I recently had the opportunity to visit Prof. Aïda Ouangraoua’s lab at the University of Sherbrooke, and I thought to share a bit about the experience.
After attending the RNA Canada ARN 2024 / 25th RiboClub Annual Meeting in Ottawa late last year, I spent two deeply enriching weeks in Prof. Aïda’s lab diving into transcript evolution—particularly around orthology, paralogy, and how gene and transcript relationships evolve across species. I learned more about the conceptual and computational framework behind transcript and isoortholog inference—developed by her lab to better reflect functional transcript conservation beyond one-to-one ortholog mapping.
This experience significantly enhanced my understanding of transcript orthology and gave me new tools to interpret our RNA modification data in the context of tissue-specific transcript expression. We also had in-depth discussions around our recent work on transcript evolution and m6A conservation, and I shared parts of our results on m6A-SNP analysis, as well as our CHEUI-based m6A prediction pipeline. (hashtag#Preprint: https://lnkd.in/gntdsDmP)
Beyond the science, I’m incredibly grateful for the people. Huge thanks to Prof. Aïda and the team for the kind mentorship and vibrant exchange of ideas. Special shoutout to Oluwaseunnla {Seunnla} Adelusi and Emeka Olisa —you made my stay in Sherbrooke such a memorable one. And to Chakirou ALABANI , thank you for being my French translator (lol!), co-explorer in Montréal, and partner in getting stuck at the bus station for over an hour in the cold just to hunt down some African food I could munch on 😄. You all made every part of my visit to Québec unforgettable.
Even more exciting—we’re hoping to build on the conversations that started during my research visit, with the hope of future collaborative research.
Grateful to the Talo Computational Biology Talent Accelerator Program, the Ruth Gani Travel Award (JCSMR), and the RiboClub Travel Fellowship for supporting this opportunity.
