Gregor Obernosterer

He received his BSc in Computer Science and obtained his MSc degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Vienna, Austria. In 2003 he joined the International NRW Graduate School for Bioinformatics and Genome Research in Bielefeld, Germany as a Research Assistant where he worked with Marc Rehmsmeier on predicting microRNAs (miRNAs). In 2005 he started his PhD at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, IMBA under the supervision of Javier Martinez. He is curently working on miRNAs, small regulatory RNAs that regulate protein coding genes at the post-transcriptional level. He is mainly interested in predicting miRNA target genes and understanding their biological function. Together with Gerhard Schratt from the University of Heidelberg he identified a brain specific miRNA that regulates the size of dendritic spines. It will be interesting to understand the mechansim the miRNA plays in regulating the size of synapses. Furthermore, he is working with Ivo Hofacker from the Institute of Theoretical Biochemistry, TBI, Vienna where he is trying to incorporate how complex secondary structures around target sites affect miRNA and siRNA binding.