Kathrin Leppek 50 Years Shine-Dalgarno Symposium 2023

Kathrin Leppek

Kathrin Leppek is an assistant professor at the University Clinic Bonn, Germany, since 2022. She did her Ph.D. in Georg Stoecklin’s lab at DKFZ and Heidelberg University, Germany, where she discovered a class of functional mRNA structures that interact with Roquin proteins for mRNA decay in innate immune regulator mRNAs. In her postdoc with Maria Barna at Stanford University, USA, she discovered a new mode of gene regulation by which ribosomal RNA (rRNA) regions exposed on the outer ribosome shell bind to selective transcripts to control mRNA- and species-specific translation. Her lab works on how gene regulation is directly executed by the ribosome, particularly in the innate immune system. They combine innovative RNA biochemistry and RNA-based technology development with model systems ranging from yeast to macrophages. Ultimately, they aim to decipher how rRNA-directed specialized translation shapes gene expression to understand the role of the ribosome in innate immune responses.