Rate My Professor Eric Miska

Eric Miska’s laboratory investigates gene regulation by non-coding RNAs, epigenetics, inheritance mechanisms, and genome stability. Current research themes encompass miRNA biology and pathology, miRNA mechanisms, piRNA biology and the germline, endo-siRNAs in epigenetic inheritance and environmental conditioning, small RNA evolution, and the role of RNAi in host-pathogen interactions. A pioneer in the field, Miska conducted the first genome-wide analyses of microRNAs in animals and discovered the piRNA pathway in C. elegans that silences transposons in the germline. His group demonstrated that piRNAs and RNAi pathways can establish multigenerational epigenetic memory in animals. Using C. elegans as a model host-pathogen system, they identified TUTases—RNA uridyltransferases that restrict RNA virus replication—and developed technologies to map RNA structure and RNA-RNA interactions in living cells, applied to viruses like Zika and SARS-CoV-2. Miska is a co-founder of STORM Therapeutics, a biotechnology company pioneering RNA modification-targeted therapies for cancer. Key publications include “MicroRNA expression profiles classify human cancers” (Nature, 2005), “MicroRNA expression in zebrafish embryonic development” (Science, 2005), “piRNAs can trigger a multigenerational epigenetic memory in the germline of C. elegans” (Cell, 2012), and “The Short- and Long-Range RNA–RNA Interactome of SARS-CoV-2” (Molecular Cell, 2020). With over 53,000 citations on Google Scholar, his research has profoundly influenced RNA biology, epigenetics, and evolutionary genetics.