Chappell Lab goes to Chicago! Our trip to the Central US Synthetic Biology Workshop.

This past weekend, the lab travelled to Northwestern University to attend the Central US Synthetic Biology Workshop. We were proud to present our research during the poster sessions and lightning talks:

• "Engineering a programmable split-ribozyme platform for detecting RNA in living cells," by Lauren Gambill.
• "Rational engineering of a modular CRISPRa platform with expanded target range," by Maria C. Villegas Kcam.
• "Towards dynamic and complex RNA circuits: A novel approach to address retroactivity with positive feedback insulation," by Baiyang Liu

And also proud to accept second and first place awards, respectively, for the following posters:

• "Activating silent biosynthetic gene clusters in Streptomyces spp. with CRISPRi tools," by Andrea Ameruoso
• "Variety is the splice of life: High-throughput topological engineering of splicing ribozymes for new switches and sensors," by August Staubus

The conference included a great keynote speech given by Rice's own, Dr. Caroline Ajo-Franklin, along with other fascinating talks on cutting-edge synthetic biology research. We hope to be back next year!