Dr. Chris Burge: The impact of RNA-binding proteins on human genomic variation

Live Blogger: Henry Ertl

Editor: Liz Tidwell

This piece was written live during the 6th annual RNA Symposium: Towards our Future of RNA Therapeutics, hosted by the University of Michigan’s Center for RNA Biomedicine. Follow MiSciWriter’s coverage of this event on Twitter with the hashtag #umichrna. 

The genetic code for amino acids was cracked in the mid-20th century. Since then, biologists have had much more difficulty deciphering the code of gene regulation–when, where, and how much a gene is expressed. This problem is made difficult in part due to the relative complexity of gene regulation, which is primarily carried out by both protein-DNA and protein-RNA interactions. Chris Barge’s lab at MIT works on the protein-RNA part of this problem by applying experimental and computational approaches to ask: what are the genetic determinants and consequences of RNA binding protein (RBP) binding to RNAs? 

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