RNA Featured Researcher – Guoming Gao, Biophysics Graduate Program

Guoming Gao
Biophysics Graduate Program, advisor: Nils G. Walter
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Who/what brought you to science? The Encyclopedia of Human Body, my favorite book when I was a kid. It showed me a fascinating world of cell biology where different human cells cooperate to achieve and maintain body functions..

What are your research interests? RNA localization is important for RNA function, and thus it’s critical for cells to orchestra how and when different RNAs get to their destination. Biomolecular condensates in cells can be either RNA ‘roadblocks’ or ‘traps’ that either exclude or retain a specific RNA molecule, both of which extend the time a single RNA molecule needs to reach its destination. I am interested in how biomolecular condensates impact each single RNA’s function by changing their diffusion or transportations, and how we could extract this information by single molecule tracking of RNAs in live cells.

What do you hope is the outcome/impact of your research? Revealing how condensates impact single RNA diffusion paves the way for a completely new angle to understand the biological function of cellular condensates and the mechanism of RNA translocation.

What advice would you give to students who’d like to get more involved in research? Be resilient. Don’t give up the science if that’s really what motivates you and keep you high every day. Life events could emerge and hit you unexpectedly, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? A broadcaster or podcaster hosting a scientific channel.

What are your longer-term career aspirations? To become a professor or investigator in a research university or institute. I am passionate for contributing to the scientific community either by providing a new angle to a question or by empowering new researchers for the field. I love having a scientific problem in my head that could sometimes keep me awake at night when I get a new idea to solve it.