Shelby wins award for Best Graphical Abstract
Congratulations to Shelby Vexler for receiving the Best Graphical Abstract award at the BioPACIFIC MIP retreat last month! We are grateful to this NSF MIP for their fellowship support of two of our graduate students, Shelby and Steven, and for fostering a great...
Thesis defense: Dr. Josh Kenchel
Congratulations to Dr. Josh Kenchel for a successful hybrid thesis defense on June 3, 2022! In a riveting presentation, Josh described nearly five years of work on ribozyme evolution, bringing new evolutionary concepts as well as analytical chemistry techniques to his...
Dr. Huan Peng joins faculty of Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Congratulations to Dr. Huan Peng, who has just joined Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China! Dr. Peng is now an associate professor in the College of Life Science and Technology. As a postdoctoral fellow in our lab, Dr. Peng laid the foundation...
Thesis defense: Dr. Yuning Shen
Congratulations to Dr. Yuning Shen for successfully defending his thesis on February 24, 2022! In his work, Yuning merged our experimental methods with statistical and computational tools he learned, including from co-advisor Professor Ambuj Singh, Dept. of Computer...
Thesis defense: Dr. Baoqing Zhou
Congratulations to Dr. Baoqing Zhou for a successful pandemic-style thesis defense! Setting up and analyzing a new microbial ecosystem in the lab made for a challenging but rewarding project. We wish her the best of luck on her future endeavors as she wraps up the...
Dr. Yei-Chen Lai to join the faculty of National Chung Hsing University
Congratulations to Dr. Yei-Chen Lai, who will soon begin a new faculty position as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry of National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan! As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Lai made important contributions to our understanding...
Thesis defense: Dr. Ray Borg
Congratulations to Dr. Ray Borg for successfully defending his thesis on September 16, 2021! Ray described a collaboration with Prof. Arnab Mukherjee's laboratory at UCSB, to develop phages for biomedical imaging. The defense was virtual but the spirit was real. Best...
Thesis defense: Dr. Janzen
Congratulations to Dr. Evan Janzen for a well-deserved finish to his graduate studies! Five years of dedicated work spanning organic synthesis, RNA biochemistry, and bioinformatics was summarized in an excellent thesis defense. Dr. Janzen will be venturing across the...
Why do phages tolerate molecular engineering?
When Huan Peng first cloned M13 chimeras by mix-and-match with other filamentous phages, in order to change the host targeted, we thought we'd probably need to do at least a little directed evolution to improve the folding or affinity of the new chimeras. That was not...