CSB Seminar: Prof Kristen Lynch, PhD. – Tuning Immune Response Through RNA Processing

When

October 10, 2025    
11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Event Type

CSB Departmental Seminar

Friday, October 10th @ 11:00 am

SPEAKER: Kristen Lynch, PhD. – Perelman School of Medicine, UPenn

TITLE: Tuning Immune Response Through RNA Processing

ABSTRACT: 

The driving goal of the Lynch lab is understanding how cells regulate RNA processing events to tune their response to immune challenges such as viruses or other foreign invaders. Our immune system involves an elaborate array of different cell types that respond to a wide range of challenges with precise timing and accuracy.

Several decades of work have focused on how transcription regulation controls on/off decisions of protein expression in response to immune challenge. However, the regulation and functional consequences of RNA processing as a mechanism to control protein function and abundance remains much less well understood.

RNA processing includes regulated decisions regarding what sequences are included in the final mRNA to encode distinct protein functions (alternative splicing), what stability or translation regulatory sequences are included in the 3’ UTR to control protein abundance (alternative polyadenylation), and how much protein is generated from an individual mRNA (regulated translation).

The Lynch lab is currently investigating mechanisms driving all of these RNA processing events, and how these are altered in innate and adaptive immune responses to improve immune function.

HOST: John Calarco and Mike Zoberman

LOCATION: Cell and Systems Biology, 25 Harbord Street, Suite 432

LIVESTREAM LINK: https://csb.utoronto.ca/live-stream/