Abstract:

Dr. Chaolin Zhang is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Systems Biology, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, and Motor Neuron Center at Columbia University. His lab focuses on studying neuronal RNA-binding proteins and how they regulate the alternative RNA splicing in the nervous system in both normal and disease contexts, with the ultimate goal of informing therapeutic treatments of a range of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases. To achieve the goal, the lab uses a combination of computational and experimental approaches, as well as different model systems. In this talk, he will discuss recent work in his lab on elucidating splicing-regulatory mechanisms underlying disease-relevant genes such as MAPT/tau and the development of antisense oligos(ASOs) for splicing modulation and correction. He will also describe new technologies developed in his lab for unbiased high-throughput screening of splicing-regulatory elements using CRISPR/Cas13, with a potential to develop RNA-based precision medicine.