What’s Happening Around the Lab?
Fernando’s last day in lab
August 5, 2022
We had a great time hosting Fernando del Castillo (middle) in the lab this summer, who came to us from Princeton University and participated in the Amgen Scholars program run through the Biology Department. Fernando was expertly mentored by Diego and made some exciting discoveries related to unusual integration activities of CRISPR-associated transposons, which required developing new skills in cloning, E. coli genetics, DNA integration assays, high-throughput sequencing, and NGS analysis – all in one summer! Grad school programs next year: you’ll want to recruit him aggressively.
Lab dinner outing with new students and postdocs
August 4, 2022
We celebrated NYC restaurant week, the end-of-summer undergrad research programs, and new students and postdocs joining the lab, all with a fun dinner outing in Hamilton Heights! On this last note: Stephen Tang (second from right), an M.D./Ph.D. student, officially joined the lab after having completed a rotation in the summer of 2021; Edan Mortman (fifth from right, black shirt), a Genetics Ph.D. student, joined the lab after completing a spring rotation; and Arpita Chakravarti (fourth from left, red shirt), joined Dinshaw Patel’s lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering and will work closely with our group on mechanistic and structural studies of antiviral defense systems. Can you tell we’re excited about the new additions to the lab?!
Marcus says goodbye before heading to Cal Ph.D. program
July 7, 2022
Marcus was the very first Columbia undergraduate to work in the lab, being brave enough to join in 2018 when experiments were just barely getting off the ground. After two successful years refining his bench skills – culminating in an exciting co-authored publication currently in revision – Marcus moved on to work as a research assistant in Nobel Laureate Richard Axel’s lab, and was then accepted into nearly every top neuroscience Ph.D. program in the country. He’ll head to UC Berkeley in the fall, and we can’t wait to follow his future discoveries there. Here, Sam and Marcus caught up one last time in Morningside Heights and reminisced about the early days of the lab.
Yanis’ last day in lab
June 30, 2022
We said our goodbyes to Yanis (white shirt, left) with a fun lab picnic at the Great Hill in Central Park. Yanis joined us for a six-month internship as part of his biochemistry Master’s program at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. He worked closely with Jerrin on biochemical and functional studies of RNA-guided transposases (stay tuned!), and also jump-started a brand new project that we are excited to continue advancing after his departure, to be led by Florian. (Perhaps this scientific hand-off was already foreshadowed when Florian and Yanis became ensnared in the same pretzel Halloween costume last October?!) We wish Yanis all the best as he continues his studies back in Germany.
Matt passes his qualifying exam
June 21, 2022
In our last qualifying exam party of the season, we celebrated with Matt (second from left), who is a Ph.D. student in the Biological Sciences department and jointly advised by Laura Landweber (far left). In addition to applying high-throughput approaches to uncover novel sequence determinants of RNA-guided transposition, Matt is leading an exciting project to investigate ‘natural genome editing’ in microbial eukaryotes, which exploit domesticated transposases to precisely rearrange their genomes during sexual reproduction. Matt is a talented and accomplished actor outside of the lab, so a fun flier advertising the party based on the musical “Six” seemed especially apt (credit to Florian). Can you spot the hidden ciliated cells?
The lab presents at CRISPR 2022
June 14, 2022
After two years of virtual meetings, we were thrilled to attend the annual CRISPR meeting in-person again, which took place this year in Cambridge, MA, at the Broad Institute. Florian gave a great talk on our study of TnsC’s role in RNA-guided transposition (which will be published soon!), and Matt presented a poster on his work using donor DNA libraries to uncover new features of transposase-DNA recognition. CRISPR-associated transposons were undoubtedly one of the major themes of the meeting, and we even convened a “CAST lunch” with members from our lab and the labs of Joe Peters, Liz Kellogg, and Rodolphe Barrangou. The conference banquet took place at the Museum of Science, where Sam caught up with friends/colleagues amidst the many dinosaur fossils.
Science outreach with Long Island middle-schoolers
June 3, 2022
The Sternberg Lab engaged in a fantastic partnership with East Meadow School District middle schools this academic year to bring CRISPR and cutting-edge scientific research into the classroom. Through a series of educational videos that Sam and members of the lab shared throughout the past two semesters, we taught students about culturing bacteria and human cells in the lab, basic genetics, how to analyze DNA, and the broader impacts of CRISPR and gene editing in medicine, agriculture, and biomedical research. Our collaboration culminated in an in-person visit this June, with Sam presenting to two middle-school assemblies of biology classes and also learning about some of the CRISPR (Cool, Really Fun, Interesting, Super, Phenomenal, Real Cutting Edge) experiments that students themselves performed! We’re excited to continue working with the inspirational educators at East Meadow in our outreach efforts next year!
Manuscript acceptance celebration
May 27, 2022
We celebrated acceptance of our latest manuscript with a champagne toast! This project – which leveraged ChIP-seq, guide RNA library screening, cryoEM, and functional/biochemical studies – was a wonderful team effort led by Florian Hoffmann (right), Minjoo Kim (second from right), and Leslie Beh (who joined via Zoom, not shown), with additional contributions from many others in the lab as well as our long-standing collaborator, Dr. Israel Fernandez. Florian will have a chance to present this work in a few weeks at the annual CRISPR conference, which will the be published soon in Nature.
A new lab photo?
May 25, 2022
We took advantage of our outdoor party celebrating George and Florian passing their qualifying exam, with nearly everyone from the lab in attendance, to attempt some new group pictures. We didn’t quite nail the ‘formal photo shoot’ look, but I think you can tell we had fun… and isn’t that more important, anyways!?
George and Florian pass their quals
May 25, 2022
We had a bang-bang week of two qualifying exams from the lab, with both George (left) and Florian (right) passing with flying colors. Both research proposals featured some aims related to CRISPR-associated transposons, but excitingly, also included goals that will move the lab in brand new directions to expand our research program. We celebrated with a party in nearby J. Hood Wright Park, which many of our friends/colleagues/neighbors also attended. Fun fliers advertising these celebrations have become a tradition in the lab (inherited from Sam’s time at UC Berkeley), with the responsibility for making the flier falling on the student that most recently passed – in this case Rebeca. She did a great job!
Walter Isaacson visits the lab
May 23, 2022
We were thrilled to host Walter Isaacson, a renowned author, journalist, and professor, for an intimate visit and discussion with the lab. Walter recently published “The Code Breaker,” a compelling biography of Jennifer Doudna (Sam’s Ph.D. advisor) and recounting of the pioneering discoveries of CRISPR and gene editing. During our time together, Walter shared his philosophy on journalism and writing, particularly with complex topics/subjects like Jennifer Doudna, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk (his current focus), and captivated our attention with lots of fascinating personal stories. We also had a chance to share a bit of our own scientific research with Walter, and of course, get his autograph on our individual book copies!
Sam is awarded the Lamport Award
May 18, 2022
Sam attended the graduation ceremony this year, in part to receive the Harold and Golden Lamport Award for Excellence in Basic Science Research. The award was initiated in 1983 and recognizes outstanding young researchers in the basic and clinical sciences at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, though of course, the award is really a recognition of the fantastic work being done by all the members of the lab. Sam celebrated with his departmental chair, Art Palmer (left), and the senior vice dean, Mike Shelanski (right).
Chance is awarded NIH fellowship
April 1, 2022
We were thrilled to celebrate Chance (far right) being awarded the prestigious Ruth Kirschstein postdoctoral fellowship (F32 program) from the National Institutes of Health. Chance has been leading us in a new research direction studying novel transposon families that exploit RNA-guided nucleases, using a unique blend of bioinformatics, comparative genomics, bacterial genetics, and biochemistry. Let’s see where the project takes him during the coming years of fellowship funding!
Karikó and Weissman awarded Columbia’s Horwitz Prize
March 1, 2022
We were thrilled to attend the Horwitz Prize talks this year, which celebrated the pioneering work led by Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman that enabled mRNA vaccines for COVID-19. Both awardees gave inspiring talks on their research discoveries and the historical attempts to exploit messenger RNAs for therapeutic use, and Sam was lucky enough to meet Katy Karikó one-on-one and learn more about her personal career path. Also memorable was her resilience and poise in finishing the last 30 minutes of her lecture without any Powerpoint slides, after technical difficulties arose with the auditorium’s projector.
Celebrating Jerrin’s birthday and Valentine’s Day
February 14, 2022
We learned too late last year that Jerrin’s birthday falls right on Valentine’s Day, so this year we had to celebrate in style with a dual-function strawberry cheesecake. (Our go-to spot in the neighborhood is Carrot Top Pastries on 165th and Broadway, which makes celebrating birthdays with an afternoon sugar fix even easier!)
Sanne receives multiple graduate student awards
February 11, 2022
We had to bust out the champagne twice in recent weeks to celebrate Sanne’s achievements. First, she was awarded the RNA Society’s annual Scargine Young Scientist Award, which she’ll accept in person at the annual meeting later this year. Second, she received the prestigious Harold Weintraub Graduate Student Award from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center – both before even defending her thesis! Sanne’s discovery of CRISPR RNA-guided transposition inspired many of the current projects in the lab, and although she shows no signs of slowing down, we’re also excited anticipating where she’ll head next for a postdoc. Stay tuned for her graduation later this year!
Sam visits his (other) alma mater
February 7, 2022
Sam was excited to return to UC Berkeley for an invited seminar hosted by his Ph.D. advisor, Jennifer Doudna. After spending his formative years attending weekly seminars in the Stanley Hall auditorium as a graduate student, it was thrilling to be presenting from the stage this time around. Most of campus looked much the same, with the prominent exceptions being a new plaque in the Chemistry Department commemorating Jennifer’s 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Not shown is Jennifer’s private parking spot right in front of Stanley Hall, specifically reserved for Nobel Laureates!)
Rotem Sorek visits Columbia
February 2, 2022
In what has become a bit of a tradition, Rotem Sorek (second from right) visited the Sternberg Lab for the third time since 2018 and presented a fantastic seminar on his recent discoveries of new antiviral defense systems. Rotem’s lab has substantially expanded our appreciation for the diversity of these defense systems across the bacterial and archaeal domains. Particularly exciting are the evolutionary links between many of these prokaryotic systems and human cell-autonomous innate immune systems. In addition to sitting down with members of the Sternberg Lab, Sam and Rotem enjoyed a dinner outing joined by Jonathan Dworkin (right, Columbia) and Luciano Marraffini (left, Rockefeller).
The lab’s fourth birthday
February 1, 2022
It’s hard to believe time passed this quickly, but the lab celebrated its fourth birthday this year! Although the ongoing spread of the coronavirus omicron variant meant that we had to congregate with caution, we still celebrated in style with colorful cupcakes and an appropriate “4” candle. Where will we be when the lab turns 5?!