MB&B Informal Seminar: Archa Fox, PhD “A journey into the nucleus: ‘Lnc-ing’ paraspeckles, lncRNA, RNA processing and phase separation”

“A journey into the nucleus: ‘Lnc-ing’ paraspeckles, lncRNA, RNA processing and phase separation”
Archa Fox is Associate Professor in the School of Human Sciences and the School of Molecular Sciences at the University of Western Australia, and an affiliate investigator with the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research.
Her research in molecular cell biology centers on her 2002 discovery of a new cellular structure, nuclear bodies called paraspeckles. These structures are important in controlling gene expression inside our cells, which malfunction when people develop cancer and other diseases. New treatments can be found for disease by understanding how cells use paraspeckles to regulate the genes they express.
The discovery of paraspeckles has led to further significant research. In 2009 she described the first long noncoding RNA, NEAT1, that scaffolds a nuclear body. In 2015, she showed how paraspeckles are built depending on intrinsically disordered regions of proteins.
Her current research group investigates the paraspeckle as a model system for understanding gene regulation, specifically the role of long noncoding RNAs and protein aggregation. The team works collaboratively with other scientists to study both paraspeckle structure and function.
Archa studied her Bachelor of Science at the University of New South Wales, majoring in molecular genetics. She went on to study her PhD at the University of Sydney (awarded in the year 2000) and carried out her postdoctoral research in Dundee, Scotland. There she learnt to combine cell biology and microscopy with molecular biology. In 2006, she started her own research group at the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research, now known as the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research. In 2015 she took up an academic position at the University of WA. She has been the recipient of the Marshall Medal of the Harry Perkins Institute in 2012, and the emerging leader award of the Australian/NZ Society of Cell and Developmental Biology in 2017. In 2020/21 she was a Director of the International RNA Society and has been the Chair of the RNA Network of Australia since 2015.