Benjamin Blencowe, Ph.D.

Professor, University of Toronto

SFARI Investigator Website

Benjamin Blencowe holds the Banbury Chair in Medical Research and the Canada Research Chair in RNA Biology and Genomics at the University of Toronto. He also serves as director of the University of Toronto Donnelly Sequencing Centre.

Blencowe is internationally recognized for his contributions to the understanding of splicing regulation. His group is currently engaged in the systematic analysis of the regulation, function and evolution of RNA regulatory networks, focusing on alternative splicing networks that control nervous system development and impact neurological disorders. Blencowe and colleagues previously demonstrated that a network of highly conserved neuronal microexons is frequently misregulated in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and that the disruption of this network in mice results in behavioral and cellular phenotypes relevant for ASD.

Blencowe has been the recipient of numerous research awards, including the Ontario Government Premier Research Excellence Award, the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences Senior Investigator Award and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada John C. Polanyi Award. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Royal Society of London.

Funded Projects

A splicing code for elucidating genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying autism

Awarded: 2021
Award Type: Targeted: Genomics of ASD: Pathways to Genetic Therapies

Restoration of a splicing regulatory network commonly disrupted in autism

Awarded: 2017
Award Type: Pilot

SFARI Funded Publications

Microexons: At the nexus of nervous system development, behaviour and autism spectrum disorder. Gonatopoulos-Pournatzis T., Blencowe B.

Autism-misregulated eIF4G microexons control synaptic translation and higher order cognitive functions. Gonatopoulos-Pournatzis T., Niibori R., Salter E.W., Weatheritt R.J., Tsang B., Farhangmehr S., Liang X., Braunschweig U., Roth J., Zhang S., Henderson T., Sharma E., Quesnel-Vallières M., Permanyer J., Maier S., Georgiou J., Irimia M., Sonenberg N., Forman-Kay J.D., Gingras A.C., Collingridge G.L., Woodin M., Cordes S.P., Blencowe B.

Research Highlight

Genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 interrogation of splicing networks reveals a mechanism for recognition of autism-misregulated neuronal microexons. Gonatopoulos-Pournatzis T., Wu M., Braunschweig U., Roth J., Han H., Best A.J., Raj B., Aregger M., O'Hanlon D., Ellis J.D., Calarco J.A., Moffat J., Gingras A.C., Blencowe B.