Research Focus

RNA molecules are not only short-lived carriers of information encoding proteins, but fulfill a variety of essential cellular functions ranging from enzymatic activities to providing large-scale scaffolds to intricate riboregulatory mechanisms controlling cell signaling and homeostasis. Despite their simple composition of only four building blocks, RNAs, like proteins, adopt complex 3D structures that are essential for their cellular function. The function of RNA is thus determined by both its sequence and its folding.
Our group investigates how structure formation affects the function and interactome of mRNAs in human cells, bacteria and viruses. We use structural probing and massively parallel reporter assays coupled with next generation sequencing to decipher RNA folding and its functional consequences. In addition, we use and develop high-throughput methods to study the RNA-binding preferences of proteins with the aim of understanding how RNA-protein interactions shape cellular decisions. In a second line of research, we characterize the interactions between RNA and small molecules to learn how to effectively modulate RNA function and to inform RNA-targeted drug discovery campaigns.