Irina
Catrina
Clinical Associate Professor of Chemistry
Yeshiva College
office: Belfer Hall 1608
lab: Belfer Hall 1618A&B
Irina Catrina received a Physical-Organic Chemistry Ph.D. degree from Utah State University, UT, and a Chemical Engineering degree from the "Politehnica" University of Bucharest, Romania. At USU, in Alvan Hengge's laboratory, she studied the use of phosphorothioates as models for deciphering the mechanism and transition state structure of phosphoryl transfer reactions. She then studied nucleic acid folding and developed a microarray to improve prediction of RNA secondary structure in Douglas Turner's laboratory at the University of Rochester, NY. From Rochester, she moved to Worcester, MA, where she studied viral RNA replication in Maria Zapp's laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In Diana Bratu's lab at Hunter College of CUNY, NY she used RNA visualization techniques to study endogenous and viral RNA trafficking in live fruit fly egg chambers. Her current research focuses on the development of in vitro assays to facilitate fast and easy design of efficient probes that allow the study of RNA-RNA and RNA-protein interactions that are essential for organism development.
- Organic Chemistry
- Biochemistry
- RNA Structure and Folding
- Regulatory RNAs
- Advanced Light Microscopy
News:
September 16th, 2024 - We are funded! In collaboration with Dr. Josefa Steinhauer, we were awarded a .
August 3rd, 2024 - Katz School Faculty Research Award in collaboration with Dr. Rana Khan
- May 23rd, 2024 - The lab's first poster presentation at the Student Research Conference and Poster Competition organized by YC Bio; Presenters: Avraham Diament (right) and Jordan Levovitz (left):
August 25th, 2023 - published in PLOS Computational Biology
August 8th, 2023 - Faculty Research Award in collaboration with Dr. Rana Khan
August 3rd, 2023 - Katz School Faculty Research Award in collaboration with Dr. Rana Khan
January 27th, 2023 - - in collaboration with the
August 8th, 2023, update: in the RNA Biology journal
April 26th, 2023 -
Research Group:
Doron Sedaghat
Ben Antosofky
Andres Romero
Rutu jayesh Japtap
Mark Gotesman - RNA folding in collaboration with the Youshan Zhang Lab
Former Group Members:
Yedidya Blau
Ariel Gordin
Jordan Levovitz
Avraham Diament
Haider Zainuddin Ali - HIV-1 Rev mRNA sequence conservation analysis
Yonatan Sragow - TFO assays
Joshua (Shuie) Berger - TFO assays
Elazar Mermelstein - TFO assays
Daniel Goldstein - TFO assays
Omer Birman - RNA tissue-specific expression
Brandon Khankhanian - TFO thermodynamics analysis
Brian Bendel - TFO probe design
Atara Neugroschl - probe design software development
Daniel (Doni) Schanzer - new probes for RNA FISH
Aaron Singer - translation inhibition using short probes
Leeba Sullivan - small molecule RNA docking
2021 Yeshiva College Lillian F. and William L. Silber Professor of the Year Award - selected by the 2021 Senior Class
Complete List of Published Work in My Bibliography:
- Neugroschl, A., and Catrina, I.E. (2023) “TFOFinder: A Python program for identifying purine-rich double-stranded stretches in the predicted secondary structure(s) of RNA targets” PLoS Comput Biol 19(8): e1011418.
- Bayer, L.V. Milano, S., Formel, S.K, Kaur, H., Ravichandran, S., Cambeiro, J.A., Slinko, L., Catrina, I.E. and Bratu, D.P. (2023) “Cup is essential for oskar mRNA translational repression during early Drosophila ǴDzԱ” RNA Biology, 20:1, 573-587.
- Catrina, I.E., Bayer, L.V., Omar, O.S., and Bratu, D.P. (2019) “Visualizing and Tracking Endogenous mRNAs in Live Drosophila melanogaster Egg Chambers” J Vis Exp. 148.
- McLaughlin, J.M., Smith, D.F.Q., Catrina, I.E., and Bratu, D.P. (2019)”P-bodies and the miRNA pathway regulate translational repression of bicoid mRNA during Drosophila melanogaster ǴDzԱ” bioRxiv 283630; doi:
- Bayer, L.V., Omar, O.S., Bratu, D.P. and Catrina, I.E. (2019) “PinMol: Python application for designing molecular beacons for live cell imaging of endogenous mRNAs” RNA 25:305-318.
- Catrina, I.E., Bayer, L.V., Yanez, G., McLaughlin, J.M., Malaczek, K., Bagaeva, E., Marras, S.A.E., and Bratu, D.P. (2016) “The temporally controlled expression of Drongo, the fruit fly homolog of AGFG1, is achieved in female germline cells via P-bodies and its localization requires functional Rab11” RNA Biol. 13:1117-1132.
- Jackson,S.R., Wong, A.C., Travis, A.R., Catrina, I.E., Bratu, D.P., Wright, D.W., and Jayagopal, A. (2016) Applications of Hairpin DNA Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles for Imaging mRNA in Living Cells, Methods in Enzymology 572:87-103.
- Catrina, I.E., Marras, S.A.E. and Bratu, D.P. (2012) Tiny Molecular Beacons: LNA/2'-O-methyl RNA Chimeric Probes for Imaging Dynamic mRNA Processes in Living Cells, ACS Chemical Biology 7:1586-95.
- Bratu, D.P., Catrina, I.E. and Marras, S.A.E. (2011) Tiny molecular beacons for in vivo mRNA detection, Methods Mol Biol. 714:141-57.
- Zalatan, J.G., Catrina, I., Mitchell, R., Grzyska, P.K., O'brien, P.J., Herschlag, D., Hengge, A.C. (2007) Kinetic isotope effects for alkaline phosphatase reactions: implications for the role of active-site metal ions in catalysis, J Am Chem Soc. 129:9789-98.
- Catrina, I., O'Brien, P.J., Purcell, J., Nikolic-Hughes, I., Zalatan, J.G., Hengge, A.C., Herschlag, D. (2007) Probing the origin of the compromised catalysis of E. coli alkaline phosphatase in its promiscuous sulfatase reaction, J Am Chem Soc. 129:5760-65.
- Kierzek, E., Kierzek, R., Turner, D.H., and Catrina, I.E. (2006) Facilitating RNA structure prediction with microarrays, Biochemistry 45:581-593.
- Yu, Z., Sanchez-Velar, N., Catrina, I.E., Kittler, E.L., Udofia, E.B., Zapp, M.L. (2005) The cellular HIV-1 Rev cofactor hRIP is required for viral replication, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:4027-32.
Yeshiva College
office: Belfer Hall 1608
lab: Belfer Hall 1618A&B