Fall 2025 Grantee Highlight:
Olivia S. Rissland

Olivia S. Rissland, PhD

Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics,
University of Colorado School of Medicine

Ribosomes are essential molecular machines found in every cell, responsible for reading genetic instructions and building proteins. Under normal conditions, they follow a strict rule set: begin at the start of a gene, produce one continuous protein, and stop at the end. Yet certain viruses have evolved a remarkable workaround. Using short sequences known as 2A peptides, they can reprogram the ribosome to generate multiple proteins from a single genetic message.

Although 2A peptides were discovered more than 30 years ago and are widely used in biotechnology, two major questions remain unanswered. Scientists still do not understand how these peptides compel the ribosome to break its usual norms, nor why the mechanism functions reliably in eukaryotic cells but fails in bacteria, despite the deep evolutionary similarity of their ribosomes.

Olivia Rissland’s project aims to resolve both mysteries. Uncovering how 2A peptides manipulate the ribosome will reveal new principles of protein synthesis and may enable innovative applications, from antibiotic development to next-generation genetic engineering tools.