Clocks & Rhythms with Carla Green interviewed by Catherine Cormier

Carla Green is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Virginia. She received her PhD from the... » More

Carla Green is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Virginia. She received her PhD from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Kansas Medical Center where she worked on the structure and function of a human prostate-specific gene with Simon Kwok. Her postdoctoral research with Joseph Besharse in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Kansas Medical Center marked the beginning of her interest in circadian biology. While in the Besharse lab she identified a number of circadian clock-controlled genes, including a novel rhythmic gene Nocturnin, in the Xenopus retina. After starting her own lab at the University of Virginia in 1997, she continued to use that model system to study molecular mechanisms of retinal clock function, developing tools to perturb clock function molecularly in transgenic Xenopus. She also continued her studies on the Nocturnin gene and demonstrated that this gene encodes a deadenylase – a polyA-specific ribonuclease that removes the polyA tails from mRNAs. More recently, her lab has begun to focus on mammalian model systems and, in addition to a continued focus on Nocturnin and its role in clock output systems, also works on the role of the Cryptochrome proteins in the central circadian mechanism. Carla Green is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science « Hide