Joseph Luna received his B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University, where he studied synapse formation with Thomas Biederer. As a Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) fellow at Yale, he worked with Walther Mothes and Pradeep Uchil investigating anti-retroviral restriction factors.
He received his Ph.D. in 2015 from The Rockefeller University, where he was jointly mentored by Robert Darnell and Charles Rice. His thesis work combined RNA biology with virology, developing applications of crosslinking immunoprecipitation sequencing (CLIP-seq) to study RNA-protein interactions during viral infection, with a particular focus on microRNA regulation of hepatitis C virus. As a postdoctoral fellow in the Rice lab, he developed methods to study the spatial organization of RNA-protein interactions during viral infection. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he contributed to the development of coronavirus replicons and genome-wide CRISPR screens to identify host factors required for viral replication.
Joseph joined the faculty at Case Western Reserve University in 2022 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and the Center for RNA Science and Therapeutics. His lab combines experimental and computational approaches to understand the spatial dynamics of RNA-protein interactions during viral infections, with the goal of uncovering new therapeutic strategies for viral diseases. He is an active member of the RNA Center and is committed to training the next generation of molecular virologists and RNA biologists.
Outside the lab, Joe enjoys cooking up his famous green chile enchiladas, playing guitar, and biking Cleveland’s many metroparks.
