Category: blog

Live Blogger: Lauren Heinzinger

Editors: Ryan Schildcrout, Brenna Saladin

This piece was written live during the 10th annual RNA Symposium, “RNA Frontiers: From Mechanisms to Medicine” hosted by the University of Michigan’s Center for RNA Biomedicine.

The flow of genetic information is a fundamental concept in biology, and it’s one of the first major topics that most biologists learn in school. DNA is first transcribed into RNA and then RNA is translated into protein. However, the process is far more complicated than this simple framework suggests. Dr. Karla Neugebauer begins her talk by diving into the hidden complexities of this process. She asks us to recall that the average human gene contains 30,000 base pairs and each gene typically takes 30 minutes to transcribe. As RNA transcripts become longer, more RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) can bind and other activities (e.g., RNA editing, RNA splicing) can occur. This means there is roughly a 30-minute window of opportunity to influence nascent RNA, or the newly synthesized immature RNA transcripts, making them dynamic moving targets for regulation. This is an important step in translation, as RNA processing can have far-reaching biological consequences.

Live Blogger: Lauren Heinzinger

Editors: Ryan Schildcrout, Brenna Saladin

This piece was written live during the 10th annual RNA Symposium, “RNA Frontiers: From Mechanisms to Medicine” hosted by the University of Michigan’s Center for RNA Biomedicine.

Huntington’s Disease (HD) is a fatal hereditary neurodegenerative disorder that typically emerges between the ages of 30 and 50. It’s a progressive disease that damages neurons in the brain that control voluntary body movement, resulting in uncontrolled dance-like movements called chorea and abnormal postures. Other symptoms of HD include changes in behavior, emotion, personality, and thinking. Despite modern medicine and all of our amazing medical advancements, there is still no cure for HD. This makes it especially important to understand the mechanisms underlying how HD damages these important neural cells.