Seminar Series in Quantitative Life Sciences and Medicine

"RNA stability, the uncharted territory of gene regulation"

Hamed Najafabadi (McGill University)
Tuesday November 20, 12-1pm
McIntyre Building, Room 1027

Abstract: Widespread remodelling of gene expression underlies the cellular changes in many human diseases, including cancer. In this talk, I will focus on a mostly uncharacterized aspect of these gene expression changes: the mRNA stability. I will present new methods that enable us to directly measure the mRNA decay rate from RNA-sequencing data, and computational models that allow us to probe the role of RNA-binding proteins and microRNAs in shaping the mRNA stability landscape. These models have revealed new factors that drive transcriptome remodelling in different cancer types, and suggest a central role for RNA stability in determining the cell function and behaviour.