12-19:  Selma, Hongshan, and Eric’s One-Pot isothermal CRISPR detection paper is published in ACS Synthetic Biology.

11-19:  IJF is quoted in Popular Mechanics on DNA data storage — “All of Humanity’s Knowledge Could Become Immortal Inside a Tiny Device.” (,)

10-28:  Jesse Buffington is awarded an NIH F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Fellowship.

10-23:  Jesse, Jami, Kuang, You-Chiun, and Kamyab’s retron genome editing paper is published in Nature Biotechnology. Our work is written up in CNS News (,), SciTechDaily (,), and ScienceDaily (,).

09-13:  Alvin, Selma, Jami, Carlos, and Daphne post their Cas13d structure preprint on bioRxiv, revealing the structural basis for target discrimination and activation.

08-01:  IJF is promoted to Full Professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences.

07-29:  The lab receives an Emily’s Entourage research grant to develop retron-mediated correction of W1282X and N1303K CF mutations via CFTR exon 23-24 replacement. (,)

07-19:  Eric Nalefski, Selma, Hongshan, and Jesse publish their Cas12a trans-cleavage paper in Nucleic Acids Research.

06-29:  Selma, Hongshan, and Eric post their One-Pot isothermal CRISPR detection preprint on bioRxiv.

06-26:  The lab is awarded a DARPA RIDDL grant for the BioBARRIERS program in collaboration with the Ellington and Wilke labs at UT-Austin and the Forsberg lab at UT Southwestern. (,)

06-15:  Our collaboration with Pedro Leão and Brett Baker is highlighted in The Scientist (,) op-ed on trust and collaboration in science.

05-17:  Zowie Gaylor joins the Finkelstein lab as an undergraduate researcher.

05-01:  The lab is awarded a Cystic Fibrosis Foundation grant for CFTR exon replacement without a DNA break using retron editors.

04-22:  Kaylee, Kamyab, and Alvin’s AcrIIA11 paper is published in Nucleic Acids Research, describing the mechanism of Cas9 inhibition.

02-06:  IJF receives the 2025 Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Biological Sciences from TAMEST for his work on gene editing and DNA repair. TAMEST profile (,). Press: Daily Texan (,), CNS News (,)

01-31:  Eric Nalefski, Selma, Hongshan, and Alvin publish their room temperature CRISPR diagnostics paper in Scientific Reports.

12-17:  Paola Carneiro officially joins the Finkelstein lab as a graduate student.

11-20:  Dr. Chia-Wei Chou defends his PhD. Congratulations, Alvin!

11-18:  Dr. Ankur Annapareddy defends his PhD. Congratulations, Ankur!

11-04:  Logan and Hongshan’s PARP1 condensates paper is published in EMBO Reports, a collaboration with the Bhargava and Paull labs.

10-15:  Sabranth Gupta and Paola Carneiro join the Finkelstein lab as rotation students!

09-16:  Selma’s Cas12a pre-crRNA paper is published in RNA, a collaboration with the Russell lab.

09-01:  Abhirup Paul joins the Finkelstein lab as a rotation student!

04-23:  Jami’s Cas13d CHAMP paper is published in Nature Communications, describing massively parallel profiling of RNA-targeting CRISPR-Cas13d.

04-23:  Andrea, Ankur, Kamyab, and John’s mammalian antigen display methods chapter is published in Methods in Molecular Biology.

02-08:  Dr. John Cooper defends his PhD! Congrats!

11-29:  Dr. Hung-Che (Jami) Kuo defends his PhD! Congrats!

11-17:  Dr. Kuang Hu defends his PhD! Congrats!

11-13:  Joe Woodman and Da Huo join the Finkelstein lab as rotation students!

09-28:  Parminder and Hongshan’s AFM cohesin-NIPBL paper is published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, a collaboration with the Wang and Yu labs.

09-13:  Our collaborative Asgard archaea defense paper with the Baker lab is published in Nature Communications.

08-31:  Dr. Andrea Quezada departs the lab to work at Max Delbrück Center in Berlin, Germany! Congratulations!

08-17:  Hongshan and Zhubing’s cohesin R-loops paper is published in Molecular Cell, showing that CTCF and R-loops are boundaries of cohesin-mediated DNA looping.

06-22:  Grace and Jack’s SpRY-Cas9 paper is published in Nature Communications, a collaboration with the Taylor and Johnson labs.

05-12:  Dr. Jim Rybarski departs the lab to work at Moderna in Boston, MA. Congratulations!

04-24:  Our collaborative chromatin condensates paper with the Rosen, Narlikar, and Gerlich labs is published in PNAS.

04-21:  You-Chiun Chang joins the lab!

03-04:  Kuang and Alvin’s CRISPR-associated transposon paper is published in Nature Communications, revealing distinct horizontal transfer mechanisms for type I and type V systems.

02-10:  Dr. Ilya Finkelstein is one of the six Functional Genomics Awardees ! (,)

02-02:  Michael and Giaochau’s MRN resection paper is published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, describing how MRN and topoisomerase IIIa synchronize DNA resection.

01-30:  Wei-Che Tseng joins the Finkelstein lab as a rotation student!

01-01:  Selma Sinan joins the Finkelstein lab as a research scientist!

11-07:  Rodrigo Fregoso Ocampo joins the Finkelstein lab as a rotation student!

10-10:  Jesse Buffington joins the Finkelstein lab as a rotation student!

10-10:  Undergradute Daphne Sahaya joins the Finkelstein lab!

10-10:  Dr. Mike Soniat starts working at Thomas Jefferson University as an assistant professor !

10-10:  Dr. Mike Soniat departs the lab to become a PI at Thomas Jefferson University! Congrats!

09-23:  Dr. Kamyab Javanmardi defends his PhD! Congrats!

09-01:  Steven Zilko and You-Chiun Chang join the Finkelstein lab as rotation students!

08-01:  Henry Garcia joins the Finkelstein lab as a staff scientist!

07-11:  Mary Arnold joins the Finkelstein lab as a staff scientist!

06-02:  Zeyi (Joey) Yu joins the Finkelstein lab as rotation student!

06-01:  Dr. Andrea Quezada joins the Finkelstein lab as a Postdoctoral fellow!

04-25:  Dr. Jim Rybarski defends his PhD. Congratulations!

03-31:  Dr. Carlos Calcines departs the lab to work at Mascoma!

03-07:  Undergraduate Caitlin Kuriakose joins the lab!

11-24:  Dr. Kaylee Dillard departs the lab to work at Molecular Templates!

11-15:  Hsin-Ru Chan and Matt Hooper join the Finkelstein lab as rotation students!

10-26:  Arian Veyssi joins the lab as a rotation student!

10-18:  Charlie Johnson joins the lab as a rotation student!

09-23:  Dr. Carlos Calcines defends his PhD. Congrats to himd

09-13:  Jingsi Zhou joins the lab as an undergraduate researcher! She previously at the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute Summer Undergraduate Research Program (GCCRI SURP) at UT Health San Antonio.

08-27:  Dr. Jeff Schaub departs the lab to work at Abbott Laboratories!

08-10:  Tyler Washburn joins the lab as an undergraduate Lab assistant! She is an alumni of the Freshman Research Initiative.

08-09:  Carlos Calcines rejoins the lab to become a Postdoctoral fellow!

07-30:  Drs Kaylee Dillard and Jeff Schaub defend their PhDs. Congrats to both!

07-16:  Steve departs the lab to become a PI in Lithuania!

06-16:  Giaochau Nguyen departs the lab to go to graduate school at UT Southwestern Medical Center!

06-01:  Ankur Annapareddy and Lianne Dubbs join the lab!

02-22:  IJF is quoted in the Daily Texan (,) on the B.1.1.7 COVID-19 variant and UT’s response.

12-07:  Undergraduate Hayley Zorkic joins the lab!

11-07:  Congratulations to Cynthia Terrace on her ‘Outstanding Presentation Award’ at the Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium hosted by Rice on Nov. 6th!

10-19:  Grace Hibshman, Josh Lutgens, and Qingqing Guo join the lab as rotation students!

09-29:  Congratulations to Jami, Alvin, and Kamyab for their work in collaboration with James Musser’s lab and mentioned by the Washington Post (,).

09-07:  Congratulations to Stephen and John on the release of their NucleaSeq publication in Nature Biotechnology.

08-31:  Alexis Hill joins the lab as a rotation student!

07-27:  Congrats to Yoori and Nicole on their collaborative paper in Nature Microbiology with Dr. Richard Bennett.

07-23:  The Finkelstein, McLellan, and Maynard labs publish a paper in Science on a structure based design of SARS-CoV-2 spikes. Congrats to Jeff, Jami, Kamyab, Alvin, and the entire collaborative team. Our HexaPro work is covered by the New York Times, UT News (,), KXAN, KVUE (,), and CBS DFW.

07-16:  Congrats to Stephen and Jeff on our collaborative manuscript with Dr. Bill Press. on DNA-based information encoding published in PNAS.

07-05:  Undergraduate Carlos Arguello joins the Finkelstein lab!

07-04:  Congrats to Hongshan and Jeff on their recent publication in NAR.

06-01:  Our collaborative manuscript on DNA-based information encoding is accepted in PNAS. This has been a phenomenal collaboration with Dr. Bill Press.

06-01:  Our NucleaSeq manuscript is accepted at Nature Biotechnology. Congrats to Stephen, John, and the entire collaborative team.

05-11:  Chia-Wei (Alvin) joins the Finkelstein Lab as a graduate student!

05-04:  Cynthia was awarded the Darrell Royal Endowed Presidential Scholarship!

04-03:  Congratulations to Hongshan on the birth of his baby, Luna!

03-05:  Parastoo Maleki joins the Finkelstein Lab as a postdoctoral fellow.

02-03:  Po-Chin (Brandon) Chiou and Chia-Wei (Alvin) Chou join the lab as rotation students!

01-08:  Congrats to Michael on his recent publication in Science Advances.

12-13:  Congrats to Yoori & Hongshan on their collaborative paper in Science describing loop extrusion by cohesin. We’re so happy to continue our collaboration with Hongtao Yu and his lab.

10-29:  Congrats to Jeff on his collaborative Cell Reports paper with the Marcotte lab on the discovery of endogenous human ribonucleoprotein complexes.

10-10:  The Finkelstein and Ellington labs publish a NAR review on retrons and their applications in genome engineering.

09-10:  Congrats to Kamyab and Kaylee on their publications in eLife on the discovery of Cas9 inhibitors.

09-03:  Yash Shukla and Mason Schechter join the Finkelstein Lab as rotation students!

07-11:  Congratulations to Michael on his recent publication in Molecular Cell describing how RPA phosphorylation inhibits DNA resection.

07-05:  Henry Trentham joins the lab as our Lab Assistant!

07-04:  Congrats to Logan on his PARP-1 paper in Nature Communications.

06-03:  Giaochau Nguyen starts her position as our new lab manager!

05-31:  Nicole Johnson leaves the lab to start her graduate studies at UT-Austin.

05-31:  Congratulations to Logan and Michael on their publication on Mre11-Rad50-Nbs1 complex in Methods in Molecular Biology, done in collaboration with Tanya Paull at UT-Austin.

05-25:  Congrats to Michael and Logan on their new paper in Methods in Molecular Biology describing how to assemble human resectosomes on DNA curtains.

05-19:  Kuang Hu joins the lab as a joint graduate student with Dr. Claus Wilke

12-21:  Yoori leaves the lab to start her postdoctoral studies in the lab of Hongtao Yu at UT Southwestern.

12-17:  Congratulations to Kaylee, Jeff, Max, and Fatema on their new paper on Sortase labeling CRISPR complexes in Methods in Enzymology.

12-12:  Congratulations to Yoori for her new paper in NAR describing the role of intrinsically disordered regions in the MutLα mismatch repair complex.

12-03:  Congratulations to Mike Soniat on his recent publication in PNAS!

12-01:  Undergraduates Cynthia Terrace and Jacob Kula join the lab! Both Cynthia and Jacob are alums of the Freshman Research Initiative.

11-12:  Kuang Hu joins the lab as a rotation student.

11-05:  Yoori is awarded a PhD! Congrats!

10-18:  Congrats to Kaylee, Max, Nicole, Yoori, and Logan on their CRISPR adaptive immunity paper in Cell.

08-16:  Michael Soniat receives a departmental Travel Award to attend the Keystone Symposia meeting in January 2019. Kudos!

08-10:  The website gets a major refresh as it moves from web2py (bleh!) to Jekyll+GitHub. Thanks to Jim and Nicole for their awesome help during this major undertaking.

08-07:  IJF co-panels a public discussion with Sahotra Sarkar on the promise and peril of CRISPR gene editing at the Austin Forum on Technology and Society.

07-25:  Congrats to Jeff Hongshan and Michael on their new Langmuir paper describing a better way to make ssDNA curtains!

07-18:  The lab publishes an eLife paper on how heterochromatin spreads with Bassem Al-Sady’s group at UCSF.

07-13:  Fatema leaves the lab to start her graduate studies in the UCSF tetrad program.

06-20:  Congrats to John and Stephen on their new indel-correcting DNA barcodes paper in PNAS, done in collaboration with Bill Press of the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at UT.

06-01:  Kamyab Javanmardi joins the lab as a rotation student!

05-15:  John Cooper joins as a joint graduate student between the Finkelstein and Matouschek Labs.

05-01:  Hung-Che Kuo (Jami) joins the Finkelstein Lab as a graduate student!

05-01:  Dr. Max Brown defends his dissertation!

05-01:  Dr. Logan Myler defends his dissertation!

04-30:  Stephen Jones receives a departmental Travel Award to attend the Cold Spring Harbor CRISPR meeting in August 2018.

04-20:  Dr. John Hawkins defends his dissertation!

04-15:  Michael Soniat presents a talk at the annual Structural Biology of DNA Repair conference.

03-28:  Kaylee Dillard is awarded an F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award.

03-12:  IJF co-panels a discussion with Dan Gibson and Rachel Haurwitz on genome editing at SXSW interactive.

02-16:  Stephen Jones attends the AAAS Annual Meeting, where he participates in Classroom Science Days, presenting to students at Bailey Middle School on how he became a scientist.

02-12:  Yoori Kim presents a poster at the 3rd DNA replication/repair Structures and Cancer conference in Cancun MX.

01-02:  Hongshan Zhang joins the lab as a Postdoc after completing his PhD at Aix-Marseille University in the laboratory of Dr. Mauro Modesti.

10-23:  Jim Rybarski gave a talk on his Cas12a work at the Cell Symposia CRISPR conference.

10-22:  Kaylee Dillard presents a poster at the Cell Symposia CRISPR From Biology to Technology and Novel Therapeutics.

09-23:  Stephen Jones releases his first album as cellist in the Austin-based band, Bone Pilots, titled Satellite.

08-07:  Congrats to Logan, Nacho, Michael, and Yoori on their new Molecular Cell paper describing how MRN works on chromatin and DNA ends. in Molecular Cell (“Single-Molecule Imaging Reveals How Mre11-Rad50-Nbs1 Initiates DNA Break Repair”)

08-01:  Michael Soniat is awarded the American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship.

06-27:  The laboratory publishes a Cell paper on how to repurpose NGS chips for biophysical studies of CRISPR proteins in collaboration with Ellington, Press, Ke and Savran laboratories.

06-01:  Members of the Finkelstein Lab are interviewed by the The Daily Texan, The Austin-American Statesman, and The Wall Street Journal for their recently-published work on CRISPR in Cell.

04-17:  Congrats to Michael, Logan, Jeff, Yoori, and Nacho on their new paper on Next-Gen DNA Curtains in Methods in Enzymology

02-01:  Nicole Johnson joins the lab as our new lab manager!

02-01:  Jim Rybarski officially joins the Finkelstein Lab as a graduate student!

01-31:  The laboratory publishes a paper describing the extraordinary longevity of fission yeast in eLife.

01-17:  Congrats to Yoori and Armando on their new paper in Scientific Reports describing how to make better single-molecule DNA substrates.

01-08:  Stephen Jones is awarded the Keystone Symposia Future of Science Fund Scholarship and attends the Keystone Symposium on Genome Engineering.

10-03:  Logan Myler awarded an NCI F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Transition Fellowships.

08-01:  Stephen Jones is awarded an F32 postdoctoral fellowship from the National Institute on Aging!

07-17:  Michael Soniat joins the lab after completing his PhD at University of Texas Southwestern in the laboratory of Dr. Yuh Min Chook.

05-01:  Jeff Schaub joins the lab!

07-30:  Yoori Kim gets the prestigious HHMI International Scholar Fellowship. Congratulations Yoori!

05-02:  Jim Rybarski graduates with a B.S. in Biochemistry. Jim will be staying with us as a research scientist as he continues to crush science!

05-01:  Kaylee Dillard joins the lab to study aspects of CRISPR-cas adaptive immunity.

04-05:  Stephen Jones et al publish a Bio-Protocol paper on how to capture and watch single fission yeast cells over their entire lifespans.

03-01:  IJF is awarded an NSF CAREER award to study mechanisms of genome maintenance. CNS press release (,)

02-02:  Logan Myler will be presenting a short talk on our work with EXO1 at the Mammalian DNA Repair Gordon Research Conference. Congratulations!

02-01:  Dr. Stephen Jones joins the laboratory after completing his PhD at Brown University in the laboratory of Richard Bennett.

05-14:  Jim Rybarski joins the lab to work on the mechanisms of aging in fission yeast.

04-01:  Logan Myler is awarded prize for the best short talk at the annual Molecular BioSciences retreat. Great work!

09-01:  Yoori Kim joins the lab!

09-01:  Dr. Ignacio Gallardo joins the lab. Welcome Nacho!

08-01:  Greg Hild joins the lab as lab manager, technician and espresso connoisseur. Welcome Greg!

07-02:  IJF receives the NIH Pathway to Independence R00 award.

07-01:  IJF is named a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research. CNS press release (,)