Very excited to share that our preprint on synthetic bacterial sponge RNAs is now out. This paper is for you if you're interested in RNA synthetic biology, quantitative gene circuit characterisation, resource competition, or post-transcriptional regulation. (1/11)

Our preprint on sponge RNAs is finally out! This is an immense body of work led by @scottstacey.bsky.social showcasing many possible (amazing) applications of this newest tool for bacterial RNA circuits LINK: doi.org/10.64898/2026.05.19.726096 1/10

Our research on magneto-sensitive fluorescent proteins and some of their applications has now been published! Huge thank you to the many many people involved in making this happen. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Quantum spin resonance in engineered proteins for multimodal sensing - Nature

A recently developed class of magneto-sensitive fluorescent proteins are engineered to alter the properties of their response to magnetic fields and radio frequencies, enabling multimodal sensing of b...

nature.com

People in SynBio are still recovering from my past two conference sketches, so this time I'm traumatising Control Theory researchers instead. Click the link to read the latest humorous report from #CDC2025 in Rio de Janeiro open.substack.com/pub/ksechkar...

People in SynBio are still recovering from my past two conference sketches, so this time I'm traumatising Control Theory researchers instead. Click the link to read the latest humorous report from #CDC2025 in Rio de Janeiro open.substack.com/pub/ksechkar...

Not sure if that's what @biochemsoc.bsky.social had in mind when asking us to share our conference experience with the tags #BiochemEvent and #SBUK2025, but here comes my humorous SKETCH of this week's London gathering open.substack.com/pub/ksechkar...

Sketch: Synthetic Biology UK 2025

Another scientific meeting, another jocular report

open.substack.com

Not sure if that's what @biochemsoc.bsky.social had in mind when asking us to share our conference experience with the tags #BiochemEvent and #SBUK2025, but here comes my humorous SKETCH of this week's London gathering open.substack.com/pub/ksechkar...

Sketch: Synthetic Biology UK 2025

Another scientific meeting, another jocular report

open.substack.com

In case you wanted to keep up with SynBio news but don't like the weekend read format, you can now classify my sketch as a weekday read instead

Kirill Sechkar@ksechkar.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Thrilled to have attended this week's iGEM Jamboree - full of amazing teams, brilliant research and indomitable SynBio optimisim But even if you couldn't come, you can still watch me embarass myself by trying to write it up as a satirical sketch (link in the next post)

Thrilled to have attended this week's iGEM Jamboree - full of amazing teams, brilliant research and indomitable SynBio optimisim But even if you couldn't come, you can still watch me embarass myself by trying to write it up as a satirical sketch (link in the next post)

Exciting times in UK EngBio governance! -Debate on the House of Lords' EngBio report (we submitted evidence for that, wow!) shorturl.at/bJHUE -New Science & Technology framework shorturl.at/cZkGG -EngBio Aspirations Report shorturl.at/F9dj0 Won't post all my precious thoughts, but hope one is OK 1/6

NEW PREPRINT! Do you think we can do better when characterising resource competition properties of gene circuit modules? If no, think again; if yes, you’re in for a pitch how exactly we can do that – automated culturing, cybergenetic control and all! 1/ doi.org/10.1101/2025...

NEW PREPRINT! Do you think we can do better when characterising resource competition properties of gene circuit modules? If no, think again; if yes, you’re in for a pitch how exactly we can do that – automated culturing, cybergenetic control and all! 1/ doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Our paper on countering mutations in engineered cell populations has now been published with @royalsocietypublishing.org ! Come for our biomolecular controller that mitigates mutation spread, stay for resource-aware gene circuit design and modelling tools 1/10 doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2024.0602

Great to see the points highlighted by our lab’s submission – such as the need for long-term funding and developing robust standards – in the House of Lords Engineering Biology report! The work to make the UK a leader has been astutely laid out, now let’s get going tinyurl.com/33xuh2er

UK must turbocharge its innovation policy to harness engineering biology, say peers - Committees - UK Parliament

The Science and Technology Committee urges urgent policy actions across Government to maximise the contribution of engineering biology to the UK economy and public services.

tinyurl.com

#SBUK2024 conference : The Day After, or a few posters I saw -Synthetic genes on the same plasmid compete for resources between themselves more than with chromosomal genes. Looks like something we should investigate - and @boccola.bsky.social from Imperial is #BiochemEvent

Some exciting results to share! The MagLOV and related proteins from @andrewgyork.bsky.social and @mariaingaramo.bsky.social are quantum. We measured 4% optically detected magnetic resonance contrast in living bacterial cells at room temperature. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The Biochemical Society's #SBUK2024 conference: Day 2 Starting in a few minutes with a session on Control Systems, which among other things includes 2 (two!) talks from our Steel Lab 1/multiple #BiochemEvent

#SBUK2024 is about to begin! Let's see what exciting new research the next two days have in store... #BiochemEvent 1/many