Ariel Bazzini, Ph.D., an Associate Investigator at the Stowers Institute, joined the Institute in August 2016. His lab studies how genes are regulated, and how this process affects development and diseases such as viral infections.

What brought you to the Stowers Institute?

For me, joining the Stowers Institute was a chance for me and my team to follow any research idea we’re curious about. The combination of our unique funding model through American Century Investments, brilliant students and postdocs, and top-notch technology makes it possible to explore questions I might not have dared to try elsewhere.

Why are you interested in your field of research?

In biology, there’s a standard idea called the "central dogma"—DNA makes RNA, and RNA makes proteins. For a long time, most attention went to how much RNA is made (through a process called transcription), but there’s more to the story. The amount of RNA in a cell also depends on how long it lasts (RNA half-life or stability), and how efficiently it gets turned into protein (translation efficiency).

We want to understand how cells control these steps—how they decide which RNAs to keep, and how actively to use them. These processes are especially important during early development and in viral infections, two areas we’re deeply focused on.

What inspires you to keep working in your field?

The unknown! There’s still so much we don’t understand—like how a single cell, after fertilization, becomes a complex organism. Or, how viruses hijack a cell’s machinery to survive and spread. We’re constantly uncovering new ways genes are regulated, and that’s incredibly exciting.