Biography:
Mie completed her bachelor’s degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge before joining the Lilley group (CCP Proteomics Facility) for a MSc Systems Biology in 2017. During her time at the CCP she helped develop the OOPS method for RBP assays and gained exposure to proteomic workflows. She has now joined the Willis group for a PhD centred on tRNA biology and translational regulation.
Research Interests:
Transfer tRNA (tRNA) is an adaptor molecule that links a specific codon in mRNA with its corresponding amino acid during protein synthesis. During their biosynthesis, tRNAs undergo extensive post-transcriptional modifications, with over 100 different base modifications currently annotated. These chemical modifications are essential for structural integrity, precise codon recognition and maintaining the correct reading frame, among many other functions. Recent studies in the field have revealed that tRNA modifications can be dynamically altered in response to environmental stresses and levels of cellular metabolites.
My research focuses on understanding the concerted response of tRNA molecules to different stressors and evaluating the impact on the translational status of the cell. To this end, we are developing a tRNA-seq pipeline and other systems-wide approaches to gain access to this information under dynamic conditions.
