Prof. Abou Elela aims at understanding the basic mechanism that controls the synthesis and stability of RNA in eukaryotic cells in order to understand how genes are regulated.

Dr. Abou Elela obtained his Ph.D. from University of Guelph in 1994 where he generated a system for studying ribosomal RNA processing in vivo and demonstrated the role of rRNA in translation. During his postdoctoral study at the University of California Santa Cruz he revealed the function of the first orthologue of eukaryotic RNase III and demonstrated its role in pre-rRNA processing. Prof. Abou Elela joined the Université de Sherbrooke in 1997 and became a member of the oncology group of the Centre de recherche clinique and the RNA group. A few years later he became the director of Sherbrooke laboratory of functional genomics, the scientific director of Genome Quebec RNomics platform, and the coordinator of the RiboClub.