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Robert Darnell wants to understand how proteins regulate RNA and thereby affect gene expression. Darnell and his team are particularly interested in neuron-specific RNA-binding proteins in the mammalian brain, and in functional genomics and human disease more generally. The team uses a combination of biochemical and genetic approaches – including high-throughput genomics – in their studies, and recently developed powerful single cell-type methods (cTag CLIP) to create genome-wide maps of RNA-binding interaction sites in living tissue. Their findings have provided functional insight into RNA dysregulation in diseases such as intellectual disability, autism, autoimmune disease, viral infection, and Alzheimer’s.