Erin Successfully defends her PhD Thesis!!

Erin Successfully defended her PhD thesis!

Titled: Improvement and characterization of Riboglow, a tole to fluorescently visualize RNA in live cells. 

Her PhD work aimed to improve a tool from the lab called Riboglow which was published in 2018. Riboglow acts as an RNA-based fluorescent tag to allow scientists to see an RNA-of-interest in live human cell culture. The tools is made of two parts: an RNA aptamer and a fluorescent probe. Ola designed and synthesized an improved fluorescent probe for Riboglow and Erin’s optimized assays to test its function in cells and compared it to prior versions of the tools. The new probe contains a PNA linker that increases the affinity of the RNA aptamer for the probe and improves its ability to track RNA in live cells. Erin and a prior grad student from the Batey Lab have also made an improved aptamer array (set of aptamers connected in a row) that is easier to clone/sequence and performs just as well in cells as the original array. 

Erin will be sticking around as a postdoc to finish up the paper on the improved array and will be helping kick-start a new area of the lab making fluorescent RNA-based metabolite sensors for use in live cells 

Congratulations Dr. Erin Richards!