Title of talk: Non-Canonical RNA Capping as a Signal of Cellular State

Host: Prof. Dr. Henning Jessen (Institute of Organic Chemistry (Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy)) and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Driever (Institute of Biology I / CIBSS Speaker Team)

Contact: contact(at)cibss.uni-freiburg.de

Dr. Hana Cahova received her PhD from UCT Prague and IOCB Prague in organic chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Michal Hocek. She focused on the enzymatic synthesis of modified DNA for bioanalytical applications. In 2011, she was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship and joined the laboratory of Prof. Andres Jäschke at Heidelberg University. As a postdoctoral fellow, she worked on photoswitchable DNA and developed NAD captureSeq for the identification of NAD-RNA in all types of cells. Since 2016, she has led the Junior Research Group in Chemical Biology of Nucleic Acids at IOCB Prague. Together with her team, she focuses on understanding the role of RNA caps in various systems. In 2022, she received an ERC Starting Grant for the project StressRNaction.