Mee-Ngan F. Yap, Ph.D.

Research

The ribosome catalyzes protein synthesis in all living organisms. Misregulated translation can result in various genetic diseases and detrimental effects in development and stress adaptation. Many clinically important antibiotics act on the ribosome and inhibit translational elongation. A fundamental question in the field is how the ribosome carries out translation in response to disparate mRNA templates and antibiotics. One of our research focuses is to examine how non-uniform ribosome movement along its template influences translational regulation. We adapt a sequencing-based translational profiling strategy to obtain a global snapshot of ribosome positions under stress condition. We also investigate the molecular mechanism of drug resistance in bacteria that is induced by a sublethal dose of antibiotics via an unusual “ribosome stalling” regulatory process.