Erbay Yigit, PhD
Associate Director, Molecular & Genomics Division, New England Biolabs
Former RTI Lab: Doctoral candidate, Mello Lab
Training Period: 2000 - 2007
Prior Academic Institution: WPI
The Argonaute Family of Genes in Caenorhabditis Elegans: a Dissertation
My research team focuses on the discovery and characterization of the RNA modifying enzymes that install or remove epitranscriptomic modifications. Modification of RNAs are not only essential for the normal function of messenger (mRNA) and non-coding RNA in the cell, but also a key component of therapeutic mRNAs including recent Covid-19 vaccines. Second area of research focuses on the discovery and characterization of novel ribonucleases (RNases) with unique properties which will enable the study of the epitranscriptome and the analysis of cellular or in vitro transcribed (IVT) mRNA for the quality control purposes.
Erbay joined NEB in 2011 as a Development Scientist in the Applications and Product Development Department, where he developed a number of new products for next generation sequencing. In 2017, he moved to the RNA Division where he initiated a research program to study the role of RNA modifications and its modifying enzymes.