Michael T. McManus obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Alabama in Birmingham, where he studied RNA editing in the laboratory of Stephen L. Hajduk. He did his postdoctoral training as a Cancer Research Institute fellow, in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Phillip A. Sharp at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), studying the role of RNA-interference pathways in mammals. He is appointed as an Assistant Professor in the University of California San Francisco Diabetes Center, in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. He has a long-standing interest in post-transcriptional gene regulation and the role of small RNAs in gene expression.
The McManus lab studies biological processes relating to RNA interference pathways, using the mouse as a model. This includes the study of small (18-26 nucleotide) regulatory noncoding RNAs of biological significance, such as microRNAs, and the genetic factors involved in small RNA genesis. The lab is focused on understanding how microRNAs contribute to the specification of cell fate, and how disregulation of microRNAs may contribute to human disease. Many mouse small RNA knockout models are being made and studied in collaboration with others at UCSF. We believe that the small regulatory RNAs that have been discovered are just the 'tip of the iceberg' in a set of important biology that we are far from understanding. Based on our studies of this biology, we have developed tools and agents that usurp this pathway for the interrogation of gene function and the potential use in the intervention of human disease.