Research
How RNAs get cut, shaped and recognised
My work sits where RNA biochemistry meets structural biology: I want to understand how RNAs are recognised by their partners — ribonucleases, other RNA-binding proteins and other RNAs — well enough to see their shape, and to know what happens to the cell when those interactions go wrong.
2023 – present
Structural biology at NIDDK
In the Jinwei Zhang Lab (Section on Structural Biology of Noncoding RNAs and Ribonucleoproteins, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, NIDDK), my focus is on RNA–protein and RNA–RNA interactions — from ribonucleases and their substrates to other RNA-binding proteins. Having spent my PhD asking what RNA-processing enzymes do in cells, I now use single-particle cryo-EM and X-ray crystallography to see how such complexes work — from sample preparation and grid optimisation through data collection and structure determination.
I’m also interested in the virus–host interface: viral RNAs that act as conduits into host pathways, doppelgängers that mimic cellular RNAs, and chimeras that splice together features of several host RNAs. Jinwei Zhang and I reviewed this landscape in the Annual Review of Virology (2025). I also contributed to a 2026 Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology review of mitochondrial tRNA biogenesis, modifications and disease.
2015 – 2023 · University of Patras
Ribonucleases that shape the small-RNA world
My PhD in the RNA Biology Group of Prof. Constantinos Stathopoulos focused on the two human RNase Z enzymes, ELAC1 and ELAC2, which trim the 3′ ends of tRNA precursors. Combining CRISPR-Cas9 knockouts, RNA-seq, small-RNA sequencing and CLIP-seq with biochemical reconstitution, I found that the short, cytoplasmic paralog ELAC1 is dispensable for canonical tRNA processing but associates with structured RNA polymerase III transcripts — Y RNAs and vault RNAs — and directly cleaves all four human vault RNAs near their 3′ ends. The work is now available as a preprint (bioRxiv, 2026).
In parallel, I worked on the protein subunits of human RNase P (CRISPR screening of its subunits within the RIBOMAP project), on mitochondrial tRNA-derived fragments, and on riboswitches as regulators of microbial infection and antibiotic resistance (RIBOREGULON).
2014 – 2017
Where it started: deadenylases
My first research project characterised the mouse PNLDC1 deadenylase, contributing to its identification as a poly(A)-specific exonuclease expressed during early development (Nucleic Acids Research, 2016), followed by my MSc research on human RNase Z.
Methods
Toolkit
Structural biology
- Cryo-EM sample prep & grid optimisation
- Cryo-EM data collection & processing
- X-ray crystallography
- Structure determination
Biochemistry
- Recombinant protein expression
- Affinity chromatography
- In vitro transcription
- Enzyme kinetics
Molecular & cell biology
- Molecular cloning
- qRT-PCR
- RNA-seq / NGS analysis
- CRISPR-Cas9
- TALENs
- CRISPRi
- Cell culture & transfection
Immunology
- PBMC isolation
- CD3⁺ T-cell isolation & stimulation
- Western blotting
Other
- Radioisotope handling