November
Jeremy gives an invited talk at the RNA at the Bench and Bedside III conference in Carlsbad, CA.

October
Rina gives a talk at our departmental retreat at Margaritaville Lake Resort in Lake Conroe, TX.

Wilusz lab wins 1st Prize in the group costume contest at our departmental retreat.

Rina presented a poster at THINC’s Science & Sip event.

Jeremy gives an invited talk at Houston Methodist’s symposium on the New Frontier of RNA Nanotherapeutics.

Jeremy gives an invited talk at Johns Hopkins University’s symposium honoring the career of Karen Beemon.

September
Staff Scientist Ghislain Breton joins the group.

Visiting graduate student Federico Fuchs Wightman from Manuel de la Mata’s lab in Argentina joins the lab supported by a IUBMB Wood-Whelan Fellowship.

CPSB student Tanya Bhatt starts her rotation in the lab.

Collaborative work with Vikram Paralkar’s group on control of rRNA synthesis by hematopoietic transcription factors is published in Molecular Cell. PDF

Jeremy gives an invited talk at the EMBO Workshop on Regulation of RNA 3’ end formation across eukaryotic genomes in Oxford, UK.

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Duke University Department of Biochemistry.

August
Research Assistant Aayushi Shah joins the group.

THINC-wide trip to the Sugar Land Space Cowboys game is kicked off with Jeremy throwing out the first pitch!

July
Yuxi was awarded a Blavatnik Family Fellowship in Biomedical Research that will fully cover her stipend for the next academic year at Penn.

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Center for RNA Therapeutics at Houston Methodist.

June
Jeremy gives a talk at the 27th Annual Meeting of the RNA Society in Boulder, CO.

Undergraduate Abel Gurung joins the lab as part of BCM’s SMART program.

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the NIH RNA Club.

May
Our collaborative review with Li Yang and Ling-Ling Chen on circular RNAs is published in Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology. PDF

Jeremy gives a talk at the Cold Spring Harbor meeting on Regulatory & Noncoding RNAs.

April
Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at University of California, Irvine.

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the BCM RNA & Chromatin Club.

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Drexel University Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology.

Jeremy gives a talk at the virtual Rita Allen Foundation Scholars meeting.

March
Laboratory Director Chris Dinh joins the group.

Yuxi’s paper on the specificity and efficiency of CRISPR/Cas13 effectors is published in Nucleic Acids Research. PDF

February
Jeremy gives an invited talk for Université de Moncton, Faculty of Life Sciences.

January
Postdoc Christopher Fields joins the group. 

CPSB student Alexander Ewing starts his rotation in the lab.

December
The Wilusz lab moves to Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX to join the Therapeutic Innovation Center (THINC) and the Verna & Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Jeremy is named a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research.

Jeremy was appointed to the Ruth McLean Bowman Bowers Professorship at Baylor College of Medicine.

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Ohio State University Molecular Life Sciences Seminar Series.

November
Yuxi’s work showing that the off-target effects of CRISPR/Cas13 effectors limit their utility in eukaryotic cells is posted to BioRxiv. PDF

Jeremy gives an invited talk at the 9th International mRNA Health Conference.

Jeremy gives a talk at the Baylor College of Medicine Nuclear Receptor, Transcription, and Chromatin Biology (NRTCB) Program retreat.

October
Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at Rutgers University.

September
Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Kansas State University Division of Biology.

Jeremy presents a poster describing new insights into how the Integrator complex is regulated at the Cold Spring Harbor meeting on Eukaryotic Pre-mRNA Processing.

August
Postdoc Rina Fujiwara joins the group. 

May
The lab’s MIRA grant (R35) from NIGMS is renewed for five more years.

Yuxi gives a talk on Cas13 specificity at the virtual RNA Society Annual Meeting.

Jeremy gives an invited talk and serves as a session chair at the virtual Keystone Symposia on Non-coding RNAs: Biology and Applications.

Amanda passes her Ph.D. candidacy exam.

April
Dongming and Deirdre’s work describing how circular RNAs can be used as markers of readthrough transcription is published in Methods. PDF

Yuxi presents a poster at the virtual National Cancer Institute (NCI) 2021 RNA Biology Symposium.

Yuxi presents her latest findings at the Penn RNP Discussion Group.

Jeremy gives an invited talk at Acuitas Therapeutics.

Jeremy and Yuxi present talks at the Biochemistry & Biophysics Friday Research Discussions series.

Yuxi is awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association.

March
Michele is named a 2021 Goldwater Scholar.

Amanda receives an NSF GRFP Honorable Mention.

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Brandeis University joint biology/neuroscience colloquium seminar series.

Sam moves on to a Senior Consultant position at Pointe Health.

February
Sam and Nebibe’s review on best practices for investigating circular RNAs is published in EMBO Reports. PDF

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Cold Spring Harbor graduate program’s virtual recruitment weekend.

January
Collaborative work with the Asokan and Marzluff labs on methods to efficiently express synthetic circular RNAs using AAV is published in Molecular Therapy Nucleic Acids. PDF

December
After a brave battle, Deirdre passed away from metastatic cancer. She came to the lab as our first postdoctoral fellow in 2014 and was instrumental in so much of what we have done. Her publication record was stellar, she received a NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, and these scientific accomplishments earned Deirdre a Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator position at NCI that she soon intended to start. She revealed critical new insights into the Integrator complex and circular RNAs, and her RNAi screening efforts in Drosophila opened up a whole new world for the lab that fundamentally changed how we approach many projects. In particular, Deirdre’s work on Integrator attenuating protein-coding gene expression will likely be regarded as a classic in the field. These amazing scientific accomplishments are nonetheless just a small part of what made Deirdre special. She was a leader in the lab, a teacher, a thinker, a friend, and someone that made all of us better. Deirdre was a glowing example of a highly impactful scientist and she will be deeply missed.

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Baylor College of Medicine Therapeutic Innovation Center.

Jeremy’s advice on starting a lab is featured on the NIGMS website.

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Harvard Medical School Initiative for RNA Medicine.

November
Collaborative work with the Bonasio lab on TET2 modifying tRNAs is published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. PDF

Deirdre and Dongming’s book chapter on using RNAi to identify factors regulating circular RNA localization is published in Methods in Molecular Biology. PDF

Yuxi gives a talk at the virtual ncRNA and Therapeutic Discovery RNA Salon.

Meisheng moves on to a senior postdoctoral position at NCI with Thomas Gonatopoulos-Pournatzis.

October
Jeremy serves as a moderator for the RNA Collaborative Seminar Series.

Nebibe moves to the University of North Carolina to continue postdoctoral training with Mauro Calabrese.

September
Michele received the Roy and Diana Vagelos Science Challenge Award.

August
Sam’s News & Views on translation of downstream ORFs (dORFs) is published in The EMBO Journal. PDF

Sarai and Deirdre’s review on the Integrator complex is published in Trends in Biochemical Sciences. PDF

July
Graduate student Amanda Weiss joins the group.

June
Sam and Nebibe help co-organize and Sarai gives a talk at the virtual ncRNA and Therapeutic Discovery RNA Salon.

May
Jeremy gives an invited talk and serves as a session chair at the virtual Cold Spring Harbor meeting on Regulatory & Noncoding RNAs.

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program at Northwestern University. 

Jeremy serves as a session chair at the virtual RNA Society Annual Meeting. 

Jeremy is promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure.

April
Yuxi passes her Ph.D. candidacy exam.

February
Postdoc Samantha Dodbele joins the group.

Jeremy gives an invited seminar for the UT Southwestern Department of Molecular Biology.

Deirdre’s chapter on premature transcription termination mechanisms for the 84th Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Symposium book is published online. PDF

January
Meisheng and Yuxi’s review on circular RNAs is published in Trends in Cell Biology. PDF

Jeremy gives an invited talk at the University of Aarhus in Denmark.

Jeremy gives an invited talk at the Workshop on mRNA Untranslated Regions in Gene Regulation, Development, and Disease in Holetown, Barbados.

The transcript of Jeremy’s interview at the 84th Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Symposium on RNA Control & Regulation is published. PDF

December
Jeremy presents some of our latest work at the annual retreat of the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics in the Poconos.

Collaborative work with the Adelman and Wagner labs on Integrator is published in Molecular Cell. PDF

November
Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology highlights our recent Genes & Development paper. PDF 

Jeremy gives an invited talk on circular RNAs at the American Society of Nephrology’s Kidney Week in Washington, D.C.

Yuxi gives a talk at the ncRNA and Therapeutic Discovery RNA Salon in Baltimore, Maryland.

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.

October
Michele was named an ACS Scholar.

Collaborative work with the Murakami lab on promoter escape by RNA polymerase II is published in PNAS (PDF) and highlighted by an accompanying Commentary piece (PDF).

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the RNA club at the University of Florida.

September
Deirdre’s paper showing that the Integrator complex cleaves nascent mRNAs to attenuate transcription is published in Genes & Development. PDF

Collaborative work with the Kishore Lab at Temple on circular RNAs in cardiovascular disease is published in Nature Communications. PDF 

Jeremy gives invited talks at Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University.

August
Postdoc Nebibe Mutlu joins the group.

Jeremy gives a talk at the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars meeting in Cold Spring Harbor, NY.

July
Meisheng’s paper that describes an improved method for circular RNA purification is published in Nucleic Acids Research. PDF

Postdoc María Saraí Mendoza-Figueroa joins the group.

June
Mike’s paper on how ribosome queuing enables non-AUG translation to be resistant to multiple protein synthesis inhibitors is published in Genes & Development. PDF

Jeremy gives an invited talk at the Gordon Research Conference on Nucleic Acids in Newry, Maine.

Jeremy presents our latest work at the RNA Society Annual Meeting in Krakow, Poland.

Jeremy gives an invited talk on the Integrator complex at the RNA Stability Meeting in Montreal, Canada. 

Mike starts as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry & Pharmacology at Ohio State University.

Graduate student Yuxi Ai joins the group.

May
Our Preview on roles for circular RNAs in controlling innate immune responses is published in Cell. PDF

Meisheng and Deirdre presented their latest results at the ncRNA and Therapeutic Discovery RNA Salon in Baltimore, MD.

Jeremy gives an invited talk and Meisheng presents a poster at the 84th Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Symposium on RNA Control & Regulation. Jeremy is interviewed at the meeting.

April
Jeremy gave an invited talk at the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology.

Jeremy gave an invited talk at the NCI RNA Biology Symposium in Bethesda, Maryland. Deirdre, Meisheng, and Mike all presented posters.

February
Deirdre is awarded a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award from NIH. 

Deirdre gave a talk at the ncRNA and Therapeutic Discovery RNA Salon in Baltimore, Maryland.

January
Jeremy gave an invited talk at the 2nd International Meeting on Oncology Research at the Federal University of Pará in Belém, Brazil. 

Undergraduate Michele Meline joins the group.

December
Jeremy gave an invited talk for the Emory University Department of Biochemistry. 

Jeremy gave an invited talk at Weill Cornell Medicine as part of their Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology (PBSP) seminar series.

November
Jeremy gave an invited talk at the Cold Spring Harbor Asia Conference on RNA Biology in Suzhou, China. 

Jeremy gave an invited talk at the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology. 

Deirdre, Meisheng, and Mike present their latest work at the annual retreat of the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics in the Poconos.

October
Chuan starts as a tenure-track Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Chongqing University in China. 

Meisheng and Mike gave talks at the ncRNA and Therapeutic Discovery RNA Salon in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Deirdre gave a talk on the Integrator complex at the ASBMB Special Symposium on "Transcriptional Regulation by Chromatin and RNA Polymerase II" in Snowbird, Utah. 

Jeremy gave an invited talk for the Ohio State University Center for RNA Biology. 

Deirdre gave a talk for the Penn Epigenetics Institute. 

Jeremy gave an invited talk at the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) in Bethesda, Maryland.

September
Mike gave a talk on non-AUG translation at the Cold Spring Harbor meeting on Translational Control.

August
Collaborative work with the Asokan and Marzluff labs on expressing circular RNAs from AAV vectors is published in Molecular Therapy - Nucleic Acids. 

Deirdre presented a poster on the Integrator complex at the EMBL Transcription and Chromatin meeting in Heidelberg, Germany.

July
Jeremy presented our work on the Integrator complex at the Gordon Conference on Post-transcriptional Gene Regulation in Newry, Maine.

Matt gave a talk at the Leadership Alliance National Symposium in Hartford, Connecticut.

June
Chuan’s paper on nuclear export of circular RNAs was highlighted in Science. PDF

Undergraduates Matt Tracey and Jeff Jiang join the group. 

Mike and Deirdre gave talks at the ncRNA and Therapeutic Discovery RNA Salon in Baltimore, MD.

May
Chuan’s paper on nuclear export of circular RNAs is published in Genes & Development and highlighted by an accompanying Outlook piece. PDF / Outlook PDF

Jeremy gives an invited talk for the Medical University of South Carolina Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. 

Jeremy gives a talk at the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars meeting in Princeton, NJ. 

Jeremy gives a talk at the Cold Spring Harbor meeting on Nuclear Organization & Function.

April
Our review on circular RNAs is published in WIREs RNA. PDF

Mike was highlighted as part of the RNA Society’s Member Spotlight Series. 

Mike presents his latest findings at the Penn RNP Discussion Group.

Jeremy serves as a panelist for the Penn Career Services event on preparing for your first year as a faculty member or postdoc.

March
Deirdre and Jeremy attended a meeting of the ncRNA and Therapeutic Discovery RNA Salon in Baltimore, MD.

February
Jeremy gives an invited talk at the Watson School of Biological Sciences graduate student recruitment weekend. 

Jeremy gives an invited talk at the Keystone Symposium on Noncoding RNAs in Keystone, Colorado.

January
Jeremy gave an invited talk for the Purdue University Department of Biochemistry.

December
Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology highlights our recent Molecular Cell paper. PDF

Jeremy gave an invited talk for the Department of Chemistry at Penn.

Chuan, Deirdre, Dongming, Meisheng, Mike, and Jeremy attended the first meeting of the ncRNA and Therapeutic Discovery RNA Salon in Frederick, MD.

November
Dongming and Deirdre’s paper showing that the output of protein-coding genes shifts to circular RNAs when the pre-mRNA processing machinery is limiting is published in Molecular Cell. 

The Wilusz lab presents its latest work at the annual retreat of the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics in the Poconos.

Mike and Deirdre present talks at the Biochemistry & Biophysics Friday Research Discussions series.

October
Mike’s review on non-AUG translation is published in Genes & Development. 

Postdoc Meisheng Xiao joins the group. 

Research specialist Chike Nwaezeapu joins the group. 

Chuan, Deirdre, and Mike present their data at the Penn Biomedical Postdoctoral Research Symposium. Deirdre wins the Best Poster Award. 

Jeremy presents a poster at the Cold Spring Harbor meeting on Forty Years of mRNA Splicing: From Discovery to Therapeutics.

September
Jeremy presents a talk on circular RNA biogenesis in Oxford, UK at the EMBO Workshop on Regulation of RNA 3’ end formation across eukaryotic genomes.

Mike is awarded a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award from NIH.

Deirdre presents a poster at the Cold Spring Harbor meeting on Mechanisms of Eukaryotic Transcription.

Mike presents a poster at the EMBO conference on Protein Synthesis and Translational Control in Heidelberg, Germany.

August
A collaborative R01 with Aravind Asokan’s lab at UNC to express circular RNAs in animal models is funded by NINDS.

Deirdre and Dongming’s book chapter on circular RNA expression plasmids is published in Methods in Molecular Biology.

US Patent 9,717,749 awarded for methods to produce stable non-polyadenylated RNAs.

July
Jeremy attended the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars summer workshop that was organized by the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.

Jeremy is quoted in a news piece on circular RNAs in The Scientist.

June
Jeremy gives a talk on circular RNAs at the RNA Society Annual Meeting in Prague, Czech Republic.

Collaborative work with Howard Chang’s lab on immune surveillance of circular RNAs is published in Molecular Cell.

May
Jeremy gives an invited talk at the Abramson Cancer Center Symposium on RNA Biology & Cancer.

Chuan, Deirdre, Mike, and Jeremy attend the NCI RNA Biology Meeting in Bethesda, MD.

April
Deirdre’s News & Views on translation of endogenous circular RNAs is published in Molecular Cell. PDF

Deirdre presents her latest findings at the Penn RNP Discussion Group.

March
Jiou was awarded a Summer Research Award from the Vagelos Life Sciences & Management (LSM) program to support her efforts in the lab.

Jeremy gave an invited talk at the University of Albany.

Jeremy is quoted in a news piece on circular RNAs in Science. PDF

February
Jeremy gives an invited talk at the Keystone Symposium on Protein-RNA Interactions in Banff, Canada.

Chuan and Mike present talks at the Biochemistry & Biophysics Friday Research Discussions series.

Undergraduate Jiou Choi joins the group.

January
The Wilusz lab is awarded a pilot grant from the Abramson Cancer Center to investigate how translation from non-AUG start codons is regulated.

November
Jeremy gives an invited talk at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Chuan, Deirdre, and Mike present their latest work at the annual retreat of the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics in the Poconos.

October
Collaborative work with the Bonasio lab on mapping of novel RNA-binding regions is published in Molecular Cell.

September
The Wilusz lab is awarded a MIRA grant (R35) from NIGMS.

Mike presents a talk and Deirdre presents a poster at the Cold Spring Harbor meeting on Translational Control.

August
Our review on circular RNA biogenesis mechanisms is published in RNA Biology. PDF

July
Collaborative work with the Cherry lab on viral RNA degradation is published in Genes & Development. PDF

Postdocs Chuan Huang and Mike Kearse join the group. 

Jeremy attended the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars 40th Anniversary Plenary Gathering in Palo Alto, CA.

Jeremy gave an invited talk on circular RNAs at the Gordon Research Conference on Post-transcriptional gene regulation in Stowe, VT.

Jeremy served as an invited mentor and career panelist at the Gordon Research Seminar on Post-transcriptional gene regulation in Stowe, VT.

June
Undergraduate Michael Jonathan joins the group.

March
The Wilusz lab presents our latest work on circular RNAs at the Biochemistry & Biophysics Friday Research Discussion series.

February
Jeremy presents our collaborative work on retrotransposition mechanisms at the Penn RNP Discussion Group.