Alberto R. Kornblihtt

Alberto R. Kornblihtt was born in 1954 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

He graduated as a biologist (1977) from the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (FCEN) of the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) and obtained a PhD in Biochemistry (UBA, 1980) at the Campomar Foundation, supervised by Héctor Torres.
He did a post-doc (1981-1984) at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford (UK) with Tito Baralle, where he cloned the human fibronectin gene and found its alternative splicing.

He is Plenary Professor at the Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular (DFBMC) of the FCEN and Director of the Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias of the Argentine Research Council (IFIBYNE-CONICET) of Argentina.

Since 2002 he is an International Research Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

He was awarded the Guggenheim fellowship (1991), the Konex Platinum Awards (2003 and 2013), a chair from the Fundación Antorchas (2000-2008), the Bicentennial Medal (2010) and the Houssay Achieving Award in Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2010).

He served the advisory boards of research institutes in Italy, India, South Africa and Uruguay and is a member or the National Committee on Ethics in Science and Technology of Argentina (CECTE).
He supervised 16 PhD theses, organized 5 international scientific meetings, chaired sessions in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory meetings, RNA Society and IUBMB meetings and gave more than 150 talks and plenary lectures in 20 countries of the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia.
He is a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science, Editor of IUBMB Life and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Transcription.

He acted as President of the Argentine Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SAIB) for the term 2010-2011.
In 2011 he received the Honorary Mention Domingo Faustino Sarmiento of the Argentine Senate, the Perfil prize to Intelligence, the prize Investigator of the Argentine Nation 2010, granted by the President of Argentina, and was elected foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences.

In 2012 he was awarded the TWAS prize in Medical Sciences, granted by the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, was elected member of EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) and member of the National Academy of Sciences of Argentina.

In 2013 he was awarded the Platinum Konex award in Molecular Biology and the Diamond Konex award as the most relevant scientist of the decade, ex aequo with the theoretical physicist Juan Martín Maldacena, and incorporated to the National Academy of Exact and Natural Sciences of Argentina.

Selected publications (from a total of 120).
- Kornblihtt, A. R., Vibe-Pedersen, K. & Baralle, F. E. Isolation and characterization of cDNA clones for human and bovine fibronectins. Proc. Natl. Acad.Sci.USA 80, 3218-3222 (1983).
- Kornblihtt, A. R., Vibe-Pedersen, K. & Baralle, F. E. Human fibronectin: molecular cloning evidence for two mRNA species differing by an internal segment coding for a structural domain. EMBO J. 3, 221-226 (1984).
- Kornblihtt, A. R., Umezawa, K., Vibe-Pedersen, K. & Baralle, F. E. Primary structure of human fibronectin: differential splicing may  generate at least 10 polypeptides from a single gene. EMBO J. 4, 1755-1759 (1985).
- Gutman, A. & Kornblihtt, A. R. Identification of a third region of cell-specific alternative splicing in human fibronectin mRNA. Proc. Natl. Acad.Sci.USA 84, 7179-7182 (1987).
- Bernath, V. A., Muro, A. F., Vitullo, A. D., Bley, M. A., Barañao, J. L. & Kornblihtt, A. R.  Cyclic AMP inhibits fibronectin gene expression in a newly developed granulosa cell line by a mechanism that suppresses cAMP-responsive-element transcriptional activation. J. Biol. Chem. 265, 18219-18226 (1990).
- Lavigueur, A., La Branche, H., Kornblihtt, A. R. & Chabot, B. A splicing enhancer in the human fibronectin alternate ED1 exon stimulates the binding of U2AF65 and U2 snRNP. Genes & Dev. 7, 2405-2417 (1993).
- Alonso, C. R., Pesce, C. G. & Kornblihtt, A. R. The CCAAT-binding proteins CP1 and NF-I cooperate with ATF-2 in the transcription of the fibronectin gene. J. Biol. Chem. 271, 22271-22279 (1996).
- Cramer, P., Pesce, C. G., Baralle, F. E. & Kornblihtt, A. R. Functional association between promoter architecture and transcript alternative splicing. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94,, 11456-11460 (1997).
- Cramer, P., Cáceres, J., Cazalla, D., Kadener, S., Muro, A. F., Baralle, F. E. & Kornblihtt, A. R. Coupling of transcription with alternative splicing: RNA pol II promoters modulate SF2/ASF and 9G8 effects on an exonic splicing enhancer. Molecular Cell  4, 251-258 (1999).
- Kadener, S., Cramer, P., Nogués, G., Cazalla, D., de la Mata, M., Fededa, J. P., Werbajh, S., Srebrow, A. & Kornblihtt, A. R. Antagonistic effects of T-Ag and VP16 reveal a role for RNA pol II elongation on alternative splicing. EMBO J. 20, 5759-5768 (2001).
- Cáceres, J. F. & Kornblihtt, A. R. Alternative splicing regulation: multiple control mechanisms and involvement in human disease. Trends Genet. 18, 186-193 (2002).
- Kadener, S., Fededa, J. P., Rosbash, M. & Kornblihtt, A. R. Regulation of alternative splicing by a transcriptional enhancer through RNA pol II elongation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99, 8185-8190 (2002). Selected as “must read” (factor 3) in Faculty of 1000.
- Nogués, G., Kadener, S., Cramer, P., Bentley, D. & Kornblihtt, A. R. Transcriptional activators differ in their abilities to control alternative splicing. J. Biol. Chem. 277, 43110-43114 (2002).
- de la Mata, M., Alonso, C. R., Kadener, S., Fededa, J. P., Blaustein, M., Pelisch, F., Cramer, P., Bentley, D., & Kornblihtt, A. R. A slow RNA polymerase II affects alternative splicing in vivo. Molecular Cell 12, 525-532 (2003). Commented as News and Views in Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. 10, 876-878 (2003). Selected as “exceptional” (factor 9) in Faculty of 1000.
- Nogués, G., Muñoz, M. J. & Kornblihtt, A. R. Influence of pol II processivity on alternative splicing depends on splice site strength. J. Biol. Chem. 278, 52166-52171 (2003).
- Kornblihtt, A. R., de la Mata,  M., Fededa,  J. P., Muñoz, M. J. & Nogués, G. Multiple links between transcription and splicing. RNA 10, 1489-1498 (2004).
- Kornblihtt, A. R. Promoter usage and alternative splicing. Curr. Op. Cell Biol17, 262-268 (2005).
- Fededa, J. P., Petrillo, E., Gelfand, M. S., Neverov, A. D., Kadener, S., Nogués, G., Pelisch, F., Baralle, F. E., Muro, A. F., and Kornblihtt, A. R. A polar mechanism coordinates different regions of alternative splicing within a single gene. Molecular Cell. 19, 393-404 (2005).
- de la Mata, M. & Kornblihtt, A. R. RNA polymerase II C-terminal domain mediates regulation of alternative splicing by SRp20. Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. 13, 973-980 (2006). Commented as News and Views in Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. 13, 952-953, 2006. Selected in Faculty of 1000.
- Kornblihtt, A. R. Chromatin, transcript elongation and alternative splicing. Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. 13, 5-7 (2006) (News and Views article).
- Kornblihtt, A.R., Schor, I. E. , Alló, M. & Blencowe, B. J. When chromatin meets splicing. Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. 16, 902-903 (2009) (News and Views article).
- Schor, I. E., Rascovan, N., Pelisch, F., Alló, M. & Kornblihtt, A. R. Neuronal cell depolarization induces intragenic chromatin modifications affecting NCAM alternative splicing. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 106, 4325-4330 (2009).
- Muñoz, M. J., Pérez Santangelo, S., Paronetto, M. P., de la Mata, M., Pelisch, F., Boireau, S., Glover-Cutter K., Ben-Dov, C., Blaustein, M., Lozano, J. J., Bird, G., Bentley, D., Bertrand, E. & Kornblihtt, A. R. DNA damage regulates alternative splicing through inhibition of RNA polymerase II elongation. Cell 137, 708-720 (2009). Commented as Leading Edge in Cell 137, 600-602 (2009).
- Alló, M., Buggiano, V., Fededa, J. P., Petrillo, E., Schor, I., de la Mata, M., Agirre, E., Plass, M., Eyras, E., Abou Elela, S., Klinck, R., Chabot, B. & Kornblihtt, A. R. Control of alternative splicing through siRNA-mediated transcriptional gene silencing. Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. 16, 717-724 (2009).
- Sánchez, S. E.*, Petrillo, E.*, Beckwith, E. J., Zhang, X., Matías, L., Rugnone, C., Hernando, E., Cuevas, J. C., Godoy Herz, M. A., De Petris-Chauvin, A., Simpson, C. G., Brown, J. W. S., Cerdán, P. D., Borevitz, J. O., Mas, P., Ceriani, M. F., Kornblihtt, A. R. & Yanovsky, M. J. A methyl transferase links the circadian clock to the regulation of transcription and alternative splicing. Nature 468, 112-116 (2010).
- Alló, M. & Kornblihtt, A. R. Small RNAs control RNA polymerase II elongation in C. elegans. Current Biol. 20, R704-R707 (2010) (Dispatch article).
- Luco, R., Alló, M., Schor, I. E., Kornblihtt, A. R. & Misteli, T. Epigenetics in pre-mRNA splicing. Cell 144, 16-26 (2011).
- Kornblihtt, A. R., Schor, I. E., Alló, M., Dujardin, G., Petrillo, E. & Muñoz, M. Alternative splicing: a pivotal step between eukaryotic transcription and translation. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 14, 153-165 (2013).
- Schor*, I. E., Fiszbein*, A., Petrillo, E. & Kornblihtt, A. R. Intragenic epigenetic changes modulate NCAM alternative splicing upon neuronal differentiation. EMBO J. 32, 2264-2274 (2013).
- Petrillo, E., Godoy Herz, M. A., Simpson, C., Fuller, J., Yanovsky, M. J., Fuchs, A., Brown, J. W. S., Barta, A., Kalyna, M. & Kornblihtt, A. R. A chloroplast retrograde signal regulates nuclear alternative splicing. Science 344, 427-430 (2014).
- Dujardin, G., Lafaille, C., de la Mata, M., Marasco, L., Muñoz, M. J., Le Jossic-Corcos, C., Corcos, L. & Kornblihtt, A. R. How slow RNA Polymerase II elongation favors alternative exon skipping. Molecular Cell 54, 683-690 (2014).
- Alló*, M., Agirre*, E., Bessonov*, S., Bertucci*, P., Gómez Acuña*, L., Buggiano, V., Bellora, N., Singh, B., Petrillo, E., Blaustein, M., Miñana, B., Dujardin, G., Pozzi, B., Pelisch, F., Bechara, E., Agafonov, D. E., Srebrow, A., Lührmann, R., Valcárcel, J., Eyras, E.* &Kornblihtt, A. R.* Argonaute-1 binds transcriptional enhancers and controls constitutive and alternative splicing in human cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 111, 15622-15629 (2014).