I'm a PhD fellow at the Center for Human Technologies of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), working as part of the RNA Systems Biology team, who's PI is Professor Gian Gaetano Tartaglia. Under the supervision of Dr. Elias Bechara and Dr. Laura Broglia, I've been working on identifying regions of the circular RNA, that have the ability to recruit ribosomes in order to initiate translation and proteins synthesis. The lab has been involved in studying different aspects of RNA-binding proteins, especially Sam68 that is a major member of the STAR family (Signal Transduction and Activation of RNA). Sam68 is involved in many steps of RNA metabolism and interact with ILF2/ILF3 proteins that are involved in circular RNA biogenesis. We are currently working on the characterization of several circular RNAs affected by Sam68 and their involvement in translation regulation of linear RNAs.
I received my MS degree in Functional Genomics and Proteomics from Saint Joseph University of Beirut - Lebanon, with a thesis on protein-RNA interactions, from Jacques Monod Institute - Paris.
