Author Archives: jblucks

Adam Silverman has joined the Lucks lab as a PhD student in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Adam completed his undergraduate degree from Georgia Tech’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. As an undergrad, Adam worked in the Mark Styczynski lab on developing a clinically-relevant bacterial biosensor for diagnosing zinc deficiency. He’s broadlyContinue reading “Adam joins the lab!”

James and Julius were recently asked to write a preview on a new paper published in Cell Systems (“Design and Construction of Generalizable RNA-Protein Hybrid Controllers by Level-Matched Genetic Signal Amplification”). Read their preview, “Turning It Up to 11: Modular Proteins Amplify RNA Sensors for Sophisticated Circuitry,” on how ligand-sensing RNA switches can be enhanced usingContinue reading “James and Julius preview a new article in Cell Systems!”

Congratulations to Dr. Loughrey on successfully defending his PhD work! David joined the Lucks lab after completing his B.S. in Chemical Engineering at University College Dublin and has been instrumental in helping the lab develop next generation techniques for RNA structure determination. Check out David’s publication on SHAPE-Seq 2.0 here! Congratulations again to the fourthContinue reading “Congratulations to Dr. David Loughrey on passing his defense!”

We are seeking a creative and enthusiastic postdoctoral researcher to lead a project to map nascent RNA structure as part of multiple efforts sponsored by the NIH. Recently our laboratory created co- transcriptional SHAPE-Seq which uses chemical probing and next-generation sequencing to map the structure of nascent RNAs at single-nucleotide resolution during active transcription (Watters,Continue reading “Postdoc position open for studying RNA cotranscriptional folding.”

Julius and Khalid recently attended the inaugural retreat of the Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC) held at Caltech. EBRC (https://www.ebrc.org) aims to be the leading organization in the field of synthetic biology, showcasing cutting-edge research, identifying and addressing global challenges in the field, and building an inclusive community of students, trainees, academics, government and industryContinue reading “The Lucks Lab and Northwestern featured prominently at the EBRC fall retreat!”

Congratulations to the iGEM team at Imperial College who managed to win the Grand Prize at this years iGEM competition for their “ecolibrium” project that we recently featured on our website. @imperialigem wins the Grand Prize at #iGEM2016 #GiantJamboree! Congratulations! You guys are some real STARs! https://t.co/4i9ayYM3Nh — The Lucks Lab (@LucksLab) October 31, 2016Continue reading “STARs Win Best New Basic Part Award at iGEM 2016 Competition!”

Kyle, Eric, and Angela’s paper “Cotranscriptional Folding of a Riboswitch at Nucleotide Resolution” is online in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology and a featured news story through Northwestern. With the development of cotranscriptional SHAPE-seq, this paper marks a milestone in RNA biology as the first strategy for the measurement of nascent RNA structure at nucleotide resolution. ForContinue reading “Our paper on Cotranscriptional SHAPE-Seq is published!”

In the weeks before officially moving to the Chicagoland area, the Lucks Lab attended the 2016 SEED (Synthetic Biology: Engineering, Evolution & Design) conference, held in the historic Hilton Chicago. As part of receiving the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award, Julius presented a research seminar on the groups latest work, a technological advancement toContinue reading “SEED 2016 presentation featured on PLOS Synthetic Biology blog”