Ashrut Narula – MSc Graduate Student, 2017-2018

Ashrut previously did his undergraduate work in Biochemistry at the University of Toronto, where his research projects spanned a broad range of topics from yeast genetics to structural biochemistry.

As a co-supervised student in the labs of Dr. Olivia Rissland and Dr. James Ellis in the Department of Molecular Genetics, Ashrut used a systematic genome-wide approach to identify novel post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms. His graduate project aimed to investigate the role of mRNA open reading frame sequence on human transcript stability.

Selected Publications:

A. Narula, J. Ellis, J.M. Taliaferro and O.S. Rissland. 2019. Coding regions affect mRNA Stability in Human Cells. RNA 25:1751-64. 

Rodrigues D.C⁺, M. Mufteev⁺, K. Yuki, A. Narula, W. Wei, A. Piekna, J. Liu, P. Pasceri, O. Rissland, M.D. Wilson and J. Ellis. 2023. Buffering of transcription rate by mRNA half-life is a conserved feature of Rett syndrome models. ⁺Co-first authors. Nature Communications,14:1896.