02-16: IJF is featured in The Texas Scientist cover story on gene editing — “Cut, Paste, Cure.” (
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Finkelstein Lab news
2026
2025
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.
2024
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!
2023
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!
2022
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!
2021
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.
2020
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.
07-16: 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.
2019
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
2018
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.
2017
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.
2016
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!
2015
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.
2014
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!
2013
09-01: Yoori Kim joins the lab!
2012
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.