Category Archives: News

The latest publication from the Voigt lab, published today in Nature Chemical Biology, describes the use of an elaborate optogenetic circuit in E. coli to create spatially and temporally resolved pattens of gene expression that respond to light. In this particular instance, expression of red, green or blue fluorescence proteins is triggered by exposure to red, green or blueContinue reading “Julius is quoted in The Scientist magazine”

Congratulations to Julius Lucks for being named a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar! This prestigious award of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus foundation is given annually to young faculty who have an outstanding body of scholarship and a commitment to education in the fields of chemistry, chemical engineering and related sciences. Click here to learn more aboutContinue reading “Julius receives Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award!”

Several Northwestern University Center for Synthetic Biology faculty, staff and students are featured in a Northwestern University video “At Northwestern, We March for Science Everyday.” Click the link to see our own, Julius Lucks, voicing his support for public funding of scientific research!  

A new nucleic acid detection method promises attomolar detection of viral nucleic acids using the CRISPR-Cas13a/C2c2 system. The work, published last week in Science, hit the web during the same week as attorneys for UC Berkeley announced that they will appeal the USPTO’s decision that Berkeley’s CRISPR patents do not overlap with those claimed by the Broad Institute.Continue reading “Julius is quoted in the Wall Street Journal!”

Eric and Kyle’s paper “Distributed biotin-streptavidin transcription roadblocks for mapping cotranscriptional RNA folding” is now online at Nucleic Acids Research! This work makes cotranscriptional SHAPE-Seq even easier and more accessible by developing a “one-pot” synthesis for roadblocking DNA templates and uncovers important details about how collision with different transcription roadblocks can affect the experiment. This workContinue reading “Eric & Kyle’s paper on biotin-streptavidin roadblocks for Cotranscriptional SHAPE-Seq is now online at NAR!”

Alex’s paper “Achieving large dynamic range control of gene expression with a compact RNA transcription-translation regulator” is online in Nucleic Acids Research. In this work we report a breakthrough in RNA engineering that allowed us to create some of the largest dynamic range RNA regulators we currently know of that can be used to solveContinue reading “Our paper on dual transcriptional-translational riboregulator control has been published!”

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.”