Research summary
The regulated expression of genetic material is one of the most basic processes of a cell, affecting everything from organism development to environmental response. Our research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of RNA.
Many DNA- or RNA-containing complexes are flexible, modular, and lowly abundant. For such challenging targets, reconstitution of complexes from recombinant sources and cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has emerged as a particularly powerful tool for the determination of near-atomic structures while simultaneously providing insight into their dynamics. We apply cryo-electron microscopy, X-ray crystallography, and in vitro biochemistry to the study of endogenous and reconstituted nucleic acid-protein complexes to gain insights into RNA metabolism.