The Stone Research Group at the University of California Santa Cruz is broadly interested in nucleic acid (RNA and DNA) structure and function. A primary research focus for the group is human telomerase – a specialized protein-RNA complex enzyme that maintains the telomere DNA at the ends of chromosomes. Telomerase function has direct biomedical significance. Telomerase loss-of-function mutations cause human diseases (telomeropathies) characterized by failure of highly proliferative tissue types. In contrast, telomerase is overactive in the majority of human cancers. We are also interested in the structure and dynamics of telomeric chromatin, and how these properties impact telomere and telomerase function. More recently, we have begun to explore new areas of RNA structure and function, including several long-non coding RNAs and the structural basis for exon definition during RNA splicing.