Research in our lab
Identification of Disease-Associated Human RNA Pathways
Our lab identifies and characterizes components of human RNA pathways implicated in devastating genetic diseases and cancers. To enable rapid and sensitive forward genetic identification of these pathways, we have developed novel approaches such as Fireworks, Mirror, iterative screening of genome-wide guide RNA omission libraries, and generation of tens-of-trillions-scale lentiviral libraries.
These approaches have enabled us to identify novel components of human pathways acting on long non-coding RNA MALAT1 (Che et al., Nature Communications, 2025), two novel components of human nuclear RNase MRP (Che et al., Cell Reports, 2025), and the RNase MRP and RNase P control (RMPPc) pathway that regulates non-canonical 3′-end processing of lncRNAs MALAT1 and MEN-β, post-transcriptional processing of internal transcribed spacers in pre-rRNA and 5′-leader sequences in pre-tRNA (Panah et al., in revision at Nature Communications, 2025).
We have recently submitted a manuscript reporting assembly of previously unattainable tens-of-trillions-scale lentiviral DNA libraries to Nature Methods (Mirani et al., 2026).
These approaches have enabled us to identify novel components of human pathways acting on long non-coding RNA MALAT1 (Che et al., Nature Communications, 2025), two novel components of human nuclear RNase MRP (Che et al., Cell Reports, 2025), and the RNase MRP and RNase P control (RMPPc) pathway that regulates non-canonical 3′-end processing of lncRNAs MALAT1 and MEN-β, post-transcriptional processing of internal transcribed spacers in pre-rRNA and 5′-leader sequences in pre-tRNA (Panah et al., in revision at Nature Communications, 2025).
We have recently submitted a manuscript reporting assembly of previously unattainable tens-of-trillions-scale lentiviral DNA libraries to Nature Methods (Mirani et al., 2026).
Feel free to stop by in our lab (rooms 134-135) in the Institute for Human Genetics or email Andrei Alexandrov ([email protected]) to learn more about our research.
