Peter Beal
Professor University of Calfornia Davis
Peter A. Beal is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California at Davis and current Director of the NIH-funded UC Davis Chemical Biology Graduate Program. Research from the Beal laboratory has advanced understanding of the structures and mechanism of action for ADAR enzymes responsible for adenosine to inosine RNA editing in humans. Recently, this knowledge has been applied to the design of guiding oligonucleotides capable of directing ADARs to make edits that correct disease-causing mutations in the transcriptome. Targets include mutations in mRNAs associated with Rett syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Seminars
• High resolution structures of ADAR-RNA complexes solved by X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM
• Describing the impact of specific nucleoside analogs at different positions in ADAR guide strands
• Shedding light on the mechanism of the ADAR deamination reaction and informing the design of highly efficient and selective ADAR guide strand for therapeutic editing using chemically modified RNA
