Richard I. Gregory, Ph.D.

Research

The laboratory research focus is to understand the pathways of how small regulatory RNAs are generated, how they exert their gene regulatory function, their role in the self-renewal and pluripotency of embryonic stem (ES) cells, and their relevance to human disease. RNA interference (RNAi) describes the recently identified phenomenon whereby small non-coding RNAs can silence gene expression. It is emerging that cells possess a wide repertoire of tiny regulatory RNAs that are critical for a variety of biological pathways and can repress genes via numerous mechanisms. For posttranscriptional gene silencing, microRNAs (miRNAs), and small inhibitory RNAs (siRNAs), function as guide molecules inducing mRNA degradation or translational repression. In mammals, hundreds of miRNAs have been identified, and have been implicated in controlling diverse developmental pathways. Indeed, recent predictions indicate that over one third of all human genes are targeted by miRNAs.