Emilio Mármol Sánchez

DICER cleavage fidelity is governed by 5′-end binding pockets - Nature Cryo-electron microscopy and massively parallel assays shed light on the mechanism by which DICER, a key enzyme in the RNase III family, cleaves RNA at precise locations to produce small RNAs.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I am looking for prospective Bachelor/MSc students willing to embark in the development of new methods for the extraction, processing, sequencing and analysis of historical and ancient RNA molecules from museum-preserved animal specimens.

Read below and apply!!

ucph.jobteaser.com/en/job-offer...

It's that time again... AaRCTikTalk this Friday!! Anne Runge will talk about microbial/pathogen DNA from prehistoric faunal remains🦠🦴🧬, & Anna Nagel will explore multispecies time calibrations! 🧬🕰️ Hurray! Don't miss it! 🕺 @aarc-community.bsky.social

Happening today!! Come to the Maersk Tower Copenhagen at 15:30 for a new session of CPH RNA Club.

#RNA #Copenhagen

New #AaRC Blog entry from @aarc-community.bsky.social where we interviewed Dr. @tatianafeuerborn.bsky.social about her research project on the genetic legacy of Greenland's sled dogs (Qimmit) she presented in January 2026 #AaRCTikTalks.

#Greenland #Dog #aDNA

www.animal-adna.org/blog/2026/01...

Genomic comparisons and the adaptive basis of brain size plasticity and chromosomal instability in the Eurasian common shrew Abstract. Sorex araneus, the Eurasian common shrew, has seasonal brain size plasticity (Dehnel's phenomenon) and many intraspecific chromosomal rearrangeme

academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

New year, new #AaRC blog!!

Are you interested in ancient horse genomics? Then have a look at our new 2026 Blog entry from @aarc-community.bsky.social where we interviewed Arianna Weingarten about the research project she presented in January 2026 #AaRCTikTalks

www.animal-adna.org/blog/2026/01...

I just got back a review for one of my stuck-in-revision papers so full of em dashes, like literally present in every other sentence, but also so politely hatefull in tone that it must have been written by some angry beta soviet mother version of all AIs joined together.

A trunkload of ancient RNA Ancient DNA has become a workhorse for evolutionary biologists. In contrast, ancient RNA studies have been rare and often methodologically controversial. Mármol-Sánchez et al. provide compelling evide...

Thanks to Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer (@scs22.bsky.social) and Carles Lalueza-Fox for their commentary on our work about ancient RNAs in the extinct wolly mammoth

A trunkload of ancient RNA

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

I have heard the same joke about my surname like thousand times during my life.

Get a new one!

Mammoth RNA sequenced for the first time, marking a giant leap toward understanding prehistoric life Scientists successfully sequence the RNA from woolly mammoths found in Siberia that lived up between 10,000 thousand and 50,000 years ago.

Good read about mammoth ancient RNAs

www.livescience.com/animals/mamm...

Read the whole paper and more information about my research and ongoing projects at:

emiliomarmol.academicwebsite.com
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

We sincerely thank our funders for trusting in our research ideas and for enabling us to carry out this challenging work. Their support helped us pushing forward the study of ancient #RNA molecules in extinct species.

@vetenskapsradet.bsky.social
@villumfonden.bsky.social
@erc.europa.eu

These are the oldest ancient #RNAs ever sequenced, obtained from the extinct woolly #mammoth 🦣🦣

Many thanks to all the people that contributed to make this groundbreaking work possible.

@cpgsthlm.bsky.social @scilifelab.se @stockholm-uni.bsky.social @ucph.bsky.social @uitnorgesarktiske.bsky.social

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Intriguingly enough, some of these #RNAs indicated that Yuka might have died under quite stressful conditions.

Indeed, claw marks in its skin could indicate that Yuka was attacked by cave lions before its death!! ☠️

Interestingly, we discovered the expression of muscle-specific protein-coding and #microRNA genes. We were even able to detect two completely novel microRNAs solely based on #RNA data!

Yuka was thought to be a female ♀️ mammoth, based on previous external examination. Surprisingly, we found evidence at both #RNA and #DNA levels revealing that Yuka was in fact a male! ♂️

The ancient #RNA sequences from Yuka showed increased chemical damage, as expected for such old molecules.

The best performing sample was mammoth 1, also known as #Yuka, a 5-year-old juvenile woolly mammoth that died nearly 40,000 years ago and that is one of the best preserved specimens ever found.

Only 3 out of the 10 mammoths had #RNA and #DNA of good quality, and the ancient RNA molecules were strongly concentrated in exonic regions.

We extracted both ancient #RNA and #DNA from soft tissues that have been preserved in the Siberian permafrost for thousands of years.

Did we find any mammoth-like molecules? Yes ✅, both in the RNA and DNA fraction, but not for all the mammoths we analyzed.

two mammoths are walking through a snowy field in the mountains ALT: two mammoths are walking through a snowy field in the mountains

We sought to challenge this, and decided to double down the bet to look for ancient #RNA molecules in the extinct woolly mammoth.

We analyzed 10 samples from #mammoths that lived between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago in the Northern region of Siberia during the last Ice Age🥶

a cartoon cat is crying while sitting on a wooden platform ALT: a cartoon cat is crying while sitting on a wooden platform

So far, isolating, sequencing, and analyzing #RNA molecules from old remains was considered such a difficult task full of past failures and only a handful of successes, that researchers seemed to have just lost hope.

a cartoon of homer simpson holding his finger to his lips with the word interesting behind him ALT: a cartoon of homer simpson holding his finger to his lips with the word interesting behind him

So why should we bother about #RNA?

Contrary to #DNA:
📌RNA tells which genes are "turned on".
📌 We can detect tissue-specific gene expression and metabolic changes (stress, infections...)
📌Novel active genes can be found.
📌We can decipher regulatory mechanisms.

a cartoon of a monkey laying on the ground with his arms outstretched ALT: a cartoon of a monkey laying on the ground with his arms outstretched

During past years, research focused on ancient #DNA has gained a lot of interest, with dozens of papers being routinely published each year📃

But what about ancient #RNA?
The common preconception is that these molecules, as opposed to DNA, do not last long after cell death.

🦣🧬🦣🤯💥We are pleased to share our new paper about ancient RNA expression profiles from the Woolly Mammoth, now published in Cell @cellpress.bsky.social

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

If you want to know more, read the 🧵 below:

Mapping chromatin structure at base-pair resolution unveils a unified model of cis-regulatory element interactions Li et al. apply base-pair resolution Micro Capture-C ultra to map chromatin contacts between individual motifs within cis-regulatory elements and reveal a unified model of biophysically mediated enhan...

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Functional microRNA targeting without seed pairing Abstract. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) associate with Argonaute (AGO) proteins to serve as guides, directing binding to partially complementary sites in mRNAs, ultim

academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

On an Arctic archipelago, frozen soil may preserve a hidden history of viruses Scientists are hunting for ancient RNA in Svalbard’s permafrost, hoping to shed light on the evolution of viral diseases

www.science.org/content/arti...

The variability of goat microRNA genes is strongly shaped by functional constraints Background MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a type of small non-coding RNAs involved in the post-transcriptional repression of target mRNA transcripts, and responsible for the fine-tuning of numerous molecular ...

Are you interested in microRNAs 🧬 and goats 🐐? We are!!

Then have a look at our preprint on how microRNA mutations segregate worldwide 🌍 in goat populations and the potentially derived consequences of prolonged inbreeding and geographical isolation.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...