridge University science fundraising organisation, and founder (ex-director) of Conquer Cancer ("Vencer el Cancer") a cancer charity in Spain. Tony is a co-founder and ex-director of Abcam plc, a publicly trading research reagents company in Cambridge, a co-founder and ex-director of Chroma Therapeutics, of a drug discovery company based in Oxford and a co-founder and director of STORM Therapeutics, a drug discovery company based in Cambridge. Tony is a member of the European Molecular Biology organization, a Fellow of the British Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Cancer Research UK Gibbs Fellow. He has been awarded the Wellcome Trust medal for research in biochemistry related to medicine (UK), the Tenovus Medal (UK), the Bodossaki Foundation prize in Biology (Greece), the Bijvoet Medal (Holland), the Biochemical Society Award Novartis Medal and Prize (UK) and the Heinrich Wieland Prize (Germany).

Kamil Kranc


Kamil Kranc

Chair of Haematology

Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London

Professor Kamil Kranc is Chair of Haematology and Deputy Lead of Centre for Haemato-Oncology in the Barts Cancer Institute (Queen Mary University of London). He received an M.D. in 2000 from Medical University of Silesia and a D.Phil. in Biochemistry from University of Oxford (Lincoln College) in 2003. He next obtained postdoctoral training in immunology and haematology at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (University of Oxford; 2003-2007) and started his own laboratory in the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit at Oxford in 2008. His current laboratory in London is funded by CRUK Senior Fellowship, CRUK Program Grant (in collaboration with Donal O’Carroll), and grants from Bloodwise, Barts Charity and the MRC. The Kranc laboratory has revealed key molecular mechanisms (including m6A-dependent RNA metabolic pathways) controlling haematopoietic stem cell behaviour and leukaemic transformation. Their central aim is to harness this knowledge to provide therapeutic targets for normal stem cell expansion for transplantation purposes and specific cancer/leukaemic stem cell eradication.

Jeannie Lee


Jeannie Lee

Professor

Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital

Jeannie T. Lee Is a Professor of Genetics (and Pathology) at Harvard Medical School, the Blavatnik Institute, and the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Lee specializes in the study of epigenetic regulation by long noncoding RNAs and uses X-chromosome inactivation as a model system. Growing knowledge of X-inactivation mechanisms and RNA biology is currently being translated to treat various human diseases, including Rett, Fragile X, and CDKL5 Syndromes. As a champion of translational science, she played a major role in the founding of Translate Bio and Fulcrum Therapeutics with technology and know-how from the lab. She is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, the 2016 recipient of the Lurie Prize from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, a 2016 awardee of the Centennial Prize from the Genetics Society of America, the 2010 recipient of the Molecular Biology Prize from the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Lee was also named a Distinguished Graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 2013 and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. From 2013-2018, she co-launched the Epigenetics Initiative at Harvard Medical School and served as its Co-Director. Serving on the Board of Directors of the Genetics Society of America (GSA), Dr. Lee spearheaded the TAGC (The All-Genetics) Conference in 2016. As GSA's President, Dr. Lee established a Strategic Plan and a Development strategy for the society in 2018. She received her A.B. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard University and obtained M.D.-Ph.D degrees from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Lee then carried out postdoctoral work at the Whitehead Institute & MIT and became Chief Resident of Clinical Pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital prior to joining the Faculty at Harvard Medical School. As a new investigator, she received the Basil O’Connor Scholar Award from the March of Dimes and the Pew Scholars Award.

Michal Minczuk


Michal Minczuk

Programme Leader

MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit, University of Cambridge

Dr. Michal Minczuk is a Programme Leader at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit, University of Cambridge, leading the Mitochondrial Genetics programme. Michal holds a PhD from the University of Warsaw. He has joined the Mitochondrial Biology Unit following post-doctoral training at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. His work is focused on discovering the genetic links between mitochondrial dysfunction and human disease. In particular, his group develops methods for editing of the mammalian mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) using programmable nucleases. Michal’s group is also interested in investigating how mitochondrial gene expression is regulated, with the main focus on epitranscriptomic regulation, mitoribosome biogenies and mtRNA polyadenylation. Michal’s laboratory has been making important contribution to establishing genetic basis and molecular mechanisms of mitochondrial disorders resulting from defects of mitochondrial gene expression. The long-term aim of these efforts is to contribute to understanding of the involvement of mitochondria in human health and disease and to develop mechanism-based therapies of mitochondrial diseases.

Eric Miska


Eric Miska

Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge and STORM Therapeutics

Gerhard Müller


Gerhard Müller

Chief Scientific Officer

Gotham Therapeutics

Gerhard Mueller is Chief Scientific Officer at Gotham Therapeutics, a transatlantic biotech company located in New York City, US, and Munich, Germany, focusing on epitranscriptomic drug discovery. Prior to his appointment at Gotham Therapeutics, he held several research management positions at biotech companies such as Axxima Pharmaceuticals, Munich, and GPC Biotech, Munich and Boston. Most recently, he built from scratch the Medicinal Chemistry business unit at Mercachem, a chemistry service provider in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Before his career within the biotech industry, Gerhard held a number of senior research and project management positions within the pharmaceutical industry, i.e. at Glaxo Group Research in Verona, Italy, at Bayer AG, Leverkusen, Germany, and he headed the medicinal chemistry unit at Organon N.V. in Oss, NL. Gerhard obtained his PhD from the Technical University Munich, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Horst Kessler establishing the research field of antiadhesive integrin antagonists. During his career, Gerhard has worked on several disease areas prosecuting different target families, among them protein kinases, proteases, GPCRs, integrins, protein-protein interaction targets and epigenetic enzymes and receptors. From this work, close to 10 clinical candidates emerged, and Gerhard is co-author of more than 75 scientific publications and numerous patents.

Yunsun Nam


Yunsun Nam

Assistant Professor

Cecil H. and Ida Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences

Yunsun Nam, PhD, is currently an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Biophysics and Obstetrics / Gynecology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She is also a Southwestern Medical Foundation Scholar in Biomedical Research. Her undergraduate degree was in Biochemical Sciences, from Harvard College. She received her PhD in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School, for her work on the structure and function of intracellular Notch and its transcription complexes. Her postdoctoral work continued on mechanistic investigation of nucleic acid/protein complexes, focusing on Lin28 and let-7 microRNAs. For postdoctral training, she received Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellowship and Charles A. King Trust Fellowship. As an independent investigator, she has received Pew Scholarship and Packard Fellowship. Since 2013, the Nam lab has been focusing on the mechanisms of noncoding RNAs using structural biology and biochemistry, with particular emphasis on processing and modification of RNAs relevant to human diseases including cancer.

Oliver Rausch


Oliver Rausch

Chief Scientific Officer

Storm Therapeutics

Oliver Rausch is Chief Scientific Officer at Storm Therapeutics Ltd. Storm is a spin-out from Cambridge University targeting RNA modification pathways for the development of a new class of anti-cancer treatments. As CSO, Oliver has overall responsibility for developing Storm’s target discovery platform, and for delivering small molecule drugs from its emerging drug discovery pipeline. Oliver worked closely with Storm’s scientific founders, Profs Tony Kouzarides and Eric Miska, to establish Storm, and joined Storm full time in October 2016. Prior to Storm, Oliver was Programme Director at the UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) where he developed and led a number of high profile industry collaboration programmes in clinical translational research and experimental medicine. Oliver has over twenty years of drug discovery and development experience in Inflammation, Neurology and Oncology, including from organisations such as GlaxoSmithKline, UCB Celltech and Cellzome. He holds a degree in Biochemistry from the Free University in Berlin and a PhD in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from the Institute of Cancer Research in London.

Gidi Rechavi


Gidi Rechavi

Head, Sheba Cancer Research Center

Sheba Medical Center

Schraga Schwartz


Schraga Schwartz

Principal Investigator

Weizmann Institute of Science

Dr. Schwartz received his PhD from Tel Aviv University in Israel in 2010, working on mRNA splicing under the supervision of Prof. Gil Ast. Dr. Schwartz then conducted his post-doctorate at the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard under the joint supervision of Aviv Regev and Eric Lander, where his work focused on mRNA modifications, and he established his independent laboratory at the Weizmann Institute in 2015. Dr. Schwartz has pioneered some of the key approaches for systematically detecting and quantifying RNA modifications at a transcriptome-wide scale. His lab bridges experimental and computational approaches, and developed the first approaches for systematically mapping N6-methyladenosine (m6A), pseudouridine, and the first approach for obtaining single-nucleotide resolution mappings of N1-methyladenosine (m1A). His lab aims to unravel the functions and mechanisms of actions through which diverse RNA modification modulate the fate of RNA, and understand how this in turns shapes cellular decision-making. Dr. Schwartz obtained an ERC starting grant in 2016, and is a member of the EMBO Young Investigator Program.

Tom Suzuki


Tom Suzuki

Professor

University of Tokyo

Tom Suzuki’s research centres on RNA biochemistry, especially on the biogenesis and function of RNA modifications, and molecular mechanisms of protein synthesis. His group has developed their platform technologies for isolating individual RNAs, and for highly sensitive analysis of RNA modifications by mass spectrometry. His group discovered several novel modifications and dozens of RNA-modifying enzymes. His group also reported the first instance of human disease caused by disrupted RNA modification, and is now studying the molecular pathogenesis of this disease.