Anna Loveland, PhD
Assistant Professor, RNA Therapeutics Institute, UMass Chan Medical School
Former RTI Lab: Postdoctoral Fellow, Korostelev Lab
Training Period: 2015 - 2022
Prior Academic Degree Institution: Masaryk University Brno
Awards: 2020 STAT Wunderkind Award, 2021 RNA Society Scaringe Young Scientist Award
Dr. Loveland is an Assistant Professor at the RNA Therapeutics Institute at UMass Chan Medical School. She earned her B.A. in Biophysics from Johns Hopkins University and her Ph.D, also in Biophysics, from Harvard University in 2012. As a Helen Hay Whitney post-doctoral fellow, she found her calling in structural biology while working with Profs. Niko Grigorieff, Melissa Moore, and Andrei Korostelev at Brandeis University and later UMass Medical School. Her post-doctoral work with Dr. Korostelev on the mechanism of tRNA decoding was awarded an RNA Society Scaringe Young Scientist Award in 2021. Dr. Loveland investigates molecular mechanisms at the intersection of translation and disease utilizing cryo-EM and biochemical approaches. She currently focuses on two, distinct genes associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, C9orf72 and Angiogenin, whose products, unexpectedly, bind the ribosome and inhibit translation. She seeks a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanism of these proteins and their mutations to spur new therapeutics development.