2026 Catherine H. Bone Lecture: Tracking the Edits that Rewrite the RNA Code

Date and Time

Wednesday, Apr 15, 2026 7pm

Location

Adams Commons, Wilkes U. Henry Student Center 2nd floor
84 W. South St.

Details

Jen Heemstra, PhD, will present this year’s Catherine H. Bone Lecture, “Tracking the Edits that Rewrite the RNA Code,” at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 15, in the Henry Student Center, 2nd Floor, Jean and Paul Adams Commons, 84 W. South Street, Wilkes-Barre. The lecture is free and open to the public.

RNA undergoes extensive chemical modification in cells, resulting in changes to protein expression or even the sequences of the proteins generated. Adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) editing is one of the most widespread and impactful of these modifications and is catalyzed by adenosine deaminases acting on RNA (ADARs). Resulting inosines base pair with cytosine, essentially re-coding adenosine sites to guanine. Editing is essential for several processes, including embryogenesis, neurological function and innate cellular immunity. Dysfunctional editing is also linked to autoimmune diseases, neurological disorders and several types of cancer. Despite this importance, numerous challenges remain for studying A-to-I editing, and our overall understanding of the locations and frequency of inosine sites remains limited. To address this challenge, we have repurposed EndoV from an RNA-cleaving enzyme into an RNA-binding protein and demonstrated its use for mapping of A-to-I editing sites and global profiling of RNA inosine content in cells and tissue samples

The Catherine H. Bone Lecture Series in chemistry is hosted by the Wilkes University Chemistry Department and is made possible by the endowments left by Catherine H. Bone, who taught chemistry at Wilkes from 1946-1965.

For more information, visit wilkes.edu/bonelecture.