How do individual transcription factors (TF) influence reprogramming? Isn’t it just the cells with the highest levels of TF expression that reprogram? So just blast them & it should work, right? 🤨Buckle up for our lab’s preprint & tour de force led by Nat Wang @nbwang22 ! (1/n)

https://twitter.com/biorxiv_cellbio/status/1729206136476209330

On its own, high expression of transcription isn’t a great predictor of reprogramming outcomes. So what else do cells need? (2/n)

How does transcription of proximal genes influence the expression of their neighbors? How do we engineer compact circuit designs for specific profiles of expression that enable robust cellular engineering? Today @CellReports we provide some answers (1 /n) tinyurl.com/24vtfbyw We integrated DNA biophysics with classic #synbio and stochastic simulations to explore how to optimize the expression levels, variance, and dynamic response of transgenic systems. We found that supercoiling-mediated feedback significantly influences these behaviors! (2/n)

Research experience is so formative for undergrads, but right now in-person training isn't an option for most. During the shutdown, we switched to emergency computational modeling (surprisingly successful!) This semester we're taking a more proactive training approach...(1/n) ...and experimenting with a series of didactic trainings on reading lit, reviewing lit, writing proposals, and building graphics and figures. And then having the students deliver these items. While these are essential skills, I don't recall being taught as a UG to do this...(2/n)