RNA-therapeutic approaches for metabolic pathologies

Analysis of the proteome and transcriptome has demonstrated the existence of a far greater transcriptomic complexity than previously catalogued. RNA alternative splicing contributes significantly to this transcriptional complexity by allowing the generation of multiple splicing variants or isoforms. However, the contribution of specific splicing variants to metabolic homeostasis or to metabolic pathologies has been largely overlooked.

The successful candidate will use both experimental and computational approaches to explore the role of the RNA alternative splicing in metabolic homeostasis in health and in metabolic pathologies such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Projects will involve the use of primary cultures and mouse models of NAFLD and HCC, and multidisciplinary approaches including metabolic phenotyping, in vivo imaging, TMT/MS proteomics and RNA-seq.

Our long-term goal is to identify and characterize RNA alternative splicing programmes and isoforms relevant for human metabolic pathologies to uncover novel targets for the design of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. 

Further information will be available on the web:

https://lms.mrc.ac.uk/research-group/metabolism-gene-regulation/