Campus Directory

Division Physical & Biological Sciences Division

Department/College/Unit Chemistry & Biochemistry Department

Title Grad Student-Stone Lab, CB3

Affiliation Staff

Primary Office Location Physical Sciences Building
459

Mail Stop Chemistry

Biography, Education and Training

Guillermo Chacaltana is a graduate student in the Stone lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) working under the guidance of Dr. Michael Stone. His research interests primarily focus on interrogating the relationship between ribonucleic acid structure and its role in biological function, particularly within the context of abnormal splicing in relation to disease. He is also interested in the relationship between telomeric nucleosomes and Shelterin, a multi-subunit protein complex responsible for the protection of telomeric ends, and how their cooperativity is established in maintaining chromosome stability. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

Summary of Expertise

Structural basis for pre-mRNA splicing, RNA therapeutics for rare human disease; molecular basis for nucleosome assembly and biochemisry.

Research Interests

RNA Biochemistry

Nucleosome Biochemistry

RNA Splicing

RNA chemical probing

Protein folding

Awards, Honors and Grants

UC-Doctoral Initiative Fellow

Graduate student leadership certificate program awardee

Graduate student professional communication certificate program awardee

Selected Publications

• Tse V, Chacaltana G, Gutierrez M, Forino NM, Jimenez AG, Tao H, Do PH, Oh C, Chary P, Quesada I, Hamrick A, Lee S, Stone MD, Sanford JR. An intronic RNA element modulates Factor VIII exon-16 splicing. Nucleic Acids Res. 2024 Jan 11;52(1):300-315.
• Tse V, Guiterrez M, Townley J, Romano J, Pearl J, Chacaltana G, Players E, Das R, Sanford JR, Stone MD. OpenASO: RNA Rescue-designing splice-modulating antisense oligonucleotides through community science. RNA. 2025 Jul 16;31(8):1091-1102.