Research interests
Understanding how mobile genetic elements spread
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Nearly half of the genomic content of mammals are mobile genetic elements. The human genome is also dominated by one mobile element, LINE-1 from the retrotransposon family, which copy-and-paste in the genome using an RNA intermediate.
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I employ biochemical, biophysical, structural biology and genetic approaches to unravel how transposon-encoded proteins and nucleic acids enable their spread. My recent publication reveals how the LINE-1 enzyme has created a third of the human genome.
Harnessing transposons for biotechnology
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Understanding the molecular mechanisms that transposons use to mobilize will guide efforts to engineer them for new biotechnological applications.
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I am particularly interested in engineering retrotransposons for programmable transgene insertion in human cells for gene therapy.
Mechanisms of microtubule nucleation in the cell
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Microtubule cytoskeleton helps a eukaryotic cell maintain its shape and internal organization. Microtubules also assemble the mitotic spindle, a dense machinery that partitions chromosomes equally into two daughter cells during cell division. During my PhD, I investigated how the microtubule cytoskeleton forms and functions within the mitotic spindle.
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I established bottom-up, biochemical reconstitution methods to visualize individual microtubule nucleation events from the universal microtubule nucleator, the γ-tubulin ring complex (γ-TuRC). Using biophysical and cell biological approaches, I discovered new factors necessary for robust microtubule nucleation and identified their mechanism of action.
