Rising Star: Combining Bioinformatics and Experimental Biology to Decoding Non-coding RNAs and RNA Modifications

• MicroRNA identification and functional studies. • RNA m 6 A modification. Xiu-Jie Wang studied biochemistry as a master student at Hong Kong University of Sciences and Technology, and obtained her PhD degree in bioinformatics from The Rockefeller University, then joint Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences to establish her own research group. The major research focus of Xiu-Jie Wang’s group is to identify functional non-coding RNAs, especially microRNAs, through the combination of bioinformatics and experimental approaches. They found many microRNAs involving in essential physiological processes in plants, virus, and mouse embryonic stem cells, and uncovered a novel function of microRNAs in regulating m 6 A RNA modification. These findings subsequently led them to extend their research towards m 6 A regulation and its role in long-term memory formation. Xiu-Jie Wang’s group also developed several bioinformatics tools and databases, which have served as useful resources for the research community.