Initial set of our new T1 T-DNA vectors now available on @addgene.bsky.social: pT1 (no selection marker): lnkd.in/dcnTN8Rj pT1-B (BASTA selection marker): lnkd.in/dgTZmuCx pT1-K (kan selection marker): lnkd.in/dqgv4QRc pT1-H (hygro selection marker): lnkd.in/dhrs5Tsg

Mo Khalil@mokhalil.bsky.social · 3w ago

🌱🚨 Very proud and excited to share our PREPRINT, unveiling an advance for plant science, biotech, & synthetic biology in the first (of many) Khalil <> Gehring collaborations! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🌱🚨 Very proud and excited to share our PREPRINT, unveiling an advance for plant science, biotech, & synthetic biology in the first (of many) Khalil <> Gehring collaborations! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Rational design of T-DNA vectors enables predictable, single-copy integration in Arabidopsis thaliana

Agrobacterium -mediated transformation is the dominant method for plant transgenesis, yet it frequently produces multi-copy, structurally complex T-DNA insertions associated with transgene silencing, ...

biorxiv.org

And here is another direct link to the preprint. Enjoy! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Rational design of T-DNA vectors enables predictable, single-copy integration in Arabidopsis thaliana

Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is the dominant method for plant transgenesis, yet it frequently produces multi-copy, structurally complex T-DNA insertions associated with transgene silencing, u...

biorxiv.org

Mo Khalil@mokhalil.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🌱 NEW PREPRINT & SPECIAL day! We unveil an advance for plant science, engineering, and synbio in first (of many) Khalil <> Gehring collabs, led by the one-and-only @willshaw.bsky.social. Thread below on principles + design of a new, single-integrating T-DNA vector for precision plant xformation! 👇

🌱 NEW PREPRINT & SPECIAL day! We unveil an advance for plant science, engineering, and synbio in first (of many) Khalil <> Gehring collabs, led by the one-and-only @willshaw.bsky.social. Thread below on principles + design of a new, single-integrating T-DNA vector for precision plant xformation! 👇

Will Shaw@willshaw.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New preprint out 🌱 We present a new T-DNA vector system for Arabidopsis that supports clean, genomically mapped, single-copy T-DNA insertion with predictable cell-type/conditional gene expression. @mokhalil.bsky.social + Gehring labs biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵1/16

5 days left now to apply for the postdoc opportunity in my lab at Imperial in London 🇬🇧 - there’s a chance that we can hire 2 people into the team on this synthetic biology and materials theme. Application link is here - www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

🚨 An exciting frontier is bringing synthetic biology to MULTIcellular systems. To effectively engineer them, we need design principles. What are the benefits of group formation? What are the costs? See our new preprint led by @heidiklumpe.bsky.social to learn more!👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The preprint from my work @mokhalil.bsky.social and Mary Dunlop's groups at BU is out on bioRxiv! As new tools come online to engineer multicellularity, we asked: how does sticking cells together into larger groups affect their fitness and function?

Calling all Scientists! Research Administrators! Deans! Fans of Science! No one is coming to save us. Here is your assignment. I have written a step by step, easy to understand "how-to" document to help you comment on the proposed OMB rule. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-ne...

What We Need to do NEXT: OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule (OMB 2026-10817)

What OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule Means in Practice

elizabethginexi.substack.com

What an honor to receive the Kuwait Prize! A testament to the remarkable achievements and hard work of #Khalil-Lab members past and present. It’s always an honor to be recognized as a scientist, and especially meaningful to celebrate my background as a Palestinian-Jordanian 🙏 tinyurl.com/2jvrjszb

تعلن مؤسسة الكويت للتقدم العلمي (KFAS) أسماء الفائزين بجائزة الكويت في دورتها الرابعة والأربعين لعام 2025، والتي تمنحها المؤسسة سنويًا للعلماء الكويتيين والعرب ممن حققوا إنجازات بارزة ومساهمات علمية… ...

تعلن مؤسسة الكويت للتقدم العلمي (KFAS) أسماء الفائزين بجائزة الكويت في دورتها الرابعة والأربعين لعام 2025، والتي تمنحها المؤسسة سنويًا للعلماء الكويتيين والعرب ممن حققوا إنجازات بارزة ومساهمات علمية و...

tinyurl.com

Busy week for the Khalil lab getting ready of our big move next week! P.s. Graveyard of Oligos 🧬 from our prolific former postdoc @willshaw.bsky.social

Interrupting the regular (science) broadcast to brag about my wife and Hisel Flynn Architects on having their beautiful work featured in the @bostonglobe.com! 🏠😍 www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/26/m...

A glassy addition to a split-level home gives an Arlington family more space - The Boston Globe

Adding 850 square-feet to the back of the ranch home brings in sunlight and views of greenery.

bostonglobe.com

Startups are providing tantalizing glimpses of AI-assisted antibody discovery and claiming game-changing potential, even as new models remain hidden and industry awaits full disclosure and benchmarking www.nature.com/articles/s41... [🔓read free with login]

AI turbocharges antibody hunt for binders with drug-like qualities - Nature Biotechnology

Startups are providing tantalizing glimpses of AI-assisted antibody discovery and claiming game-changing potential, even as new models remain hidden and industry awaits full disclosure and benchmarkin...

nature.com

Unstructured transcription factor interactions enable emergent specificity | @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Unstructured transcription factor interactions enable emergent specificity

How intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) influence chromatin binding and nuclear organization of transcription factors (TFs) remains unclear. We employed proximity-assisted photoactivation (PAPA), ...

science.org

🧬🔬🎥 @science.org Live-cell single-molecule dynamics of eukaryotic RNA polymerase machineries | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Live-cell single-molecule dynamics of eukaryotic RNA polymerase machineries

Eukaryotic gene expression is orchestrated by RNA polymerases (RNAPI, II, and III) and associated factors, yet their real-time dynamics remain obscure. Using single-molecule tracking in living yeast, ...

science.org

Our company has a new name, Eira Bio (www.eirabio.com) (formerly K2 Therapeutics), but the same important mission to apply our advanced synthetic biology, directed evolution, and protein design technologies to discover and develop next-generation antibody-based medicines for a range of diseases!

EiraBio

eirabio.com

This is a beautiful paper examining the molecular genetics of facultative multicellularity in a marine black yeast. I also love that they figure out the ecological context for the behavior (MC form when in sponges, where there are nutrients, & uni when starving!). www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Took us a bit, but proud of this published version. We now examine the genetic interaction of phosphorylation with oligomerization and where bulk and phospho-Swi6 localize. Wonder if chromatin affinity tuning to enable Suv39 H3K9me3 spreading is a conserved mechanism ? doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

Phosphorylation of HP1/Swi6 relieves competition with Suv39/Clr4 on nucleosomes and enables H3K9 trimethyl spreading

Abstract. Heterochromatin formation in Schizosaccharomyces pombe requires the spreading of histone 3 (H3) Lysine 9 (K9) methylation (me) from nucleation ce

doi.org

Al-Sady lab@al-sadylab.bsky.social · 2y ago

A preprint from the lab led by graduate student Dana R Kennedy. doi.org/10.1101/2024... Over 20 years ago, the Eissenberg lab showed that phosphorylation of HP1 is important for its silencing function. Why? Key observations from our study in fission yeast:

🚨 AIMBE calls on the scientific community to urge Congress to ensure timely passage of the FY2026 budget 👇 Strong, sustained funding for our nation's health and science agencies is essential for economic prosperity, U.S. global competitiveness, and public heath. takeaction.io/aimbe/protec...

Years ago, we set out to develop new synbio technology to solve a major drug discovery challenge: generating precision antibodies for challenging membrane proteins. It's a DREAM COME TRUE to report that we've launched K2 Therapeutics (k2-tx.com) to advance this into transformative medicines!

K2 Therapeutics

k2-tx.com

In today's issue of Cell-->if you are looking for a good distraction from the news (who isn't), check it out! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Phenotypic landscape of an invasive fungal pathogen reveals its unique biology

The construction and high-precision fitness profiling of a C. neoformans knockout library reveals a high-resolution functional map of its genome and allowed for the identification of fungal analogs of...

cell.com

We traveled to DC to talk to Congressional Staffers about the impact of NIH and NIBIB funding. It enables us to develop synthetic biology tools to advance cell & genetic medicines for patients in need. REPOST to deliver the message that SCIENCE saves lives & makes America GREAT!

7 years old! 🎂🎉🎈Happy birthday to our adventurous twins!

I hailed a Tesla Model 3, according to Uber-equivalent in Cairo, Egypt 😂😂

Excited to share that our work building in vivo biosensors for receptor tyrosine kinases (pYtags!) is now out www.cell.com/cell-reports...

1/n Morocco 🇲🇦 is magical. A few pics from our whirlwind tour through this beautiful country. Enjoy!

So cool, a novel archaeon with a super small genome and no metabolic genes! "An unprecedented level of metabolic dependence on a host, a condition that challenges the functional distinctions between minimal cellular life and viruses." www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A cellular entity retaining only its replicative core: Hidden archaeal lineage with an ultra-reduced genome

Defining the minimal genetic requirements for cellular life remains a fundamental question in biology. Genomic exploration continually reveals novel microbial lineages, often exhibiting extreme genome...

biorxiv.org

Excited to share that our study, on how T cells selectively sense foreign antigens with single-molecule sensitivity, is out! This work was led by the brilliant Will White, and done in collaboration with Jay Groves and David Baker @uwproteindesign.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Furiously logging all the new budget news, laughing grimly that it landed *just after* we hit publish. Of course it did. Grateful that the entire point of @unbreaking.org is to give us a durable platform where we can keep integrating new developments. We'll digest, contextualize & update next week.

Ed Yong@edyong209.bsky.social · last yr.

I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding. It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding. It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

Medical Research Funding — Unbreaking

How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.

unbreaking.org

Happy to share the peer-reviewed and updated version of our work on OrthoRep-driven evolution of aaRSs for genetic code expansion with unnatural amino acids. Congrats to Yuichi Furuhata, a true master bioengineer, on leading this excellent work! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Directed evolution of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases through in vivo hypermutation - Nature Communications

Genetic code expansion (GCE) enables the incorporation of new amino acids into proteins. Here, authors demonstrate the rapid OrthoRep-driven evolution of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases for GCE, increasing...

nature.com

🧬🧫🦠 @science.org Bacterial reverse transcriptase synthesizes long poly-A–rich cDNA for antiphage defense | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #microbiology #bacteriophage #antiphage #immunity #DNA #RNAsky #RT #Cryo-EM #DRT9