Long Noncoding RNA: Mechanistic Insights and Roles in Inflammation

Susan Carpenter is an assistant professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at UC Santa Cruz.

Susan’s lab focuses on understanding the complex molecular mechanisms that control the body’s essential protection against infection. Any perturbation to these mechanisms can have devastating consequences and result in inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. Recent evidence shows that a group of RNA molecules known as long noncoding RNA or lncRNA plays important roles in diverse biological functions, including the inflammatory response. They are studying lncRNAs to gain an understanding of their function within the immune system, which could lead to insight into human disease and perhaps novel targets for therapeutic intervention for inflammatory conditions

Susan earned her PhD in Biochemistry from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, studying novel proteins important within innate immune signaling pathways,working under the supervision of Professor Luke O’Neill. Her post-doctoral research with Prof. Kate Fitzgerald at UMASS medical school continued in this area, and there she focused her attention on the role of lncRNA in inflammatory signaling pathways. Since her research bridges the fields of immunology and RNA biology, she also took the opportunity to work at UCSF in the laboratory of Dr. Michael McManus, who is a pioneer in high throughput technologies. There she worked on developing high throughput genomic approaches to study lncRNAs important for human innate immune signaling in host defense mechanisms.