Professor Mary Anne O’Connell has spent decades at the forefront of RNA biology, helping uncover how cells distinguish their own RNA from foreign genetic material. Her research on ADAR enzymes and RNA editing has shaped our understanding of immunity, inflammation, and the future of RNA-based therapies. Before joining CEITEC Masaryk University, she worked in research institutions across the United States, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In this interview, she reflects on scientific turning points, the emotional realities of leading a research group, the evolution of RNA research, and the importance of resilience –&nbsp;in science and in life.<h5>You originally worked on microbiology before moving into RNA research. How difficult was that transition, and are such shifts common in scientific careers?</h5>Quite naturally, actually. During my PhD, HIV was emerging in New York, and many people from my generation moved into retrovirus research because it felt urgent and important. I worked at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, where some of the first HIV cases appeared at the neighbouring large hospital. Therefore, I went to MIT to do a postdoc with Nancy Hopkins, who was a leader in the field of murine retroviruses.Then my husband wanted to return to Europe, to Switzerland in particular. I found a position in the laboratory of Walter Keller in the Biozentrum in Basel and had an opportunity to study RNA and viruses. I took that position — though I never worked on viruses, I began my research on ADAR enzymes.In science, these shifts happen often. Careers are shaped not only by curiosity, but also by circumstances; timing, funding, countries, and family. Often the path only makes sense in retrospect.<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Jdi_do_toho_i_kdyz_ti_rozum_rika_ne_U_kavy_s_Mary_Anne_O_Connell_3_d97466b112.jpeg" alt="CEITEC: Walk on Air Against Your Better Judgment. Over Coffee with Mary Anne O’Connell: Mary Anne O’Connell" srcset="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/thumbnail_CEITEC_Jdi_do_toho_i_kdyz_ti_rozum_rika_ne_U_kavy_s_Mary_Anne_O_Connell_3_d97466b112.jpeg 234w," sizes="100vw" width="1600" height="1068"><h5>Was there a particular moment when you realised you had chosen the right career?</h5>Yes. After my PhD, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay in science. I travelled alone through Nepal and India and did the Annapurna trek. When I came down from the mountains, I picked up The Herald Tribune. The first thing I read was a science article, and I remember thinking immediately: “Okay. This is it.” It sounds strange, but that was the moment. It felt as if the universe was quietly pointing me in the right direction.<h5>How would you explain RNA editing and ADAR enzymes to a non-specialist?</h5>DNA is the genetic blueprint of our cells. RNA is the intermediate step between DNA and proteins.For a long time, scientists thought RNA simply copied information from DNA. What our field discovered was that RNA itself can be modified and edited. The protein we study, called ADAR, modifies RNA to help the cell distinguish between its own RNA and foreign RNA from viruses or bacteria. This is essential because cells constantly encounter bacterial and viral RNA, and they need a way to recognise what belongs to the body and what could be dangerous.Our cells modify their own RNA to mark it as “self”. Without these changes, the immune system may mistake the body’s own RNA for a pathogen and launch an immune response against itself. Often, this immune reaction is more dangerous than the infection itself.So, RNA modification is not just a small molecular detail –&nbsp;it is essential for survival.<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Jdi_do_toho_i_kdyz_ti_rozum_rika_ne_U_kavy_s_Mary_Anne_O_Connell_4_effd6e4b30.jpeg" alt="CEITEC/Martin Indruch: Walk on Air Against Your Better Judgment. Over Coffee with Mary Anne O’Connell: Dragana Vukić and Mary A. O’Connell" srcset="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/thumbnail_CEITEC_Jdi_do_toho_i_kdyz_ti_rozum_rika_ne_U_kavy_s_Mary_Anne_O_Connell_4_effd6e4b30.jpeg 235w," sizes="100vw" width="1600" height="1067"><h5>How has the understanding of RNA changed over the course of your career?</h5>Completely.When I began, RNA was viewed mainly as a messenger between DNA and proteins. Today it is at the centre of biology and medicine. RNA vaccines changed public awareness of the field, but RNA also influences immunity, inflammation, development, and many diseases. Every few years the field reveals something unexpected. This is also why so many companies are now developing RNA-based therapies, particularly for cancer, where they could help the immune system recognise and fight tumour cells more effectively.<h5>You believe RNA-based therapies could change cancer treatment in the future?</h5>Yes, I genuinely believe they will.The idea is elegant: you sequence a patient’s tumour, identify what makes it unique, and design an RNA-based therapy that trains the immune system to recognise those tumour-specific markers. Of course, this does not mean there will one day be a single universal cure for cancer. Cancer is extremely diverse, with many different forms and mechanisms. But personalised RNA-based therapies have enormous potential because they can be tailored to the specific features of an individual tumour. In the future, treatment could become much more systematic –&nbsp;doctors may one day analyse the tumour sequence and select the most effective therapy from a kind of catalogue of targeted RNA-based treatments.And none of this would exist without basic research. The discoveries that later change medicine usually begin as curiosity-driven science.<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Jdi_do_toho_i_kdyz_ti_rozum_rika_ne_U_kavy_s_Mary_Anne_O_Connell_5_b691b699f0.jpeg" alt="CEITEC/Martin Indruch: Walk on Air Against Your Better Judgment. Over Coffee with Mary Anne O’Connell: Martin Bareš and Mary A. O’Connell" srcset="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/thumbnail_CEITEC_Jdi_do_toho_i_kdyz_ti_rozum_rika_ne_U_kavy_s_Mary_Anne_O_Connell_5_b691b699f0.jpeg 235w," sizes="100vw" width="1600" height="1067"><h5>What brought you to CEITEC Masaryk University in Brno?</h5>At the time, I was working at the Medical Research Council in the UK. Our research funding was cut just before the RNA modification field exploded. We lost funding by a single point in the evaluation of our future proposed projects. We proposed to investigate other types of RNA modification in the 3’UTRs of RNA and to determine how ADAR1 was essential for innate immunity.&nbsp; These are now two major research areas.That experience taught me what “cutting-edge science” really means. People love that phrase, but they often forget what it really means. If you are at the cutting edge and funding suddenly contracts, you are the first to be cut off.Then the ERA Chair position at CEITEC opened. I applied, got the position, and arrived in Brno just as both of these research fields were becoming ‘hot’. Scientifically, the timing to move here could not have been better.<h5>What do you like most about Brno?</h5>I really love living here. Brno has changed enormously during the ten years I’ve lived here. When I first arrived, you barely heard English on the tram. Now you hear many languages everywhere. It has become much more international and cosmopolitan, but it still feels manageable and human.I also think the city has become more self-confident. Earlier, people constantly compared Brno to Prague. Now it feels more comfortable being itself. And honestly, the quality of life here is very good.My only real complaint is the airport. But, the cost of living is lower than in many Western European cities, the city centre is beautiful, and you are geographically in the middle of Europe.<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Jdi_do_toho_i_kdyz_ti_rozum_rika_ne_U_kavy_s_Mary_Anne_O_Connell_2_efac69f5f7.jpeg" alt="CEITEC: Walk on Air Against Your Better Judgment. Over Coffee with Mary Anne O’Connell: Pavel Plevka, Mary A. O’Connell and Liam Keegan" srcset="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/thumbnail_CEITEC_Jdi_do_toho_i_kdyz_ti_rozum_rika_ne_U_kavy_s_Mary_Anne_O_Connell_2_efac69f5f7.jpeg 117w," sizes="100vw" width="1600" height="2133"><h5>What have you learned about leading a research group?</h5>Nobody teaches you how to lead people. I was lucky because I started with a small research group and gradually learned how to manage people over time. I actually think it can be difficult when scientists that are just starting suddenly have large groups, because managing people is a completely different skill from doing science itself.What has changed enormously over the years is the level of anxiety and stress among younger researchers. I suspect social media plays a role. People constantly compare themselves to unrealistic versions of other people’s lives and careers and feel pressure to succeed in every aspect of life at once. My generation did not have this pressure.When people struggle personally, it immediately affects their research because they cannot think clearly or focus properly. As a group leader, you are no longer only supervising science –&nbsp;you are also trying to support people emotionally. Over the years, I’ve also learned that you cannot solve everything for everyone. Some people accept help and advice, and some do not. That can be difficult, but it is part of leadership too and you have to accept it.<h5>In connection with the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, you mentioned resilience as something women bring to science. Can you expand on that?</h5>Resilience is essential in science. Experiments fail. Funding disappears. Papers get rejected. Personal situations become complicated. You cannot survive in research without resilience.I think many women place enormous pressure on themselves. They compare themselves to impossible standards and feel they are failing. You have to accept that life moves in phases. During difficult periods, you simply keep going.<h5>What was the most challenging period in your career?</h5>Probably after we lost our funding in the UK. My children were teenagers at the time, and I moved to Sweden for work before eventually coming to Brno. I spent years travelling back and forth every second weekend. Scientifically, the work was worth it. Personally, I missed years of my children growing up.That’s one of the difficult realities of science: decisions that are scientifically right can still be personally painful.At the same time, that period also taught me a lot about people and kindness. I have always been amazed by the random kindness of strangers. People whom I expected to help me often did not. Meanwhile, people to whom I had simply been kind –&nbsp;without expecting anything in return –&nbsp;were often the ones who helped me most, later in life. My advice is to be kind to everyone, don’t expect people to reciprocate, but that your kindness to others will comes back in unexpected ways.<h5>Finally, what advice would you give to your younger self?</h5>There is a quote by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney that I love: “Walk on air against your better judgment.” To me, it means: just go for it.You only have one life. Try things. Take risks. Sometimes the irrational decisions become the most important ones you ever make.<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Jdi_do_toho_i_kdyz_ti_rozum_rika_ne_U_kavy_s_Mary_Anne_O_Connell_98b2e8902f.jpeg" alt="CEITEC: Walk on Air Against Your Better Judgment. Over Coffee with Mary Anne O’Connell: Mary Anne O’Connell" srcset="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/thumbnail_CEITEC_Jdi_do_toho_i_kdyz_ti_rozum_rika_ne_U_kavy_s_Mary_Anne_O_Connell_98b2e8902f.jpeg 118w," sizes="100vw" width="1600" height="2124">

Walk on Air Against Your Better Judgment. Over Coffee with Mary Anne O’Connell 

If you work in environmental testing, sample preparation, or laboratory instrumentation, you already know that <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://blog.organomation.com/blog/the-importance-of-detecting-per-and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas">PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) </a>have become one of the most talked-about topics in the analytical science community. What you may not have seen yet is that in February 2026, the United Kingdom took a landmark step by publishing its very first national framework to address these persistent compounds. It is worth paying attention to, regardless of where your lab operates.<h3>What Are 'Forever Chemicals,' and Why the Urgency?</h3>PFAS are a group of thousands of synthetic chemicals used in everything from food packaging and cookware to waterproof clothing and firefighting foam. Their defining characteristic is stubborn persistence — they do not readily break down in the environment or in the human body, which is precisely how they earned the "forever chemicals" nickname. Chronic exposure, even at low levels, has been linked to liver damage, high cholesterol, reduced immune responses, and certain cancers.The scale of the problem is difficult to overstate. Traces of PFAS have been detected everywhere from the Arctic to Antarctica. Contamination crises have made headlines in Belgium, the United States, and elsewhere. And while regulatory action has been building globally for years — with several U.S. states implementing bans on PFAS in cosmetics beginning in 2025 and the EU tightening drinking water protections in January 2026 — the UK had not yet put forward a comprehensive national strategy. Until now.<h3>What the UK's PFAS Plan Actually Contains</h3>Released on February 3, 2026, the UK government's PFAS Plan is built around three pillars: understanding where PFAS come from, addressing the pathways through which they spread, and reducing ongoing exposure. The framework calls for coordinated action across government agencies, regulators, businesses, and local communities.Some of the specific measures outlined include:<ul><li>Conducting the first-ever full assessment of PFAS in England's estuaries and coastal waters</li><li>Launching a public consultation on introducing a statutory limit for PFAS in England's public drinking water supply regulations</li><li>Testing food packaging such as microwave popcorn bags and pizza boxes for PFAS presence</li><li>Issuing new guidance to reduce industrial emissions of PFAS</li><li>Expanding soil monitoring in partnership with the British Geological Survey</li><li>Considering restrictions on PFAS in firefighting foams, following ongoing consultation</li></ul><h3>Launching a public-facing website to improve transparency and awareness</h3>It is a broad agenda — and not without its critics. Some environmental scientists have pointed out that the plan focuses heavily on monitoring and understanding, with less emphasis on binding phase-out timelines. One researcher noted that legacy contamination sources like landfill sites may actually be releasing more PFAS into rivers than current industrial activity, and that simply measuring concentrations falls short of tracking the total amount being discharged. Unlike France, which became the first EU country to fully ban PFAS in cosmetics, the UK is not currently pursuing an outright ban.Supporters, meanwhile, have acknowledged it as a meaningful first step — particularly given the complexity of the PFAS challenge. There is not even universal agreement on what counts as a PFAS compound; depending on the definition used, the group could include anywhere from under five thousand to over seven million potential substances.<h3>Why This Is Relevant to the Laboratory World</h3>Here is where I want to bring this closer to home for those of us in the analytical instrumentation and sample preparation space.The push to understand and regulate PFAS at the scale the UK is now proposing means one thing clearly: demand for rigorous PFAS testing is going to grow. Every assessment of estuaries, every soil sampling initiative, every test on food packaging generates samples that need to be analyzed. And PFAS analysis is not straightforward.Current USEPA-published analytical methods for PFAS rely primarily on liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.organomation.com/preparing-samples-for-lc-ms/ms-analysis">LC-MS/MS</a>). Proper sample preparation is critical to producing reliable results, especially since PFAS often appear at trace concentrations and can be easily introduced as contaminants during the preparation process itself. Solid-phase extraction (<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.organomation.com/what-is-solid-phase-extraction-spe">SPE</a>) is a widely used technique for isolating PFAS from complex matrices like water and soil, but effective concentration of samples before analysis is equally important — and that is exactly where evaporative concentration instruments become indispensable in the workflow.At Organomation, our evaporators are used in PFAS sample preparation workflows aligned with EPA Methods 533, 537.1, and 1633 — the key analytical methods used for PFAS in drinking water, environmental water, and a broad range of solid matrices including soil, biosolids, and tissue. These methods require careful, controlled solvent evaporation to concentrate samples without loss of target analytes or introduction of contamination. Getting this step right is not optional — it directly determines the accuracy and reliability of the final result.<h3>A Global Challenge That Demands a Global Scientific Response</h3>The UK's PFAS Plan is one piece of what is becoming a coordinated international effort. The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants added long-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (over 200 additional PFAS substances) to its global elimination list in May 2025. The EU introduced mandatory PFAS monitoring requirements for drinking water in January 2026. And in the United States, regulatory pressure at both federal and state levels continues to tighten.What all of this regulatory momentum signals is that the window for labs to build PFAS testing capability is not narrowing — it is widening. Governments are committing to monitoring. Industries are being pushed toward safer alternatives. And at every step of that process, someone needs to run the samples.Whether you are setting up a new <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/products?manufacturerItems=540&amp;search=Free">PFAS testing workflow </a>or scaling up an existing one, the fundamentals of good sample preparation have not changed: control your contamination sources, use validated methods, and make sure your concentration step is working properly. The regulatory environment is evolving quickly, but sound science is the constant.I am proud that Organomation's instruments continue to play a role in the analytical workflows that make this kind of environmental accountability possible. As governments around the world sharpen their focus on PFAS, the laboratory community will be at the center of that work.

The UK Just Released Its First-Ever Plan to Tackle 'Forever Chemicals' — Here's Why It Matters for Labs

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