Frank Slack,
Director, Institute for RNA Medicine,
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Cancer Center/Harvard Medical School
Frank Slack received his B.Sc. from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, before completing his Ph.D. in molecular biology at Tufts University School of Medicine. He started work on microRNAs as a postdoctoral fellow in Gary Ruvkun’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School, where he co-discovered the second known microRNA, let-7. He is currently Director, Institute of RNA Medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC)/Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. Professor Slack has pioneered various aspects of the microRNA field and continues to make important contributions to this aspect of post-transcriptional control of gene regulation in stem cell development, cancer and aging. For example Professor Slack and colleagues were co-discoverers of the second known microRNA, let-7 (Reinhart et al Nature, 2000), and the co-discoverers of the first known human microRNA (Pasquinelli et al. Nature, 2000).
MicroRNAs are excellent candidates for human biomarker studies because their signature short sequences can be easily identified, they are stable in tissue and body fluids, and their expression patterns can be rigorously detected and quantified without harm to the individual. MicroRNAs have been found in multiple body fluids, such as serum and plasma, making them an attractive option for studying non-invasive, blood-based biomarkers. These circulating miRNAs are resistant to RNases and are in fact very stable in an extracellular environment, as they can be packaged in microvesicles, exosomes, or apoptotic bodies. Indeed, profiles of plasma and serum miRNAs have been linked to numerous cancers, and diabetes, indicating that miRNAs are a new class of blood-based biomarkers of human diseases.
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