Speaker Profile
Kazuko Nishikura

Kazuko Nishikura BSc, MSc, PhD

Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

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Nishikura studies the process of RNA editing and has made pioneering strides in the understanding of how our cells utilize RNA to control gene expression and protein synthesis and how the malfunction of this process can lead to disease. She discovered and characterized a family of enzymes called ADAR, which is responsible for editing the RNA transcribed from DNA.

Nishikura received both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in biochemistry from Kanazawa University, Japan, and obtained her Ph.D. in medical science from Osaka University, Japan, performing much of her thesis work at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge, England. She returned to the LMB for her first postdoctoral fellowship before obtaining a second fellowship at Stanford University in the laboratory. Nishikura first joined The Wistar Institute in 1982 and became a full professor in 1995.
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