Rate My Professor Antonio Giraldez

Antonio J. Giraldez is the Fergus F. Wallace Professor of Genetics in the Department of Genetics at Yale School of Medicine. He served as Chair of the Department of Genetics from 2017 to 2023 and as Director of Graduate Studies from 2012 to 2016. Giraldez established his laboratory at Yale in 2007 following postdoctoral training with Alexander Schier at the Skirball Institute at New York University and Harvard University from 2003 to 2006. He earned his PhD from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg in 2002 under Stephen Cohen and a BS in Chemistry and Molecular Biology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 1998, with undergraduate work also at the University of Cádiz.

Giraldez investigates the regulatory codes that shape gene expression during embryonic development, focusing on the maternal-to-zygotic transition in vertebrates using zebrafish as a model organism. His research integrates genomics, genetics, developmental biology, imaging, biochemistry, proteomics, and computational methods to elucidate mechanisms of transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene regulation from embryogenesis to human disease. Notable discoveries include the miR-430 microRNA family that promotes deadenylation and clearance of maternal mRNAs, deadenylation as a central mechanism of microRNA-mediated repression, alternative microRNA processing pathways independent of Dicer, translation of micropeptides from previously non-coding transcripts, codon-specific influences on mRNA stability, deadenylation, and translation, and essential roles of Nanog, Oct4, and SoxB1 in zygotic genome activation. He developed tools such as CRISPRscan for efficient sgRNA design, ChromExM for nanoscale chromatin imaging, and massively parallel reporters for dissecting post-transcriptional regulatory grammar.

His achievements are honored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholar Award (2016), Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists National Finalist (2016), Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science (2014), Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences (2008), and Lois E. and Franklin H. Top, Jr., Yale Scholar Award (2007). Highly cited works include "Zebrafish MiR-430 promotes deadenylation and clearance of maternal mRNAs" (Science, 2006), "MicroRNAs regulate brain morphogenesis in zebrafish" (Science, 2005), "CRISPRscan: designing highly efficient sgRNAs for CRISPR-Cas9 targeting in vivo" (Nature Methods, 2015), "NaP-TRAP reveals the regulatory grammar in 5’UTR-mediated translation regulation during zebrafish development" (Nature Communications, 2024), and "The maternal-to-zygotic transition: reprogramming of the cytoplasm and nucleus" (Nature Reviews Genetics, 2024).