This was followed by a postdoctoral training stint at McGill University in Montreal (2013-2018).

His highly collaborative research during this period involved discovery of coordinated networks of transcription, splicing and translation, which maintains stem cell self-renewal and pluripotency, revealing the mechanism whereby microRNAs repress translation of target mRNAs and showing that this mechanism is critical in regulation of cancer cells resistance to apoptosis as well as the regulation of the cellular innate immune response to viral infection. In addition, his work led to the discovery of a novel nucleic-acid-based surveillance mechanism of mRNA translation.

Mehdi joined the Patrick Johnston Centre for Cancer Research at Queen’s University Belfast in 2019 as a Principal Investigator.

His group currently focuses on mechanisms of regulation of mRNA translation and decay, alterations in these mechanisms induced by chemotherapeutic drugs, and how these mechanisms contribute to therapy-resistance in cancer.

Parisa followed her interests by joining the RNA Biology Lab as a postdoctoral research associate. Her research is mainly focused on deducing the role of RNA binding proteins in regulation of microRNA-induced mRNA decay and translational silencing and its importance in tumourigenesis.

Along with this, he has also explored the importance of different cellular organelle in miRNA trafficking and activity. At RNA Biology Group, Susanta will be continuing his interest in RNA Biology by investigating the effects of different anti-cancer treatments on mRNA translation and decay machinery and try to elucidate the effect of this machinery in anti-cancer drug resistance.

Beth’s research at the RNA Biology Group focuses on the mechanisms that control the stability of RNA-binding proteins that have been linked to microRNA-induced silencing