Author Archives: jblucks

Rebecca is our newest undergraduate in the lab, working with Sarai on engineering RNA switches. She is also part of Cornell’s 2013 iGem team which is off to a great start. Welcome Rebecca!

Julius has been named a James C. and Rebecca Q. Morgan Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow in honor of the generous gift of the Morgans for recruiting emerging “stars” to the Cornell Faculty as part of the Faculty Renewal Sesquicentennial Challenge (http://as.cornell.edu/alumni/sesqui-challenge.cfm). More information at http://www.cheme.cornell.edu/news/index.cfm?news_id=62848 .

The whole lab went up to be a part of the first Gordon Conference on Synthetic Biology: (Re-)constructing and Re-programming Life. Certain to be an historic event, it was a great opportunity to network with the leaders in the field and share some of what is going on in the lab. (Julius stayed behind to helpContinue reading “Lucks Lab Attends First Gordon Conference on Synthetic Biology”

Melissa’s paper has been published in Nucleic Acids Research! A modular strategy for engineering orthogonal chimeric RNA transcription regulators outlines our new approach to creating basic RNA transcriptional regulators that can be used to build genetic networks. The background of the approach can be found here, where we showed how RNA-based transcription attenuators can be configured into basicContinue reading “Our First Paper is Published!”

Melissa is now officially the first PhD candidate from the lab – congratulations Melissa!

Sitara and Tim were awarded summer research funding as part of Cornell’s engineering learning initiatives (ELI) program. The ELI program enhances undergraduate learning by providing opportunities for students to engage in cooperative learning and undergraduate research. As part of this program, Sitara and Tim will be working with Sarai and Kyle on continuing to use SHAPE experimentsContinue reading “Sitara and Tim Win ELI Scholarships!”

Julius has been named a 2013 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award recipient. The ONR Young Investigator Program (YIP) seeks to identify and support academic scientists and engineers who show exceptional promise for doing creative research. The program aims to attract these rising stars to the Department of Navy’s research program, to support theirContinue reading “Julius awarded ONR Young Investigator Award!”

Ray has been awarded a prestigious Amgen Research Scholarship to perform research at UC Berkeley this summer. The Amgen scholars program provides support for the country’s best and brightest undergraduate researchers to expand their research experiences. It is a highly competitive process and a great honor. Good work Ray!

Since 1955, the Sloan Research Fellowships have sought to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise.  These two-year fellowships are awarded yearly to 126 researchers in 8 fields in recognition of distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field. Previous Sloan Research Fellows include 37 NobelContinue reading “Julius Wins Sloan Research Fellowship!”

Misha and Alex are the two newest undergraduates in the group. Misha will be working with Melissa on engineering RNA circuitry, and Alex will be working with Kyle to dissect RNA structures in the cucumber mosaic virus genome as part of our Gates grant. Welcome to the lab!