Oza Zaheed is a cohort 2 student who graduated from the programme in 2024 and has now been awarded a prestigious industry fellowship by Research Ireland.
The Research Ireland IRDIF Programme supports the temporary placement of academic researchers in companies, to conduct research across a variety of areas and address industry-informed challenges.
Oza has received €70,949 for his project entitled ‘Linking Microproteins and RNA Modifications: New Frontiers in Cancer Diagnostics and Therapy.’ See here for further information
Under the mentorship of Dr Audrey Michel at EIRNA Bio, this project seeks to advance our understanding of how RNA influences cancer growth and treatment resistance, helping to develop more personalised therapies. Recent advancements in bioinformatics, translatomics, and epitranscriptomics have revealed that certain RNA molecules, once thought to have no function, can produce small proteins that may play a role in disease. This research aims to explore the link between these small proteins and chemical changes in RNA, with the aim of finding new ways to detect and treat cancer. Using advanced sequencing techniques, the project will create computational models to explore how chemical changes in RNA influence the production of small proteins in human cancer cell models.
Oza who is now a postdoctoral researcher and senior bioinformatician under the supervision of Dr Kellie Dean at the School of Biochemistry & Cell Biology at UCC, said: “This award provides me with an exciting opportunity to explore the interplay between microproteins and RNA modifications in cancer. In collaboration with EIRNA Bio, I will develop and refine computational workflows to analyse high-throughput sequencing data, gaining deeper insights into RNA-based disease mechanisms. These discoveries will help advance innovative approaches in cancer diagnostics and therapeutics.”
Well done Oza!