News Archive
February 2024 — We attended the Biophysical Society meeting in Philadelphia, PA. Laura presented “Macromolecular crowders: influencers of DNA structure and topology” at The Fluid versus Gel Nature of the Genome Symposium. Jin presented a poster titled “Reciprocating RNAP batters through roadblocks” on February 12, 2024. David delivered a selected oral presentation on “preferred states in single DNA molecules in crowded solutions” during the DNA Structure and Dynamics platform on February 14, 2024.
February 2024 — Jin and Wesley presented their work at the Biophysics seminar series, College of Science, Clemson University.
August 2023 — Jin gave a talk about his work “Reciprocating RNAP Batters through Roadblocks“ at the 2023 IPOLS conference.
March 31, 2023 — Allison received the Highest Honors for her thesis! Congratulations, Allison!
March 31, 2023 — Ayanna was selected to give a talk about her PhD work at the Annual Yale Bouchet Conference on Diversity and Graduate Education at Yale University!
March 20, 2023 — Jin received the Excellence in Graduate Research Award 2023!
February 20, 2023 — Jin presented our study on repetitive transcription at the Biophysical Society Meeting (Platform-734) in San Diego.
January 21, 2023 — Laura talks at CUWiP in Auburn.
January 6, 2023 — David and Laura presented our work at the Single Molecule Biophysics conference at the Center for Physics in Aspen.
September 20, 2022 — Jin’s manuscript “A Thermodynamic Model of Bacterial Transcription” is accepted by PRE
July 12, 2022 — Laura lectured at the International School of Physics “Enrico Fermi”.
June 2022 — The American Institute of Physics Society of Physics Students selected Allison to go to the Physics Congress in Washington DC (October 6-8).
June 2022 — Allison Cartee receives a summer fellowship from the American Society of Physicists in Medicine to join Dr. Sgouros’ research group at Johns Hopkins.
April 20, 2022 — Laura gave a talk in The Living Histories series!
April 1, 2022 — Anna successfully defended her thesis and received high honors!
March 2, 2022 — Yue presented a talk “Proteins mediating different DNA topologies block RNAP elongation with different efficiency” at BPS! Laura, David and Jin also presented three posters at BPS!
February 17, 2022 — Wenxuan & Yan’s paper on “Positive supercoiling favors transcription elongation through lac repressor-mediated DNA loops” has been published by Nucleic Acids Research. DOI: 10.1063/10.0006622
December 3, 2021 — Wenxuan successfully defended her PhD dissertation and is now Dr. Xu! Congratulations, Wenxuan!
October 20, 2021 — Our review on “Single-molecule insights into torsion and roadblocks in bacterial transcript elongation” has been published on journal “transcription,” check that out!
October 19, 2021 — Our article in the Journal of Applied Physics was featured in SciLight! DOI: 10.1063/10.0006622
October 18, 2021 — Allison Published an article “A Physical Perspective on Molecular Biology” on Science News. Congratulations, Allison! Find the article here!
April 20, 2022 — Laura gave a talk in The Living Histories series! Find the talk here!
April 1, 2022 — Anna successfully defended her thesis and received high honors!
March 2, 2022 — Yue presented a talk “Proteins mediating different DNA topologies block RNAP elongation with different efficiency” at BPS! Laura, David, and Jin also presented three posters at BPS!
February 17, 2022 — Wenxuan & Yan’s paper on “Positive supercoiling favors transcription elongation through lac repressor-mediated DNA loops” has been published by Nucleic Acids Research. DOI: 10.1063/10.0006622
December 3, 2021 — Wenxuan successfully defended her PhD dissertation and is now Dr. Xu! Congratulations, Wenxuan!
December 2, 2021 — Come and join Wenxuan’s Ph.D. defense: “Supercoiling and Protein-mediated loops in Bacterial Transcription”. Time: December 3, 2021, 2 to 4 p.m., Eastern Time (US and Canada). Zoom invitation: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3015714681?pwd=eGhIaUorMTRJK25scW9DaFlHM3lEdz09, Meeting ID: 301 571 4681, Passcode: 3TMTK6, Looking forward to your “kind” advice!
October 29, 2021 — Laura will be the keynote speaker at the Nanoscopy 2.0 workshop co-organized by the Nikon Imaging Center and the Italian Institute of Technology on November 29, 2021
October 20, 2021 — Our review on “Single-molecule insights into torsion and roadblocks in bacterial transcript elongation” has been published in the journal “transcription”, check that out!
October 19, 2021 — Our article in the Journal of Applied Physics was featured in SciLight! DOI: 10.1063/10.0006622
October 18, 2021 — Allison Published an article “A Physical Perspective on Molecular Biology” on Science News. Congratulations, Allison! Find the article here!
October 16, 2021 — Alex and Yan’s paper is posted on BioRxiv: MS ID#: BIORXIV/2021/464438, TITLE: Ionic strength modulates HU protein-induced DNA supercoiling.
October 13, 2021 — Joe & Josh’s review on “Force spectroscopy with electromagnetic tweezers” has been published in Journal of Applied Physics. Congratulations, Joe, and Josh!
July13, 2021 — Wenxuan’s review on “Energetics of twisted DNA topologies” has been published in Boiphysical Journal. Congratulations, Wenxuan!
May 3, 2021 — Laura receives URC grant!
April 5, 2021 — Gustavo successfully defended his Honors Thesis!Congratulations Gustavo!
April 1, 2021 — Sam successfully defended his Honors Thesis!Congratulations Sam!
March 31, 2021 — Stefano successfully defended his Honors Thesis!Congratulations Stefano!
March 2, 2021 — Wenxuan and Yan’s paper on transcription through lac repressor-mediated loops is posted on BioRxiv: MS ID#: BIORXIV/2021/433568, TITLE: Transcription elongation through lac repressor-mediated DNA loops. Yan and Wenxuan’s paper on the deterministic effect of DNA supercoiling on protein-mediated looping is posted on BioRxiv: MS ID#: BIORXIV/2021/432970, TITLE: Negative DNA supercoiling tunes protein-mediated looping. Qing and David’s paper on the torsional properties of DAP DNA is published in BioRxiv: MS ID#: BIORXIV/2021/432629, TITLE: Nanomechanics of negatively supercoiled diaminopurine-substituted DNA.
January 11, 2021 — Jin’s review on “Basic mechanisms and kinetics of pause-interspersed transcript elongation” has been published in Nucleic Acids Research. Congratulations, Jin!
December 1, 2020 — Joe received the Highest Honors from the Thesis committee, Congratulations Joe!!!!
November 29, 2020 — Joe Piccolo will be defending his Honors Thesis this Tuesday, December 1, 2020, 4:00 pm EST. His thesis Title: “Electromagnetic Tweezer Development: Improving Single-Molecule Techniques for the Study of DNA Mechanics and Gene Transcription”. We are all cheering for you Joe!
November 9, 2020 — Welcome postdoctoral fellow Eugeniu Ostrofet!
September 1, 2020 — Welcome postdoctoral fellow Yue Lu! Yue comes from the lab of Prof. Piero Bianco at U. Buffalo where he was studying DNA replication. June 10, 2020 — On June 10, 2020, we will #ShutDownAcademia, #ShutDownSTEM, and #Strike4BlackLives. #ShutDownSTEM https://www.shutdownstem.com/ #APS statement https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/updates/racism.cfm #BPS statement https://www.biophysics.org/blog/biophysical-society-statement-supporting-black-lives-matter-and-ending-the-cycle-of-violence #AAAS statement https://www.aaas.org/news/aaas-ceo-statement-shutdownstem-and-black-lives-matter/
May 27, 2020 — Zixing (Betty) Zheng received Highest Honors! Her Honors Thesis is entitled, “Nanomechanics of Diaminopurine and inosine-substituted DNA”.
November 7, 2019 — Laura was recognized for her excellent teaching by the Gamma Chapter of Georgia, Phi Beta, and Kappa Society both in the Spring and Fall of 2018: a rare distinction!
September 20, 2019 — Laura received an NSF MRI award to acquire a C-Trap microscope by Lumicks. The microscope will combine a dual optical trap, a 3-color confocal fluorescence detection system, and a microfluidic chamber. C-Trap will be part of the facility placed in the Physics department, and available to users. Co-PIs on the award are Guy Benian (Pathology), Yonggang Ke (BME), Renhao Li (Pediatrics), and Khalid Salaita (Chemistry). For more information about C-Trap check out this link
August 29 — September 1, 2019 — Laura and Wenxuan presented our work at the Single Molecular Force Spectroscopy (SMFS) Workshop at Duke University
August 16, 2019 — Our lab was awarded funding from the NSF for the acquisition of a C-trap microscope (MRI)
April 3, 2019 — Leon Tare and Gustavo Borjas received a “Summer Undergraduate Research at Emory” (SURE) fellowship and an “Initiative for Maximizing Student Development” (IMSD) fellowship, respectively, to continue their research projects during the summer. Congratulations Leon and Gustavo!
March 5, 2019 — Yan Yan gave a platform talk at the annual Biophysical Society meeting in Baltimore, entitled “Supercoiling Makes Protein-mediated Looping of DNA Tethers Deterministic”. For more information check out the abstract (DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2018.11.1732). Dan Kovari and Wenxuan Xu also gave poster presentations at the meeting. You can find Dan’s abstract here (DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2018.11.2309), and Wenxuan’s here (DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2018.11.1164).
January 11, 2019 — Laura and David presented our work at the Single-molecule biophysics Meeting in Aspen
June 8, 2018 – Zsuzsanna defended her PhD thesis at Semmelweis University. Congratulations Dr. Voros!!
April 13, 2018 — Joe Piccolo from Emory at Oxford was awarded a SURE fellowship to do research in our lab this summer. Congratulations Joe!
April 13, 2018 — Dimitris Ntaras from Princeton University was awarded a grant by the Office of Undergraduate Research Student-Initiated Internship Program (OURSIP) at Princeton to join our lab this summer. Congratulations Dimitris!
April 3, 2018 – Geethika Malla and Crissy Hendrickson defended their Honors Thesis and they both obtained Highest Honors. Congratulations Geethika and Crissy!!!
March 10, 2018 — Yan’s work, Protein-Mediated Loops in Supercoiled DNA Create Large Topological Domains, has been published in Nucleic Acids Research. Congratulations, Yan!
March 2, 2018 — Yan successfully defended her PhD dissertation and is now Dr. Yan!
February 17-21, 2018 — Laura was invited to speak at the Biophysical Society Meeting in San Francisco (2/17 — 2/21). The symposium “DNA Supercoiling” will be co-chaired by her and Sara Harris from the University of Leeds, UK. See BPS for more details.
January 22, 2018 – Yan’s work, Protein-mediated looping of DNA under tension requires supercoiling, has been published in Nucleic Acids Research. Congretulations, Yan!
July 16-22, 2017 — Yan Yan attended the 2017 CPLC Summer School at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on July 16-22, 2017.
April 6-9, 2017 – Laura has organized the first annual Southeastern Single Molecule Biophysics Networking Meeting, to be held at Amicalola Falls Lodge in Georgia’s Chattahoochee National Forrest. For more information see the meeting website: www.southeastsm.org.
April 6-9, 2017 — Laura has organized the first annual Southeastern Single Molecule Biophysics Networking Meeting, to be held at Amicalola Falls Lodge in Georgia’s Chattahoochee National Forrest. For more information see the meeting website: www.southeastsm.org.
February 13, 2017 — Yan Yan gave a platform talk at the annual Biophysical Society meeting in New Orleans, entitled “Protein-mediated Loopts in Supercoiled DNA Create Large Topological Domains”. For more information check out the abstract (DOI:10.1016/j.bpj.2016.11.938). Dan Kovari and Zsuzsanna Vörös also gave poster presentations at the meeting. You can find Dan’s abstract here (DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2016.11.421), and Zsuzsanna’s here (DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2016.11.1169).
Spring 2016 — Laura is editing a Special Issue of Biophysics Reviews entitled “DNA supercoiling, protein interactions and genetic function. The Issue will appear in early September and will contain contributions by Travers and Muskhelishvili; Levens, Baranello and Kouzine; Corless and Gilbert; Ordu, Lusser and Dekker; Ma and Wang; Dorman; Seol & Neuman; Higgins; Fenfei Leng; Laura Finzi and David Dunlap; Perez and Olson; Harris, Noy, and Sutthibutpong. Read Laura’s editorial and David and Laura’s review!
July 2-8-2016 — Yan will participate in the Gordon conference on Single-molecule approaches to Biology in Hong Kong and present a poster entitled “Protein-mediated DNA looping traps surprisingly large topological domains.
March 1, 2016 — Yan wins the 2016 Student Research Achievement Award from the Biophysical Society. Congratulations, Yan!
February 23, 2016 — Presented at Biophysical Society Meeting
Jan 1, 2016 — Yan receives the Education Committee Travel Award from the Biophysical Society to attend the Biophysical Society 60th annual meeting in Los Angeles. Congratulations, Yan!
June 10, 2015 — Finzi Lab Visitors: Matteo Cristofalo, from the Mantegazza lab at the Universita di Milano Bicocca, Italy, is visiting for a month.
September 30, 2015 — Gyrase negative supercoil publication: Monica, Qing, and Chandler’s work “E. coli gyrase fails to negatively supercoil diaminopurine-substituted DNA” was accepted for publication in “JMB”. Congratulations!
September 20, 2015 — RNA Polymerase I presentation
February 11, 2015 — Suleyman presented his work, “A single molecule perspective of elongation by RNA polymerase I,” in the “RNA Replication and Transcription” Platform at the 59th Biophysics Society Annual Meeting.
February 7, 2015 — Laura successfully chaired the “Nanoscale Biophysics” Subgroup at the 59th Biophysics Society Annual Meeting.
October 27, 2014 — Suleyman successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Ucuncuoglu!
October 2014 — Yue’s work, “DNA supercoiling: a regulatory signal for the lambda repressor,” was accepted for publication in “PNAS.” Congratulations, Yue!
October 2014 — Yan’s work, “Quantitation of interactions between two DNA loops demonstrates loop-domain insulation in E. coli cells,” was accepted for publication in “PNAS.” Congratulations, Yan!
March 26, 2014 — Yue successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Ding!
October 2013 — Yue Ding was portrayed while describing her research in the poster advertising the 59th Biophysical Society meeting, to be held in Baltimore next year. Great work, Yue!
October 18, 2013 — Yue presented her work from the ORDER program on interdisciplinary studies at the 43rd Annual Conference of the International Society for Exploring Teaching and Learning (ISETL). Ning’s work, “Purification of Bacteriophage Lambda Repressor,” was accepted for publication in “Protein Expression and Purification.” Diane received a Burroughs Welcome Fund traveling award. Congratulations, Diane!
May 13, 2013 — Hamin successfully defended his undergraduate thesis with high honors and graduated. Congratulations, Hamin! Job well done!
March 23, 2013 — Laura gave a talk at the “Atlanta Science Tavern.” The address was Manuel’s Tavern, located at 602 N. Highland Ave NE, Atlanta, GA.
January 11, 2013 — Laura presented the lab’s work, “Essentials of An Epigenetic Switch,” at the 7th biennial workshop on Single Molecule Biophysics (SMB) at the Aspen Center for Physics.
February 3–6, 2013 — Posters from the group were presented at the 2013 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting: Yue (1343-Pos/B235), Monica (842-Pos/B611), and Sandip (895-Pos/B664).
September 10, 2012 — Laura presented the lab’s work at the Emory University Emeritus College, Luce Center.
August 23, 2012 — Laura was interviewed by eScienceCommons for the lab’s discovery on the role of non-specific protein binding in bacteriophage lambda repressor-mediated DNA looping. “Biophysicists unravel secrets of the genetic switch.”
2012–2013 — Diane and Yue received the Howard Hughes Medical Institute ORDER fellowship as teacher-scholars. They taught their research in an interdisciplinary undergraduate course with teaching fellows from other departments. Congratulations, Diane and Yue!
April 11, 2012 — Chandler successfully defended his undergraduate thesis with the highest honor. Congratulations, Chandler! Job well done!
June 2012 — Haowei left the lab to begin a postdoc position in Dr. Joshua N. Milstein’s group at the Department of Physics, University of Toronto. Take care, Haowei!
Summer 2012 — Yoojin was awarded a Research Internship in Science and Engineering (RISE) and conducted research at the Institute of Experimental Physics at Ulm University, Germany. Congratulations, Yoojin!
February 17, 2012 — Monica received the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Curriculum Development Fellowship. Congratulations, Monica!
December 15, 2011 — For the Biophysical Journal, Laura interviewed the National Lecturer at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society, Prof. Steven Block from Stanford University. The podcast includes discussions on optical tweezers and Prof. Block’s career insights.
January 2012 — Dr. Diane Wiener joined the lab. Welcome, Diane!
2012 — Sachin left the lab for an assistant professor position in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology — Gandhinagar, later joining UC-Merced as a faculty member. Congratulations, Dr. Goyal!
September/October 2011 — Dr. Ning Gao and Dr. Monica Fernández Sierra joined the lab. Welcome, Ning and Monica!
October 5, 2011 — Haowei successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Wang!
June 28, 2011 — Qing and Laura published undergraduate physics education material for CASES (Creating Active Student Engagement in the Sciences). “Illusion.”
July 18–23, 2011 — Qing attended the 2011 CPLC Summer School at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
June 20–30, 2011 — Yue attended the 2011 GEM4 Summer School at Georgia Tech.
May 25, 2011 — Qing successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Shao!
March 4, 2011 — Laura was elected to the Biophysical Society Executive Board.
March 7, 2011 — Qing presented a platform talk at the Biophysical Society Meeting.
March 6–7, 2011 — Laura, David, Sachin, and Haowei presented posters at the Biophysical Society Meeting (375-POS, 404-POS, 373-POS, 1259-POS).
February 2, 2011 — Suleyman gave his rotation talk.
January 13, 2011 — Sachin and Laura were interviewed by eScienceCommons. “Undersea Cables Add a Twist to DNA Research.”