Dr. Nandan Gokhale’s work from our lab highlights the importance of cellular RNA in enhancing MAVS signalosome function, which is crucial for antiviral signaling initiated by RLRs. They reveal that MAVS interacts with RNA through a disordered domain, enhancing its ability to activate transcription of IFNs. They uncover a new layer of regulation to MAVS signaling.

This manuscript is published in Science: https://www.science.org/stoken/author-tokens/ST-2323/full ​
 
Additionally, Drs. Sonja Best and Adam Hage wrote a beautiful perspective on this work: https://buff.ly/4fxVMcx 
 
UW Medicine news article on this manuscript can be found at 
https://newsroom.uw.edu/news-releases/study-shows-role-of-cells-own-rna-in-antiviral-defense
​

 The Department of Immunology is pleased to congratulate Dr. Rachel Van Gelder, Immunology graduate student in the Ram lab, for the successful defense of her dissertation entitled “Interleukin-2 mediated NF-kB-dependent mRNA splicing induces interferon gamma protein production.”

​Rachel’s defense took place on August 8, 2024 at 11:00 am in Orin Smith Auditorium in Seattle, Washington

​ Congratulations, Rachel!!

Source: ​https://www.immunology.washington.edu/2024/08/08/congratulations-dr-rachel-van-gelder/

​Nandan is a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow in Ram Savan’s lab. He earned his PhD from Duke University in 2019. He is broadly interested in how RNA regulates and is regulated by viral infection and antiviral innate immunity. He is currently investigating how RNA molecules interact with and affect the function of antiviral innate immune signaling platforms. His long term goal is to lead an independent laboratory studying the RNA biology underlying antiviral immune responses. The K99/R00 Award will fund up to two years of Nandan’s postdoctoral research, and two years for his future, independent lab.

Rachel received the Dr. Richard Titus Endowed Fund for Graduate Student Support in Immunology award, made possible by an endowment from Dr. Richard Titus to support graduate education in immunology in our department.  Congrats Rachel! 🎉 ​​

​

​Very proud of Alexandra (Alex) Dinu, who received the Mary Gates research scholarship. She is a fourth-year undergraduate in our lab. Alex has been exploring novel regulatory controls of cytokines in the IL-10 family.
​ Congrats Alex!  🎉 ​

​We had a fun and productive year in the lab despite the continued struggles in our personal and professional lives due to the pandemic. We supported each other in the lab, welcomed new members, and bid farewell to others. We were excited for Nandan Gokhale who received the Helen Hay Whitney Award.  Yo Okamura joined our group who received a fellowship from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. These are prestigious post-doctoral fellowships and we are excited to see their continued successes.  Rachel Van Gelder passed her General exam progressing to the next stage of her doctoral program! Frank Soveg and Johannes Schwerk, with help from others in the lab and the Seattle immunology community, discovered a critical immune gene variant that restricts SARS-CoV-2. This OAS1 variant also predicts patients progressing to severe COVID-19 disease. We are glad that we were able to contribute to the understanding of why certain people progress to severe COVID-19 disease. Frank Soveg received his doctorate on this work and he is currently pursuing a post-doctoral fellowship in the Gladstone Institute.  Johannes Schwerk, Matthew Hendricks, and Snehal Ozarkar moved on to chase their dreams in industry.  We thank them for making the lab a fun place and for their hard work over the years. Ram lab is approaching ten years this December and I am thankful for the current and past members for being so amazing! We thank all the members of the immunology community in Seattle for supporting each other during the pandemic. Happy Holidays!