Welcome to the O'Connell Lab

The O’Connell lab is focused on understanding the biochemical mechanisms of RNA-mediated gene regulation, and on the development of new tools to study these processes. We are particularly interested in how RNA processing is involved in the control and dynamics of fundamental biological processes (such as cell fate decision and maintenance) and how these processes are dysregulated in disease.
We utilize a range of interdisciplinary approaches including molecular biology, protein and RNA biochemistry, CRISPR gene editing, CRISPR RNA-targeting strategies, structural biology, mass spectrometry, high-throughput sequencing, and bioinformatics to understand these processes.