SENIOR EDITOR
Javier F. Caceres
MRC Human Genetics Unit

Javier F. Caceres is an MRC Investigator and a Professor of RNA and Gene expression at the MRC Human Genetics Unit, University of Edinburgh, UK.

His lab studies post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression, focusing on alternative splicing (AS), and nonsense-mediated decay (NMD).

The lab uses different methodologies that include biochemistry, molecular and cellular biological techniques. They also use the nematode C. elegans as an experimental system. Recently they have developed mouse models to address complex regulatory mechanisms related to the link between transcription and splicing and the role of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) in linking nuclear and cytoplasmic RNA processing events.

SENIOR EDITOR
Eric M. Phizicky
University of Rochester

Eric M. Phizicky is a Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Research in his lab focuses on tRNA biology, with particular emphasis on tRNA modifications, stability, and decay pathways. Most of the work in the lab has centered on the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the distantly related fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, with some analysis of human cell lines.

Approaches in the lab include genetic selections and screens; biochemical and in vivo analysis of tRNA levels, modifications, charging, and structural stability; protein–protein and protein–tRNA interactions; high-throughput screens using FACS; and whole-genome sequencing.

RNA THERAPEUTICS EDITOR
Michelle L. Hastings
University of Michigan

Michelle L. Hastings is Professor of Pharmacology and Director of the RNA Therapeutics Program at the University of Michigan Medical School.

Her lab uses in vitro and in vivo mammalian systems to study gene expression, employing a variety of molecular, cell biological and behavioral techniques.

Research in her lab investigates the genetic and molecular basis of disease and RNA-based therapeutic approaches to correct pathogenic gene expression, with a focus on mechanisms of pre-mRNA processing, in particular, splicing and using antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) to modulate the process for the potential treatment of cystic fibrosis, Usher syndrome, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Batten disease and other pathological conditions.

REVIEWS EDITOR
Thomas R. Cech
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Tom Cech is a Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder, a member of the BioFrontiers Institute, and an investigator of HHMI.

His lab has moved on from research on catalytic RNA to study telomerase, telomeric proteins, and the regulation of epigenetic gene silencing by RNA in cultured human cells.

Their approach is interdisciplinary, integrating biochemistry, single-particle live-cell imaging, genetics, computational genomics, and structural biology.

EDITOR
Benjamin Blencowe
University of Toronto

Benjamin Blencowe holds the Banbury Chair in Medical Research and the Canada Research Chair in RNA Biology and Genomics at the University of Toronto. He is also director of the University of Toronto Donnelly Sequencing Centre.

Through pioneering the development and use of high-throughput RNA profiling and interaction mapping technologies, he and his colleagues discovered and characterized landscapes of RNA regulation in diverse cell types, species and disease states. These studies have provided global-scale insights into the complexity, mechanisms and evolution of alternative splicing.

Ben’s research has further revealed pivotal roles for alternative splicing in the control of stem cells.

EDITOR
Maria Carmo-Fonseca
University of Lisbon Medical School, Portugal

Maria Carmo-Fonseca is a Professor at the University of Lisbon Medical School, Portugal.

Since her post-doctorate at EMBL Heidelberg, Maria has been interested in understanding the nuclear organization of pre-mRNA splicing.

Her lab uses microscopy techniques to visualize the interplay between splicing and transcription in the cell nucleus, in parallel with genome-wide methodologies to analyze nascent transcripts. More recently, her lab initiated research on RNA splicing in human disease using cancer organoids and iPSC-derived cellular models.

EDITOR
Ling-Ling Chen
Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, CAS

Ling-Ling Chen is a Principal Investigator at the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, CAS.

Research in her lab focuses on circular RNAs and long noncoding RNAs, with particular emphasis on their biogenesis pathways, functions, and potential applications. Most of the work in the lab has been centered on human cultured cell lines, including pluripotent cells.

Some approaches in the lab include transcriptomic analysis, protein–RNA interactions, RNA structural probing, and living cell and super-resolution imaging. Her group now continues efforts to elucidate biogenesis pathways and functions of these regulatory RNAs in different cellular contexts and human diseases.

EDITOR
Adrian Ferré-D'Amaré
Laboratory of Nucleic Acids in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, NIH

Adrian Ferré-D'Amaré is Senior Investigator and Chief of the Laboratory of Nucleic Acids in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, NIH.

Research in his lab aims to elucidate the atomistic underpinnings of RNA biology.

His work combines structural approaches (X-ray crystallography, Cryo-EM), single-molecule and ensemble biophysics, biochemistry, medicinal chemistry and in vitro evolution to analyze the mechanisms of action of RNAs with sophisticated biochemical activities, such as ribozymes, riboswitches and fluorogenic aptamers, as well as large RNA–protein machines.

EDITOR
Fátima Gebauer
Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona

Fátima Gebauer is Senior Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona (Spain).

Research in her lab focuses on RNA-binding proteins and mechanisms of translational control in embryonic development (Drosophila) and human cancer (mostly melanoma).

Approaches include high-throughput methods (iCLIP, RNA-seq, polysome-seq, RIC, proteomics), biochemistry, cell-based assays, genetics and animal models.

EDITOR
Britt Glaunsinger
University of California Berkeley

Britt Glaunsinger is a Professor in the Departments of Plant and Microbial Biology and Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of California Berkeley, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Research in her lab is centered on virus-host interactions that influence gene expression, primarily in the context of herpesvirus infection. This encompasses viral repurposing and altering of cellular gene regulation to promote virus replication, as well as cellular responses to viral invasion.

Her lab has a particular focus on mechanisms by which viral proteins control host and viral RNA synthesis, translation, and mRNA turnover through interactions with mammalian gene expression machinery.

EDITOR
Anna Marie Pyle
Yale University

Anna Marie Pyle is Sterling Professor at Yale, in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and the Department of Chemistry. She is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Dr. Pyle focuses on the structure, folding and molecular recognition of large RNA molecules, such as viral RNA genomes, ribozymes, and long noncoding RNAs. In addition, she studies the molecular mechanism of RNA-dependent ATPase proteins, such as RNA helicases and innate immune receptors.

Technical specializations include cryo-electron microscopy, chemical probing, and eukaryotic cell manipulation and imaging methods.

EDITOR
Marina V. Rodnina
Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry

Marina Rodnina is the head of the Department of Physical Biochemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen, Germany.

Her research focuses on the function of the ribosome as a macromolecular machine. Her current interests focus on the dynamics of ribosomes and translation factors, the mechanisms of translational recoding and co-translational protein folding, and on mammalian translation. Her lab has established fully reconstituted translation systems with purified proteins and RNAs from bacteria, yeast and mammalian cells.

The lab uses biochemical and molecular biology methods, and specializes in fluorescence methods, including ensemble rapid kinetics, single-molecule TIRF and FCS, integrating biochemistry, biophysics and cryo-EM to unravel mechanisms of translation.

EDITOR
Mikiko C. Siomi
University of Tokyo

Mikiko C. Siomi is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo.

Her research focuses on piRNA biology, particularly piRNA biogenesis and piRNA-mediated transposon silencing pathways. The laboratory uses Drosophila as a model system, employing biochemical, molecular/cellular biological, biophysical approaches, and epigenetics.

The Siomi lab has established and used cultured Drosophila ovarian somatic cells OSCs, where the gonadal somatic piRNA pathway is fully maintained. The lab also uses cultured silkworm ovary-derived BmN4 germ cells for piRNA amplification and germ granule assembly studies, and is also interested in chromatin dynamics in mice.

EDITOR
Erik Sontheimer
UMass Chan Medical School

Erik Sontheimer is the Pillar Chair in Biomedical Research and Professor in the RNA Therapeutics Institute at UMass Chan Medical School.

Research in his lab focuses on the roles of RNA in gene expression and regulation, with particular emphasis on genetic interference pathways. Most of the work in the lab over the last decade has centered on CRISPR-Cas machineries and on RNA-guided genome editing systems derived from them.

Most analyses are now done in mammalian systems, including both cell culture and in vivo. Approaches include analyses of novel editing effectors and their natural “anti-CRISPR” inhibitors; guide engineering; genome-level assessment of editing outcomes; and the use of RNA-guided, live-cell proximity labeling for subcellular proteomics and transcriptomics.

EDITOR
Peter F. Stadler
Leipzig University

Peter F. Stadler is a Professor for Bioinformatics at Leipzig University.

Peter's research interests focus on the search for a consistent understanding of biological processes—with an emphasis on (molecular) evolution—at the genotypic, phenotypic, and dynamical level.

Applied techniques range from analysis of dynamical systems arising in chemical kinetics and population genetics, to large-scale simulations of RNA evolution and analysis of viral sequence data, to knowledge-based protein potentials, and algebraic combinatorics used to study fitness landscapes. With collaborators, he has characterized several ncRNA families and developed the Vienna RNA Package, a widely used software package for RNA bioinformatics, as well a number of other important bioinformatics tools.

EDITOR
Jörg Vogel
University of Würzburg, Germany

Jörg Vogel is a full Professor in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg, Germany, and the founding director of the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI).

His lab strives to understand the role of noncoding RNA and RNA-binding proteins in host-pathogen interactions and in members of the human microbiome.

He has pioneered new single-cell RNA-seq techniques to chart the RNA landscape of important microbes and to understand how bacteria use RNA as a regulator during infections. He asks mechanistic questions of RNA biology but also works on antisense-based approaches for RNA-centric precision manipulation of the microbiota.

EDITOR
Eric Westhof
University of Strasbourg, France

Eric Westhof is an Emeritus Professor of Structural Biochemistry at the University of Strasbourg, France.

He studies the three-dimensional folding of RNA.

The tools used are X-ray crystallography, bioinformatics, sequence alignments and comparisons, three-dimensional modeling, and molecular dynamics simulations. With collaborators, he develops architectural models of RNA, establishing their folding, molecular recognition, and self-assembly rules. He also suggested a nomenclature of nucleic acid base pairs to annotate and detect recurrent structural modules in RNA sequences and has started the RNA_Puzzles initiative for assessing RNA structural models.

EDITOR
John Woolford
Carnegie Mellon University

John Woolford is a Professor of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Woolford lab studies the mechanism of assembly of ribosomes in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and recently, also in cultured human cells. To do so, the lab uses molecular genetics, confocal microscopy, RNA assays, affinity purification, semi-quantitative mass spectrometry, and with the Gao lab in Beijing, cryo electron microscopy.

More recently, we have been exploring the connection between ribosome assembly and the structure and function of the nucleolus, including discovering what enables release of nascent ribosomes from nucleoli into the nucleoplasm.

EDITOR
Mihaela Zavolan
University of Basel

Mihaela Zavolan is a Professor in Computational and Systems Biology at Biozentrum, University of Basel.

Her lab works on the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression, particularly in the context of aging and cancers.

The group develops computational tools to infer regulators of RNA processing, stability and translation, based on bulk and single cell RNA sequencing, CLIP, proteomics and ribosome profiling data. The model system for aging is mouse, in which the group investigates the anti-aging effects of treatments such as rapamycin and caloric restriction. In the context of cancers, the main interest is to determine how alternative polyadenylation contributes to the remodeling of protein metabolism.