Grellscheid lab is a multidisciplinary team comprising biologists, computational scientists and physicists interested in studying the regulation of post-transcriptional gene expression, with an emphasis on alternative splicing regulation.
Current projects on alternative splicing regulation include studies in Ageing, Senescence, Retinitis Pigmentosa, Parkinsons and Breast Cancer. Using in-house RNA-seq data as well as from public repositories, we are interested in gaining a mechanistic understanding of how dysregulation of alternative splicing contributes to the ageing phenotype or disease pathology.
A growing area of interest in our group is the study of liquid liquid phase separation (LLPS) in biological systems, with a focus on stress granules. Stress granules are LLPS organelles consisting of RNA and RNA binding proteins formed dynamically in response to oxidative stress and dysregulation of stress granule dynamics is implicated in many ‘aggregation disorders’ including neurodegenerative disease. We are employing computational modelling and soft matter physics approaches to understand the material properties of these dynamic liquid droplet organelles and study how they are altered in ageing and neurodegenerative disease.