Welcome to the Lawson Lab!
Located in the Chemistry and Biochemistry department at UCLA, we study eukaryotic translational quality control using a variety of biochemical and biophysical techniques. We are focused on understanding the mechanisms used by eukaryotic ribosomes and specialized decay factors to evaluate messenger RNAs (mRNAs) during translation and preferentially shunt defective mRNAs for decay.
Structure of release factors bound to a stop codon-halted ribosome (Shao et al., Cell 2016). Large subunit shown in pink, small subunit in gray, eRF1 in green, and eRF3 in blue.