Ravi Patel, a graduate student in the Grimson lab (and recent graduate) received the Wellnitz Award for their paper in Nucleic Acids Research. They have developed an experimental approach, Combined Analysis of RNA-seq and PRO-seq (CARP), to disentangle microRNA-mediated gene regulatory networks. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate key biological processes by modulating the expression of direct targets: messenger RNAs that are physically bound by miRNAs. In addition to these direct targets, miRNAs also elicit a downstream cascade of changes triggered by the altered levels of the direct targets: indirect targets. These direct and indirect targets together form complex gene regulatory networks, which are extremely difficult to decipher using existing techniques. CARP enabled the authors to identify the true direct targets of microRNAs, and their indirect targets. Thus, Patel et al are able to reveal the regulatory networks controlled by miRNAs with significantly improved precision. Read more about their work here.