Dr. Mello’s lab uses the nematode C. elegans as a model system to study embryogenesis and gene silencing. His collaborative work with Dr. Andrew Fire led to the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi), for which they shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Together they showed that when C. elegans is exposed to double-stranded ribonucleic acid (dsRNA), a molecule that mimics a signature of viral infection, the worm mounts a sequence-specific silencing reaction that interferes with the expression of cognate cellular RNAs. Using readily produced short synthetic dsRNAs, researchers can now silence any gene inorganisms as diverse as rice and humans. RNAi allows researchers to rapidly “knock out” the expression of specific genes and, thus, to define thebiological functions of those genes. RNAi also provides a potential therapeutic avenue to silence genes that cause or contribute to diseases.Dr. Mello received his BS degree in Biochemistry from Brown University in 1982, and PhD from Harvard University in 1990. From 1990 to 1994, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. Now Dr. Mello is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Blais University Chair in Molecular Medicine and Co-director of the RNA Therapeutics Institute at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.Besides the Nobel Prize, Dr. Mello’s work was recognized with numerous awards and honors, including the National Academy of Sciences Molecular Biology Award (2003), the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences from Rockefeller University (2003), Brandeis University’s Lewis S. Rosnstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Medical Research (2005), the Gairdner Foundation International Award (2005), the Massry Prize (2005), the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Award (2006), the Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research (2006), the Hope Funds Award of Excellence in Basic Research (2008). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.

Tsutomu SUZUKI obtained his Ph.D. in Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1996, took a job in a pharmaceutical company, and started his career as an RNA biochemist in University of Tokyo in 1997. In 2004, he became independent and started his lab focusing on RNA modification and protein synthesis. Professor SUZUKI’s lab has developed a platform technology for isolating individual RNAs, and analyzing their modifications by mass spectrometry. So far, they discovered several novel modifications and dozens of RNA-modifying enzymes. His group also reported the first instance of human disease caused by RNA modification deficiency. Last year, Professor SUZUKI started a JST ERATO project on RNA modification as a director for 6 years. Further information about his lab and their research can be found at

http://rna.chem.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/index.html

https://scholar.google.co.jp/citations?user=sx1JKE8AAAAJ&hl=ja

Joachim Lingner obtained his PhD (1992) at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel in the laboratory of Walter Keller studying the 3’ end formation of messenger RNAs. During his postdoctoral work (1993-1997) with Thomas Cech at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Lingner discovered the catalytic subunit of telomerase (TERT) which counteracts telomere shortening and cellular senescence in cancer cells, stem cells and the germ line. Since 1997, Lingner is group leader at ISREC and since 2005 professor at the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Lingner lab studies how telomeres enable chromosome stability and how they are maintained to regulate cellular lifespan. The team elucidated how the telomerase enzyme is regulated at chromosome ends to counteract telomere shortening. The lab also discovered that telomeres are transcribed into long the long noncoding RNA TERRA, which regulates telomeric chromatin structure and telomere maintenance by telomerase and homology directed repair. Finally, his team developed techniques to purify telomeric chromatin and determine its protein composition by mass spectrometry to uncover the changes that occur in the telomeric proteome during aging and disease including cancer. Lingner obtained a START-fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (1997), the Friedrich Miescher prize (2002), an ERC advanced investigator award (2008) and is an elected member of EMBO (2005) and the Academia Europaea (2020).

David Bartel received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1993 and soon thereafter began heading a lab at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, where he is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Professor of Biology at MIT.  His lab initially studied the ability of RNA to catalyze reactions and more recently has focused on RNAs that regulate gene expression.  Over the past 20 years his lab has helped define microRNAs and other types of small regulatory RNAs and has contributed to the understanding of their genomics, biogenesis and regulatory targets, as well as the molecular and biological consequences of their actions in animals, plants and fungi.

Ravi Gupta has been Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases since 2019. Having completed his medical undergraduate studies at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, he pursued a Masters in Public Health at Harvard as a Fulbright scholar.  Upon return he trained in infectious diseases in Oxford and London (UCLH, Hospital for Tropical Diseases) and completed his PhD at UCL on lentiviral evasion of antiretrovirals and innate immune responses. He has worked extensively in HIV drug resistance, both at molecular and population levels, and his work demonstrating escalating global resistance led to change in WHO treatment guidelines for HIV. Whilst Professor at UCL, he led the team demonstrating HIV cure in the ‘London Patient’ – the world’s only living HIV cure, and the second recorded in history (Gupta et al, Nature 2019). In 2020 he was named as one of the 100 Most influential people worldwide by TIME Magazine. He has deployed his expertise in RNA virus genetics and biology during the COVID-19 pandemic to report the first genotypic-phenotypic evidence for immune escape of SARS-CoV-2 within an individual, defining the process by which new variants likely arise (Kemp et al, Nature 2021), and also reporting some of the first data on Pfizer BioNTech vaccine-induced antibody responses against the B.1.1.7 variant that arose in the UK (Collier, De Marco et al, Nature 2021). In addition his group has defined poorer vaccine responses in the elderly, particularly with regard to variants of concern (Collier, Ferreira et al, Nature 2021). Most recently Gupta’s work has defined the immune escape and transmissibility advantage of the Delta variant as the drive behind global expansion of this variant.

Biliang Zhang received his M.S. in Organic Chemistry from Fordham University in 1990, Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry with Prof. Ronald Breslow at Columbia University in 1995, and conducted his post-doctoral training with Prof. Thomas Cech at University of Colorado Boulder. In 1998 Dr. Zhang became an Assistant Professor of the Program in Molecular Medicine at University of Massachusetts Medical School. In 2004 he accepted a Principal Investigator role at the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health of Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he currently holds a Professor position. Using diverse biological and chemical methodologies, Dr. Zhang’ s lab studies the roles of RNA molecules in living cells. His particular interests are in the fields of non-coding RNAs, nucleic acid synthetic biology and therapeutics. In 2004, Dr. Zhang established Guangzhou RiboBio Co., Ltd.

TBD

TBD

Dr. Ge Shan got his Ph. D. from Georgia State University (2005), and is a professor in University of Science & Technology of China (USTC, from Oct., 2010 to present), after the postdoctoral training with Dr. Sidney Altman (Yale University, 1989 Nobel laureate in Chemistry for the co-discovery of RNA enzyme activity). He is also vice Dean of the School of Basic Medicine, USTC. Dr. Ge Shan is supported by grands and professorship to top Chinese scientists such as “The National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars”. Dr. Shan’s lab focuses on the study of noncoding RNAs for their regulatory roles in the flow of genetic information. His lab has identified novel noncoding RNAs (e.g. MecciRNAs, EIciRNA, 5S-OT lncRNA, ASAT siRNA, tiny RNA, p53R175H Aptamer RNA), and has revealed functions and novel functional mechanisms of these ncRNAs. Shan lab has also explored methodologies of utilizing noncoding RNAs (e.g. p53R175H Aptamer RNA and human 5S-OT) to modulate the expression of genetic information. Dr. Ge Shan have published research articles as the senior corresponding author in journals such as Developmental Cell, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, PNAS, Nature Communications, and Science Advances. These studies have been highlighted in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, Nature Reviews Genetics, Nature Reviews Microbiology, Science Editors’ Choice, Faculty Opinions, etc. Dr. Ge Shan is one of (~300 in total for Biology) the Elsevier 2020 Most Cited Chinese Researchers.

TBD

Dr. Mo-Fang Liu is the Professor and Principal Investigator in Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). She received her Bachelor and Master’s degree in Biochemistry from East China University of Sciences and Technologies, Shanghai, in 1991 and 1994, respectively. She obtained her Ph.D degree from Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, CAS, in 2000. From 2000 to 2006, she was a postdoctoral fellow in National Cancer Institute, NIH, and then as a research assistant in Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She joined in Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology in 2006. The major research interests in her group are the roles and mechanisms of small noncoding RNAs, including PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs). The goals of ongoing projects in the laboratory are to gain new insights into the physiological and pathological roles of small noncoding RNAs in mammal spermatogenesis, human male infertility, and cancers.

5 selected publications
1) Li F, Yuan P, Rao M, Jin CH, Tang W, Rong YF, Hu YP, Zhang F, Wei T, Yin Q, Liang T, Wu L, Li J, Li D, Liu Y, Lou W, Zhao S*, Liu MF*. piRNA-independent Function of PIWIL1 as a co-activator for Anaphase Promoting Complex/Cyclosome to Drive Pancreatic Cancer Metastasis. Nat Cell Biol, 2020, 22:425-438.

2) Wang X, Li ZT, Yan Y, Lin P, Tang W, Hasler D, Meduri R, Li Y, Hua MM, Qi HT, Lin DH, Shi HJ, Hui J, Li J, Li D, Yang JH, Lin J, Meister G, Fischer U, Liu MF*. LARP7-Mediated U6 snRNA Modification Ensures Splicing Fidelity and Spermatogenesis in Mice. Mol Cell, 2020, 77:999-1013.

3) Dai P, Wang X, Gou LT, Li ZT, Wen Z, Chen ZG, Hua MM, Zhong A, Wang L, Su H, Wan H, Qian K, Liao L, Li J, Tian B, Li D, Fu XD, Shi HJ*, Zhou Y*, Liu MF*. Translation-Activating Function of MIWI/piRNA during Mouse Spermiogenesis. Cell, 2019, 179:1566-1581.

4) Gou LT, Kang JY, Dai P, Wang X, Li F, Zhao S, Zhang M, Hua MM, Lu Y, Zhu Y, Li Z, Chen H, Wu LG, Li D, Fu XD, Li J, Shi HJ*, Liu MF*. Ubiquitination-deficient Mutations in Human Piwi Cause Male Infertility by Impairing Histone-to-Protamine Exchange during Spermiogenesis. Cell (2017), 169:1090-1104.

5) Zhao S, Gou LT, Zhang M, Zu LD, Hua MM, Hua Y, Shi HJ, Li Y, Li JS, Li DS, Wang ED*, Liu MF*. piRNA-triggered MIWI ubiquitination and removal by APC/C in late spermatogenesis. Dev Cell (2013), 24: 13-25.