They grow up so fast – Meng presenting his MRes work

Today Meng-Chen Tsai presented the work from his Masters in Research project in our lab this semester.

Meng’s work has focused on a brand new story in the lab – activation of transcription of different genes using short-activating RNAs. It’s pretty complicate, but in essence we hope to develop a tool (potential therapy) to switch on different laminins.

Throughout the project he worked with Thanos who has been using these saRNAs for awhile now (look out for his poster at ARVO), but this was a totally different direction. It was also all very new to Meng.

As often the case, I have been nothing but impressed by how much progress can be made in a relatively short 10 week project. This time we have really gone from the seedlings of a new idea to a set of pilot data that will inform where we go next and which has revealed some potentially surprising findings. It’s .ore confusing and complicated than we predicted but also more interesting because of that! Lots more work required but Meng has laid the groundwork for something that I hope will be very exciting.

Seems like there is a lot going on right now with four of the team in action earlier this week at BSMB , John and Thanos heading to ARVO in a couple of weeks and my undergraduate students finishing up soon. Expect more “they grow up so fast” soon!