Cynthia Sharma

Sharma attended the Steinbart-Gymnasium in Duisburg. She was an undergraduate at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and moved to the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology for her graduate studies, during which she studied small regulatory RNAs.[1] She remained at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology for a postdoctoral position with Jörg Vogel. In late 2010, she moved to the United States, where she worked alongside Gisela Storz at the National Institutes of Health.

In 2010, Sharma moved to the University of Würzburg Research Center for Infectious Diseases (ZINF, Zentrum für Infektionsforschung), where she was made a group leader.[2][3] Her research considers bacterial pathogens and how they adapt to their hosts. She is particularly interested in how bacteria regulate gene mechanisms. She is interested in the proteins that bind RNA, which are important in cell physiology.[4] She has also identified that there are several proteins that can interact with RNA despite not possessing canonical RNA binding domains.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sharma realised a COVID-19 test based on CRISPR.[5][6] The test, Leveraging Engineered tracrRNAs and On-target DNAs for PArallel RNA Detection, (LEOPARD), can detect many RNAs at once, offering the potential to identify several disease-related biomarkers.[6]

Sharma was awarded a European Research Council Consolidator Grant in 2022.[7]

• 2011 Ingrid zu Solms-Naturwissenschaftspreis[8]
• 2011 Robert-Koch-Postdoktorandenpreis für Mikrobiologie[9]
• 2012 Junges Kolleg der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
• 2013 DGHM-Förderpreis[10]
• 2014 ESCMID Research Grant[11]
• 2015 German Research Foundation Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Preis[12]
• 2021 Falling Walls Winner[13]
• 2022 European Research Council Consolidator Grant[7]

• Elitza Deltcheva; Krzysztof Chylinski; Cynthia M Sharma; et al. (31 March 2011). "CRISPR RNA maturation by trans-encoded small RNA and host factor RNase III". Nature. 471 (7340): 602–7. doi:10.1038/NATURE09886. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 3070239. PMID 21455174. Wikidata Q24628207.
• Cynthia M Sharma; Steve Hoffmann; Fabien Darfeuille; et al. (11 March 2010). "The primary transcriptome of the major human pathogen Helicobacter pylori". Nature. 464 (7286): 250–5. doi:10.1038/NATURE08756. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 20164839. Wikidata Q28273545.
• Alexandra Sittka; Sacha Lucchini; Kai Papenfort; Cynthia M Sharma; Katarzyna Rolle; Tim T Binnewies; Jay C D Hinton; Jörg Vogel (2008). "Deep sequencing analysis of small noncoding RNA and mRNA targets of the global post-transcriptional regulator, Hfq". PLOS Genetics. 4 (8): e1000163. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PGEN.1000163. ISSN 1553-7390. PMC 2515195. PMID 18725932. Wikidata Q21145046.