A patient-based model of RNA mis-splicing uncovers treatment targets in Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a heterogeneous neurodegenerative disorder with monogenic forms representing prototypes of the underlying molecular pathology and reproducing to variable degrees the sporadic forms of the disease. Using a patient-based in vitro model of -linked PD, we identified a U1-dependent splicing defect causing a drastic reduction in DJ-1 protein and, consequently, mitochondrial dysfunction. Targeting defective exon skipping with genetically engineered U1-snRNA recovered DJ-1 protein expression in neuronal precursor cells and differentiated neurons.

Nurturing tomorrow's leaders: The ISCB Student Council Symposia in 2018.

The Student Council of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB-SC) is a student-focused organization for researchers from all early career levels of training (undergraduates, masters, PhDs and postdocs) that organizes bioinformatics and computational biology activities across the globe. Among its activities, the ISCB-SC organizes several symposia in different continents, many times, with the help of the Regional Student Groups (RSGs) that are based on each region. In this editorial we highlight various key moments and learned lessons from the 14th Student Council Symposium (SCS, Chicago, USA), the 5th European Student Council Symposium (ESCS, Athens, Greece) and the 3rd Latin American Student Council Symposium (LA-SCS, Viña del Mar, Chile).