{"id":11914,"date":"2019-07-03T21:34:49","date_gmt":"2019-07-04T01:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biology.mit.edu\/?page_id=11914"},"modified":"2022-02-25T15:09:01","modified_gmt":"2022-02-25T20:09:01","slug":"profile-emma-kowal","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/biology.mit.edu\/graduate\/why-mit-biology\/graduate-testimonials\/profile-emma-kowal\/","title":{"rendered":"Profile: Emma Kowal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cI went into science because of a certain obsession with the romance of it,\u201d says Emma Kowal<\/a>, a third-year graduate student in Chris Burge\u2019s<\/a> lab in the MIT Department of Biology. \u201cI loved the idea of the scientist as an adventurer exploring the frontiers of knowledge and the universe. And I haven\u2019t let go of that yet.\u201d<\/p>\n Kowal has always been an avid science fiction reader, and now she\u2019s living out a real-life scientific odyssey. The quest she\u2019s taken on for her PhD research involves an understudied type of DNA sequence called an intron, and the roles that introns might play in regulating gene expression.<\/p>\n Introns lie between the DNA sequences that cells use for protein production, and are initially incorporated into the messenger RNA, or mRNA, that cells produce as an intermediate step in synthesizing proteins from DNA. But before they complete protein synthesis, cells remove introns from mRNA through a process called splicing, which has led many people to view introns as junk DNA with splicing acting like a garbage disposal.<\/p>\n \u201cIntrons appeal to me as the underdog genomic region,\u201d Kowal says. Although they\u2019re often seen as unimportant, introns are ubiquitous and plentiful, collectively making up 24% of the human genome. All eukaryotes have them, and, on average, each human gene encodes eight<\/a>. Many researchers, including Kowal, think that introns have been underestimated, and that they may play an important role in regulating gene expression.<\/p>\n Introns are only the latest chapter in Kowal\u2019s RNA story. She began her research career as a Harvard University undergraduate student working in the Szostak Lab<\/a> at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she studied how RNA catalyzed the evolution of cells on the early earth. Although studying primordial life was intellectually stimulating, Kowal wanted to work on something more applied, and so she joined the Church Lab<\/a> in the Harvard Department of Genetics. There she developed methods<\/a> for purifying and imaging<\/a> enigmatic RNA-containing lipid compartments called extracellular vesicles, which cells release into their surrounding environments possibly to communicate with one another.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For the sequel to her bachelor\u2019s degree, Kowal chose to attend MIT Biology because she\u2019d heard that, \u201cat MIT, everyone is one standard deviation nerdier, on average, than they are at other schools.\u201d In this sense, she has not been disappointed. Kowal calls the energy at MIT \u201cunparalleled,\u201d and she says, \u201cpeople are jazzed about what they\u2019re doing, and the whole campus reflects that.\u201d<\/p>\n In some ways, these reflections are physical. Much of the artwork around MIT pays homage to major scientific discoveries, and Kowal says this reverence for science is one factor that attracted her to MIT. From the mural of DNA in the Biology Department to the golden neurons that descend alongside the staircase in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, it\u2019s as if the community is saying, \u201clook at how awesome the universe is!\u201d as Kowal puts it.<\/p>\n In other ways, this energy is reflected in the people she converses with daily. \u201cI really like the students here,\u201d Kowal says. \u201cEveryone is enthusiastic, but also down to earth.\u201d When she\u2019s not exploring the realms of science, Kowal sometimes has more fanciful adventures with the Dungeons and Dragons group that she\u2019s formed with some of her classmates.<\/p>\n Kowal didn\u2019t necessarily intend to continue working on RNA at MIT Biology, but when she heard about Chris Burge\u2019s lab<\/a>, which focuses on RNA and the proteins that mediate its production and stability, she felt a call to action.<\/p>\n The Burge Lab combines high throughput experimental techniques with bioinformatics, and Kowal wants to develop expertise in both these fields. \u201cIf you\u2019re skilled in generating and analyzing big data sets, you can ask questions that other people can\u2019t,\u201d she says. The Burge lab seemed like the perfect setting for her PhD.<\/p>\n