Research interests Professor Wilson’s laboratory studies how messenger RNA is transported from the nucleus to the cytoplasm in human cells. The group have a particularly interested in how this process is coupled with earlier mRNA processing events in the nucleus such as splicing, polyadenylation and RNA modifications such as methylation. They use a multidisciplinary approach to study this essential step in the gene expression pathway, combining molecular and cell biology techniques with the latest genome wide bioinformatic approaches. Current research areas include analysing how nuclear long non-coding RNAs and unprocessed mRNAs are kept in the nucleus and how this goes wrong in motor neuron disease associated with the C9ORF72 gene. Professor Wilson’s group are also analysing how DNA damage regulates mRNA export and how mRNA is packaged by the cell to help prevent the formation of R-loops which can trigger DNA damage.