The Kornblihtt lab | Regulation of alternative splicing

DFBMC + IFIBYNE-CONICET, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Regulation of alternative mRNA splicing

Our lab

The Kornblihtt lab works on the regulation of alternative pre-mRNA splicing, explaining how a single gene generates multiple proteins. We found that promoters affect alternative splicing through changes in transcriptional elongation and recruitment of splicing factors to the RNA polymerase. We also found how DNA damage and epigenetic chromatin changes modulate alternative splicing through its coupling with transcription.

Alberto Kornblihtt

Short biography

Alberto R. Kornblihtt was born in 1954 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He graduated as a biologist (1977) from the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (FCEN) of the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) and obtained a Doctorate in Chemistry (Biochemistry specialty) from the Campomar Foundation (1980) directed by Héctor Torres. He did a post-doctorate (1981-1984) at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology of the University of Oxford, directed by Tito Baralle, where he cloned the human fibronectin gene and discovered its alternative splicing. He is Professor Emeritus of the UBA in the Department of Physiology, Molecular and Cellular Biology (DFBMC) of the FCEN, Senior Researcher hired by CONICET. He was Director of the Institute of Physiology, Molecular Biology and Neurosciences (IFIBYNE-UBA-CONICET) between 2014 and 2021. Between 2002 and 2017 he was an International Research Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship (1991), the Platinum Konex Award (2003 and 2013), a special grant/scholarship from the Fundación Antorchas (2000-2008), the Bicentennial Medal (2010) and the Houssay Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2010). He is a member of the scientific councils of research institutes in South Africa and Uruguay and was part of the National Committee for Ethics in Science and Technology of Argentina (CECTE). He supervised 23 doctoral theses, organized 5 international scientific meetings, was co-organizer of the meeting on messenger RNA processing at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2017, 2019 and 2021. He was a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of the journal Science (2010-2015) . He is a member of the Editorial Board of the PNAS, the Journal of Cell Biology and EMBO Molecular Medicine, and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Transcription. He was president of the Argentine Society for Research in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SAIB) in the period 2010-2011. In 2011 he received the Domingo Faustino Sarmiento honorable mention from the Senate of the Nation, the Perfil Award for Intelligence, the Maestros de Vida mention from CETERA, the 2010 Researcher of the Argentine Nation award, awarded by the Presidency of the Nation. In 2012 he received the award in Medical Sciences from the TWAS (The World Academy of Sciences) and in 2013 he was awarded the Diamond Konex award as the most outstanding scientist of the decade 2003-2013, shared with the physicist Juan Martín Maldacena. He is a member of the following academies: Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Argentina, Academia Nacional de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales (Argentina), Academia de Ciencias de América Latina, National Academy of Sciences (NAS, USA), Académie des Sciences (France), Academia de Ciências do Brasil European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO).