Vincenzo Alessandro Gennarino, PhD

  • Assistant Professor of Genetics & Development
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Overview

I grew up in the beautiful city of Palermo, in southern Italy. I used to spend hours exploring the countryside and observing animal life. I was curious about everything then, and I still am.

During my doctoral studies at the TIGEM in Italy, in the lab of Sandro Banfi, my first publication was in the microRNA field. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small molecules that regulate the function of most human genes; the challenge has been to identify each miRNA’s set of target genes. Various bioinformatic methods had been tried, but each approach reveals a different set of targets for a given microRNA. I took a different tack: I hypothesized that the target genes of a given miRNA are likely to belong to the same biological pathway and therefore to be co-expressed. This basic idea led me to develop HOCTAR (Genome Research, 2009) and then the more refined CoMeTa (Genome Research, 2012), whose prediction accuracy reaches nearly 100%, as calculated by analysis of previously characterized human miRNAs. CoMeTa was the first tool to infer the biological pathways of each human miRNA based on the identification of its set of target genes. HOCTAR led to the discovery of the function of miR-128, which controls the master gene TFEB (Science, 2009).

For my postdoctoral work I wanted to bring my background in bioinformatics and RNA biology to bear on problems in neuroscience, so I joined the lab of Huda Zoghbi. I studied the regulation of the epigenetic factor MECP2 during neurodevelopment (Genes & Development, 2013), the post-translational modification of a neurodegenerative disease protein, Ataxin1 (Cell, 2015 and Cell, 2018), and alternative polyadenylation (eLife, 2015). This work forms the basis of my lab’s current projects.

Academic Appointments

  • Assistant Professor of Genetics & Development

Languages

  • Italian

Gender

  • Male

Credentials & Experience

Education & Training

  • MS, 2005 Biological Sciences, University of Palermo, Faculty of Medicine (Italy)
  • PhD, 2009 Medical Genetics, Second University of Naples (Italy)
  • Fellowship: 2006 University of Milan (Italy)

Honors & Awards

2018

  • Paul A. Marks Scholar, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY
  • “Hot chair” travel award (invited speaker) to the 7th Ataxia Investigators Meeting (AIM), April 1-5, Philadelphia, PA
  • Young Investigator Research Grant 2018. “Delineating the PUM1 functional network in mice and humans.” The National Ataxia Foundation.
  • NARSAD Young Investigator Award 2018. “PUMILIO1 mutations cause two new neurological disorders: understanding its role in Mice and Humans.” The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.

2017

  • Young Investigator Research Grant 2017. “PUMILIO1 deficiency: understanding a new ataxia gene and its role in cerebellar dysfunction in mice and humans.” The National Ataxia Foundation.

2016

  • Best Speaker Prize, 6th Ataxia Investigators Meeting (AIM) at Caribe Royale, April 1, Orlando, Florida.
  • “Hot Chair” travel award to attend the 6th Ataxia Investigators Meeting (AIM) at Caribe Royale, March 29-April 1, Orlando, Florida.
  • First prize, “Best Paper” in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine Retreat, January 14-15, Galveston, TX.

2015

  • Winner, “Scientific Storytelling” Pediatric Research & Fellows’ Symposium, March 26, Department of Pediatrics, Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, TX.

2012

  • Received National Scientific Qualification as Associate Professor in Experimental Biology, Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR).

2009

  • Young speaker special selection invitation to Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology – The Biology of RNA Silencing Meeting, April 25-30, Victoria British Columbia, Canada.

2007

  • One of 150 applicants selected to attend “Advanced Topics in Molecular Medicine,” July 15-18, at AREA Science Park (CBM-CEI) in Trieste, Italy.
  • One of 100 applicants selected to attend the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei Meeting, “The world of small non-coding RNAs,” June 11-12, Rome, Italy.

2006, 2007

  • Early Researcher Career Development Award provided by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) at the University of Milan; I am the only student (so far) to have won twice.

Research

My lab’s overall goal is to understand the molecular mechanisms driving neurological diseases, including isolated neuropsychiatric features, in the hope of ultimately devising viable therapies

Neuroscience made enormous strides during the 1990’s with the advent of molecular genetic techniques that allowed us to identify myriad disease genes and manipulate them in animal models from flies to mice. In the 2000’s, we came to appreciate the importance of epigenetic mechanisms to neurobiology, and now we are on the cusp of a new field that might be called “RNA neurobiology.”

RNA biology may, in fact, have particular importance in the brain, given the extremely dynamic nature of neuronal synapses. The post-synaptic compartment contains polysomes, which indicates that translation is crucial for higher-order brain activity, and protein synthesis has long been thought to be required for memory consolidation. Small wonder, then, that disruption of RNA-binding proteins is associated with wide-ranging syndromes that affect motor control, behavior, and cognition.

My interest in RNA-binding proteins centers on their role in post-transcriptional regulation of proteins that, when mutated, lead to human neurological disease. But my interest is in the wild-type versions of these proteins: my research has shown that relatively modest increases or decreases in the levels of at least some ‘normal’ proteins can be pathogenic. This opens up an entirely new avenue to discovering new neurological disease genes, as I showed recently in the identification of patients bearing mutations in Pumilio1 (Cell, 2018).

Research Interests

  • Developing RNA therapeutic approaches to neurological diseases
  • Establishment and maintenance of RNA homeostasis in the brain
  • Protein dosage and neurological disorders
  • RNA-binding proteins and non-coding RNA regulatory networks in neurological disorders

Grants

2019-2024

“Deciphering the role of Pumilio1 in two new neurological diseases” R01 NS109858-01A1. Source: NINDS. Total funding: $2,198,845 over five years. Role: Principal Investigator.

2018-2021

Paul A. Marks Scholar Program, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. $300,000 over three years.

2018-2019

Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, NARSAD Young Investigator Award. “PUMILIO1 mutations cause two new neurological disorders: understanding PUM1 function in mice and humans.” Role: PI. $70,000 over two years.

2018

National Ataxia Foundation Young Investigator Research Award (Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2018). “Delineating the PUM1 functional network in mice and humans.” Role: PI. $35,000 for one year.

2017

National Ataxia Foundation Young Investigator Research Award (Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2017). “PUMILIO1 deficiency: understanding a new ataxia gene and its role in cerebellar dysfunction in mice and humans.” Role: PI. $35,000 for one year.

Selected Publications

Gennarino VA†, Palmer EE, McDonell LM, Wang L, Adamski CJ, Koire A, See L, Chen CA, Schaaf CP, Rosenfeld JA, Panzer JA, Moog U, Hao S, Bye A, Kirk EP, Stankiewicz P, Breman AM, McBride A, Kandula T, Dubbs HA, Macintosh R, Cardamone M, Zhu Y, Ying K, Dias KR, Cho MT, Henderson LB, Baskin B, Morris P, Tao J, Cowley MJ, Dinger ME, Roscioli T, Caluseriu O, Suchowersky O, Sachdev RL, Lichtarge O, Tang J, Boycott KM, Holder JL, and Zoghbi HY†. "A mild PUM1 mutation is associated with adult-onset ataxia, whereas haploinsufficiency causes developmental delay and seizures." Cell, 2018 Feb 22;172(5):924-936e.11. (†Corresponding authors).

Gennarino VA*, Alcott CA*, Chen CA, Chaudhury A, Rosenfeld JA, Parikh S, Wheless JW, Roeder ER, Horovitz DDG, Roney EK, Smith JL, Cheung SW, Li W, Nailson JR, Schaaf CP, Zoghbi HY. "NUDT21-spanning CNVs lead to neuropsychiatric disease and altered MeCP2 abundance via alternative polyadenylation." eLife, 2015 Aug 27;4. doi: 10.7554/eLife.10782. (*Contributed equally).

Gennarino VA, Singh RK, White JJ, De Maio A, Han K, Kim JY, Jafar-Nejad P, di Ronza A, Kang H, Sayegh LS, Cooper TA, Orr HT, Sillitoe RV and Zoghbi HY. "Pumilio1 Haploinsufficiency Leads to SCA1-like Neurodegeneration by Increasing Wild-Type Ataxin1 Levels." Cell, 2015 Mar 12;160(6):1087-98. This paper was highlighted in an ALZ forum press release.

Han K*, Gennarino VA*, Lee Y, Pang K, Hashimoto-Torii K, Choufani S, Raju CS, Oldham MC, Weksberg R, Rakic P, Liu Z, and Zoghbi HY. "Human-specific regulation of MeCP2 levels in fetal brains by microRNA miR-483-5p." Genes & Development, 2013 Mar 1;27(5):485-90. (*Contributed equally). This paper was selected for the journal cover.

Gennarino VA, D'angelo G, Dharmalingam G, Fernandez S, Russolillo G, Sanges R, Mutarelli M, Belcastro V, Ballabio A, Verde P, Sardiello M, Banfi S. "Identification of microRNA-regulated gene networks by expression analysis of target genes." Genome Research, 2012 Jun;22(6):1163-72. Epub 2012 Feb 24.

Gennarino VA, Sardiello M, Avellino R, Meola N, Maselli V, Anand S, Cutillo L, Ballabio A and Banfi S. "MicroRNA target prediction by expression analysis of host genes." Genome Research, 2009 Mar;19(3):481-90. Epub 2008 Dec 16.

For a complete list of publications, please visit PubMed.gov