Yi Xing, Ph.D., University of Iowa computational biologist, has received a five-year, $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to lead a study on the evolution of RNA processing in primates and humans. The grant was effective April 1.

Many human diseases are caused by errors that occur during an essential step of RNA processing called pre-mRNA splicing. Xing's project will use genomic technologies to survey the evolution of splicing, with the goal of revealing how splicing patterns change as a result of genome sequence evolution. The team hopes the findings will provide insight into how splicing is regulated and how genetic variations disrupt splicing in human diseases.

Xing, assistant professor of internal medicine and biomedical engineering, is also the recent recipient of a Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award from the March of Dimes Foundation.