The Laboratory for RNA-Based Lifeforms (RNAlab) @ University of Toronto is a combined Computational and Molecular research team. Our passion is in understanding the interplay between RNA elements and Genetics. The primary domains where we interrogate this question is through the exploration of the vast evolution and biodiversity of Earth’s RNA viruses, and microplastic degrading enzymes.

Our Work

Building The Foundations for Planetary-Scale Genomics

The growth of DNA and RNA sequencing data is staggering, outpacing Moore’s Law. Public databases now hold 120+ petabytes of raw sequencing data from more than 30 million samples, and this amount doubles every 24 months. Samples span from experimental cancer cells in a lab at the University of Toronto to anal swabs of wild penguins in Antarctica, and everything in between. Beyond their intended purpose, these data also hold genetic sequences from viruses and other genetic parasites in the samples. Yet they remain unanalyzed.

Our mission is to illuminate the epic tapestry of genetic diversity on Earth. To accomplish this we develop state of the art computational techniques such as Serratus and Logan which enable a new era of petabase-scale genomics. This allows us and other scientists to access and grok billions of dollars of sequence data, and investigate the evolution and ecology of genes the across our planet.

For the discovery of RNA viruses: we focus on advancing the capability to find “Dark Viruses”, highly-divergent and entirely uncharacterized genetic parasites. Beyond merely discovering fringe virus and virus-like entities, we pursue understanding how these elements impact biology and health. For example, are “Dark Viruses” the cause for human diseases of unknown etiology such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Crohn’s Disease, endometriosis, or cancer?

For the discovery of plastid-degrading enzymes: we focus on developing computational and molecular ultra-high throughput platforms to interrogate the evolutionary landscape of enzymes which can degrade or upcycle plastic waste. Microplastics global contaminant, we are developing the solutions which can remediate these toxins at the terraform scale.

Cool & Recent Stuff

• Logan: Planetary-Scale Genome Assembly Surveys Life’s Diversity (preprint). Creation of the world’s largest genetic sequence assemblage from all 27 million public sequencing datasets. This 2.2 million vCPU compute has enabled pan-SRA search in as little as 12 hours, and brings us one step closer to a fully searchable planetary genetic database.

• Viroid-like colonists of human microbiomes (Cell). Discovery of a new RNA-based lifeform, the Obelisks. These new entities are found all across the world, including half of human mouth microbiomes.

• A parasite odyssey: An RNA virus concealed in Toxoplasma gondii (Virus Evolution). Upto half the world will be infected by the parasite T. gondii. We discover a trojan horse virus hiding inside the parasite, and show that the virus may trigger immune pathology in the mammalian host.