UNC Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Graduate Student Meredith Corley’s paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

Congratulations to Meredith Corley (Laederach Lab) for her recent publication in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. Her work titled “An RNA structure-mediated, posttranscriptional model of human α-1-antitrypsin expression,” reveals a novel regulatory program in the 5’ Untranslated Region of the α-1-antitrypsin messenger RNA that controls the translation efficiency of this critical protein. Indeed, α-1-antitrypsin deficient individuals suffer from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and Meredith’s discovery has established that specific regulatory elements control expression of this protein. Her work has broad implications in terms of our understanding of how post-transcritptional regulation controls protein expression in tissues, and also identifies specific RNA molecular features for therapeutic targeting. You can read the paper at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/11/03/1706539114.short?rss=1.