Sandra Lynn Wolin is an American microbiologist and physician-scientist specialized in biogenesis, function, and turnover of non-coding RNA. She is chief of the RNA Biology Laboratory at the

National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...

Education

Wolin completed an A.B. in Biochemical Sciences from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. She earned a M.D. from the

Yale School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. The primary te ...

and a Ph.D. degree from the department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. Her 1985 dissertation was titled, ''The Ro Small Cytoplasmic Ribonucleoproteins of Mammalian Cells''. Wolin's doctoral advisor was

Joan A. Steitz Joan Elaine Argetsinger Steitz (born January 26, 1941) is Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is known for her discoveries involving RNA, inc ...

. She carried out postdoctoral training with

Peter Walter Peter Walter (born December 5, 1954) is a German-American molecular biologist and biochemist and is Director of the Bay Area Institute of Science at Altos Labs, Professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He was a Howard H ...

at the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It cond ...

, where she devised an early

ribosome profiling Ribosome profiling, or Ribo-Seq (also named ribosome footprinting), is an adaptation of a technique developed by Joan Steitz and Marilyn Kozak almost 50 years ago that Nicholas Ingolia and Jonathan Weissman adapted to work with next generation seq ...

method.

Career

Wolin returned to the Yale School of Medicine as an assistant professor, and rose to the rank of professor in the departments of cell biology and molecular biophysics and biochemistry. From 2014-2017, she served as director of the Yale Center for RNA Science and Medicine. She joined the

(NCI) in 2017 as chief of the newly formed RNA Biology Laboratory. She heads the section on non-coding RNAs and ribonucleoprotein particles (RNPs).

Research

Wolin's research examines how noncoding RNAs function, how cells recognize and degrade defective RNAs and how failure to degrade these RNAs affects cell function and contributes to human disease. Wolin studies the biogenesis, function, and turnover of non-coding RNAs. Her laboratory has identified proteins that recognize misfolded and otherwise defective RNAs. By studying a bacterial ortholog of one such protein, the ring-shaped Ro60

autoantigen In immunology, autoimmunity is the system of immune responses of an organism against its own healthy cells, tissues and other normal body constituents. Any disease resulting from this type of immune response is termed an "autoimmune disease". P ...

, they discovered that this protein is tethered by noncoding "

Y RNA Y RNAs are small non-coding RNAs. They are components of the Ro60 ribonucleoprotein particle which is a target of autoimmune antibodies in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. They are also reported to be necessary for DNA replication thro ...

" to a ring-shaped

nuclease A nuclease (also archaically known as nucleodepolymerase or polynucleotidase) is an enzyme capable of cleaving the phosphodiester bonds between nucleotides of nucleic acids. Nucleases variously effect single and double stranded breaks in their ta ...

, forming a double-ringed ribonucleoprotein machine specialized for structured RNA degradation. The laboratory is characterizing this new RNA degradation machine, identifying additional roles for Ro60 and Y RNA in both human cells and bacteria, and uncovering other pathways by which defective and damaged RNAs are recognized and degraded.

Awards and honors

Wollin is an elected fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

and American Academy of Microbiology.

Selected works

* * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolin, Sandra Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 21st-century American biologists Yale School of Medicine alumni National Institutes of Health people 21st-century American women scientists 21st-century American women physicians 21st-century American physicians Princeton University alumni Yale School of Medicine faculty American microbiologists Women microbiologists Cancer researchers American medical researchers Women medical researchers Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology American women academics Physician-scientists