Phillip D. Zamore, Ph.D.

Research

We are passionately committed to understanding how small RNAs-small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), microRNAs (miRNAs), and PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs)-regulate gene expression in plants, fungi, and animals. The model organism, Drosophila melanogaster is the center of our studies, but what we learn in flies, we test in mammalian cell extracts, in cultured human and mouse cell lines, and in vivo in mice to identify where these processes are conserved and where they diverge between flies and mammals. Our main areas of investigation include 1)The mechanism of RNA interference (RNAi) 2) miRNA biogenesis and function 3) piRNAs and endo-siRNAs: defending the genome 4) Huntington’s Disease and RNAi Therapy.