Alicia Rogers
University of Texas at Arlington, TX·Genetics·Early-career
Cells must keep thousands of genes switched on or off at exactly the right time, and they rely on overlapping control systems to do it. Two of the biggest are RNA interference (RNAi), in which small RNA molecules guide proteins to silence matching genes, and chromatin modification, in which chemical tags on DNA-packaging proteins loosen or lock down stretches of the genome.
- Fields
Genetics
Biology
Biochemistry
- Topics
RNA interference
RNAi
small RNAs
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jan 2030
What they work on
- Test whether feedback loops between RNA interference and chromatin modifying pathways keep the two in balance to protect germ cell identity during heat stress, using C. elegans germline genetics, physiological assays and multi-omics profiling.
- Chart the epigenetic and transcriptional landscape of C. elegans germ cells under normal conditions, then determine how genetic and environmental perturbations reshape it.
- Build a computational tool that identifies putative feedback motifs from multi-omics datasets, applicable to any pathway in any species, to find higher-order regulatory motifs maintaining transcriptome homeostasis.
- Determine how target transcripts are sorted among the distinct branches of the RNAi pathway, which share a small set of Argonaute proteins loaded with diverse small RNAs.
- Define how RNAi pathways are temporally regulated across development and what the molecular and physiological consequences are of disrupting RNAi homeostasis, using a mutant that unbalances the network without inactivating any RNAi factor.
More about the research
Both are well mapped at the level of basic mechanism, but almost nothing is known about what keeps these regulators themselves in balance — what regulates a regulatory network, especially when a cell is under stress. Both projects here attack that question using the germline (the cells that become eggs and sperm) of the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans.
Why it matters
When RNA silencing or chromatin control goes wrong, genes are mis-regulated and jumping genes (transposons) can damage the genome, outcomes linked to cancer, infertility, neurodegenerative disease and abnormal development. Mapping how these networks keep themselves balanced, and how everyday stresses such as heat disturb them, could help explain the root causes of such disease states, point to therapeutic targets, and inform bioengineering approaches that harness cells' own regulatory networks for synthetic gene control.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Craig Mello
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA·Genetics
Determine how germline cells distinguish 'licensed' genetic information that should be expressed from potentially dangerous 'unlicensed' information such as foreign or mobile sequences, using C. elegans small-RNA silencing pathways.
Phillip Zamore
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA·Biochemistry
Identify the regulatory targets and gene-control mechanisms of pachytene piRNAs, small RNAs abundant in mouse sperm-precursor cells, using biochemistry and mouse genetics.
Wen Tang
Ohio State University, OH·Genetics
Determine how transcription of piRNA genes is regulated in C. elegans, using laboratory experiments combined with computational analysis.
The school
University of Texas at Arlington: 11 labs on PI Pages, $154M a year on research, 177 research doctorates a year.
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