May 2018

Part IV: Preparing the Next Wave

As years of dedication to her research is catapulting RNA biologist Lynne Maquat into the scientific spotlight, she remains intently focused on training and encouraging the next wave of scientists to even greater heights. She’s quick to acknowledge that her success wouldn’t be possible without the graduate students and post-docs who worked with her over almost four decades, and continues to be intimately involved in the science and day-to-day happenings in her lab.

Part II: Making Sense of Nonsense

As in most areas of life, mistakes in cells happen all the time. Luckily, the human body has built-in systems to eliminate potentially harmful slip-ups. Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is one of those systems, but before RNA biologist Lynne Maquat came on the scene, no one could come up with a logical explanation for how it worked. At a time when many scientists abandoned ship, Maquat stuck with it, and slowly made significant advances.