Jernej Ule: An RNA runaway success

I n September 2001, Jernej Ule began his Ph.D. work in Robert Darnell's lab at the Rockefeller University in New York City. Although he undertook an old project that no one expected to turn up anything of interest, Ule soon stunned everyone by turning the endeavor into the premier work in the lab, according to Darnell. The project was to develop a new technique, called cross-linking and immunoprecipitation (CLIP), that would be used to identify the RNA targets of a brain-specific splicing factor called Nova (1). Ule quickly repeated his success on a second back-shelf project, in which he used a new type of micro-array to identify Nova targets (2). Before leaving Darnell's lab, Ule also developed a bioinformatics approach to predict how Nova regulates alternative splicing (3). From his work, it became clear that Nova regulates a large network of mRNAs, the products of which are involved in remodeling neuronal synapses. Ule left Darnell's lab just over a year ago to start his own lab at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cam-bridge, UK—one of the most prestigious biology institutes in the world, with one of the most impressive lists of alumni. Far from being daunted by the LMB's prestige , Ule explained in a recent interview that he enjoys being challenged. Perhaps that's why he has a penchant for back-shelf projects. How did your scientifi c journey begin? When I was in high school I had lots of interests. I was always very driven and running out of time to do what I wanted to do, so I left my decision as to what to study until the last moment. My parents wanted me to do medicine, but I was very much attracted to art. Biology seemed like somewhere in between. I was always interested in nature and trying to understand life. I thought that the study of life, in a way, was an art of its own. I didn't like the fact that medicine was a very prestigious subject to study in Slovenia. I wanted to avoid that. Biology was neither prestigious to study nor a good way to get a job, so it was really a decision of my own to study biology. I tended to go my own way whenever possible. Biology was also a bit of an unusual study for boys. It was 80% girls! What was it like growing up in Slovenia? …