Grace Teng

B.S., Yale University
Regulation of Immunoglobulin Gene Diversification by Noncoding RNAs
presented by F. Nina Papavasiliou

Our dean is fond of saying that overall, the best predictor for success during the sometimes grueling Ph.D. years is one’s love for cooking. Grace is a phenomenal cook, so in retrospect, her steep trajectory in science was predictable.

Grace came to the lab five years ago, with an interest in how noncoding RNAs influence the flow of genetic information. Now if you open a textbook on this, you learn that the flow is linear: DNA makes RNA makes protein (with a little loop to account for reverse transcription). Of course, this almost linear view is rapidly becoming antiquated, a fact that Grace recognized very early and captured perfectly with the following analogy. In the sandwich that is this view of the central dogma of molecular biology, RNA is in the middle, and like with every good sandwich, it’s what’s in the middle that matters!

I count myself lucky then, that this young woman decided that the process we study in my lab, which is how immune cells generate antibodies, offered a decent kitchen in which to test her ideas about RNA. In her time in the lab, Grace has been persistent, creative and adventurous with her experiments. The fruits of her labor were published prominently last year, in a paper where she provides the first direct demonstration of how a tiny RNA can act not as a “fine-tuner,” but rather as a prominent regulator of the expression of a DNA mutator, which is required for the generation of antibody diversity.

This paper carries both our names, mine for providing the ingredients and kitchen space, and hers for just about everything else, including the writing (she’s a phenomenal writer as well).

Grace is planning to continue her work in the world of RNAs and gene regulation but will now switch her focus from microRNAs to the longest noncoding RNAs. I’m confident that in a few short years Grace will be starting up her own shop, but not before she does one last apprenticeship. In July, Grace is moving to New Haven, to continue her adventures in the laboratory of David Schatz at Yale University Medical School.