Nelson Lau

Dr. Nelson Lau is an associate professor and Director of the Genome Science Institute (GSI).

Dr. Lau’s lab studies RNA interference (RNAi) mechanisms such as the PIWI/piRNA pathway which protects our genomes from the spread of transposable elements (TEs). Human DNA is inherently laden with TEs that have continued to infect our genomes. Over millions of years of evolution, TEs have filled up over 45% of our genome’s content. If TEs are unchecked, their mobilization causes germ cell death, infertility, and genomic damage during cellular aging. Therefore, human’s cells depend on small regulatory RNAs and their associated PIWI and ARGONAUTE proteins to safeguard genomes from these mobilizing elements.

His lab applies functional and comparative genomics and biochemical approaches to dissect the molecular mechanisms for how PIWI / piRNA complexes silence genomic targets. By understanding the requirements and limitations of the PIWI/piRNA pathway, Dr. Lau’s lab may be able to uncover how TEs might evade suppression by these pathways to generate wide-spread TE landscape diversity across animal genomes. The lab’s mechanistic studies will also help them find situations to enhance TE control and link TE mis-regulation to etiologies of genome decline. The lab is collaborating with several other groups at BUMC to look at the impact of TEs in skin cells, macrophages, and neurons. Towards this goal, the lab is exploring how loss of transposon silencing by RNAi pathways is tied to animal aging processes.

Recently, Dr. Lau’s lab has also extended their piRNA studies to mosquito cells and animals to examine how pathogenic flaviviruses like Dengue, Zika and West Nile viruses can generate small RNAs including viral piRNAs. They created and are continuing to update a Mosquito Small RNA Genomics pipeline, the MSRG database, to enable broad comparative analysis of mosquito small RNAs that may repress viral mRNAs and TE RNAs. Since many TEs are genomic relics and related to retroviruses, the RNAi pathway represents an adaptive immunity response to both evolutionary and on going infection threats in insects. This work is conducted in close collaboration with the BU National Emerging and Infectious Disease Laboratory (NEIDL).