@ChappellLab

RNA synthetic biology lab, Rice University

chappell-lab.org/
Joined December 2020
  • Tweets253
  • Following650
  • Followers871
9Media
New paper out! Introducing SynORI: synthetic, modular origins of replication engineered from one origin to enable tunable copy number and compatibility. We co-transform 6 SynORI at once, build signal-driven copy control for multiplexed reporting, and more! nature.com/articles/s41467-0…

Engineering plasmids with synthetic origins of replication

Nature Communications - The reliance on natural plasmid replication mechanisms limits plasmid tunability, compatibility, and modularity. Here the authors refactor the natural pMB1 origin and create...

nature.com
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Honored to have RNA-addressable modification(RAM) featured on the front cover of Nature Biotech. RAM is a new reporter to measure DNA uptake in complex microbial communities using a synthetic barcoding ribozyme! Awesome collaborative project with @lauren_stadler and @JoffSilberg
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Link to paper here: nature.com/articles/s41587-0…

Information storage across a microbial community using universal RNA barcoding

Nature Biotechnology - Barcoding microbial ribosomal RNA creates a recording of gene transfer events without requiring translation.

nature.com
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The Stadler and Chappell labs (@ChappellLab) are hiring a joint postdoc to join an NSF-funded project on isolating and engineering environmental plasmids for microbiome engineering applications! Email [email protected] and [email protected] to apply.
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The Chappell & Stadler Labs (@lauren_stadler) are hiring a postdoc to establish innovative tools for microbiome engineering. Apply: [email protected] and [email protected], more details below. #SynBio #PostdocJobs
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Chappell Lab retweeted
Tom Ellis@ProfTomEllis
11 Jul 2025
Online now @ Cell is the yeast multicellular engineering paper from @DrFankangMeng - the fruits of his productive PhD. He developed modular synthetic biology tools to bring multicellular behaviours to yeast - adhesion, juxtacrine signalling and more. cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092…

Engineering yeast multicellular behaviors via synthetic adhesion and contact signaling

By designing synthetic toolkits for contact-based signaling (MARS) and cell-cell adhesion (SATURN), we program yeast to form multicellular structures and perform complex tasks, like building logic...

cell.com
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Chappell Lab retweeted
Michael Koeris
@mkoeris
6 Jun 2025
📢 ALERT ALERT 📢 #BTO's monthly newsletter has dropped! Check it out for the latest and greatest opportunities over here at #BTO! Visit the @DARPA webpage for more info: buff.ly/5piNgIf 🫡
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Chappell Lab retweeted
Ophelia@oventurelli2
8 May 2025
Excited to share our latest work on unraveling the role of a key metabolic pathway in human gut microbiome assembly and health-relevant metabolites—powered by machine learning! Led by the talented Yiyi Liu sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
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Chappell Lab retweeted
Aditya Kunjapur@kunjapur
1 May 2025
It seems there are no free-living organisms known to rely exclusively on one other organism for their survival. Until perhaps now. Check out our latest publication in @NatureMicrobiol to see how we designed an exclusive microbial reliance using GCE. rdcu.be/ekepI 1/2
Aditya Kunjapur@kunjapur
6 Jan 2025
Genetic code expansion - meet synthetic ecology We designed an exclusive reliance of one engineered bacterial strain on another mediated by a non-standard AA Exclusive reliances btwn free-living organisms aren't known in nature Work led by NSF GRFP recipient Mandy Forti
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Nice research briefing article on our @NatureBiotech paper on recording gene transfer using ribozymes in collaboration with @lauren_stadler @JoffSilberg labs! nature.com/articles/s41587-0…
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Romero lab@romerolab1
23 Mar 2025
Happy Sunday to all! This morning, we are excited to share Chase’s work developing a simple, scalable method to assemble 100s-1000s of custom genes from oligo pools using standard lab tools! (Small 🧵 below)
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Happy to announce the our paper describing a new tool for tracking horizontal gene transfer using a splicing ribozyme has been published in Nature Biotechnology! Thanks to everyone on the team for their hard work nature.com/articles/s41587-0…

Information storage across a microbial community using universal RNA barcoding

Nature Biotechnology - Barcoding microbial ribosomal RNA creates a recording of gene transfer events without requiring translation.

nature.com
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Information storage across a microbial community using universal RNA barcoding go.nature.com/440gL5E
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Fresh in @NatureBiotech! We developed a synthetic biology tool for tracking gene transfer in microbial communities and applied it to study plasmid hosts in a wastewater microbiome. Awesome collab with @ChappellLab & @JoffSilberg and incredible students. nature.com/articles/s41587-0…

Information storage across a microbial community using universal RNA barcoding

Nature Biotechnology - Barcoding microbial ribosomal RNA creates a recording of gene transfer events without requiring translation.

nature.com
Lauren Stadler@lauren_stadler
17 Apr 2023
Thrilled to share our new preprint on using a new type of microbial memory to track horizontal gene transfer in environmental microbial communities. Amazing collaboration with @ChappellLab and @JoffSilberg labs. biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/… (1/n)

Information storage across a microbial community using universal RNA memory

Biological recorders can code information in DNA, but they remain challenging to apply in complex microbial communities. To program microbiome information storage, a synthetic catalytic RNA (cat-RNA)...

biorxiv.org
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Check out our latest paper on using synthetic RNA memory to record gene transfer across real microbial consortia. An amazing collaborative project at Rice U between @ChappellLab, @JoffSilberg, and @lauren_stadler labs! nature.com/articles/s41587-0…

Information storage across a microbial community using universal RNA barcoding

Nature Biotechnology - Barcoding microbial ribosomal RNA creates a recording of gene transfer events without requiring translation.

nature.com
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Chappell Lab retweeted
Tom Ellis@ProfTomEllis
11 Mar 2025
Joaquin Caro Astorga's SubtiToolKit paper is published today. This cloning toolkit for Bacillus and Geobacillus was years of effort and indepedent work by @JCaroAstorga1, first in my lab and then with @erika_alden_d at the Crick. It's been a journey! sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
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Excited to share our work in @ScienceAdvances! TLISA is a plug-and-play cell-free protein biosensor system developed by @MeganAMcSweeney. We hope this technology is a stepping stone to expand protein detection at the point-of-care! science.org/doi/10.1126/scia…

A modular cell-free protein biosensor platform using split T7 RNA polymerase

A split polymerase is used to develop a plug-and-play cell-free biosensor platform for point-of-care protein detection.

science.org
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Title: Engineering Plasmids with Synthetic Origins of Replication biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/… #biorxiv_synbio

Engineering Plasmids with Synthetic Origins of Replication

Plasmids remain by far the most common medium for delivering engineered DNA to microorganisms. However, the reliance on natural plasmid replication mechanisms limits their tunability, compatibility,...

biorxiv.org
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Pre-print alert: Introducing SynORI: Synthetic origins of replication for customizable and controllable plasmids! Lots of cool applications like co-maintaining six orthogonal plasmids in E. coli for a week and copy-control biosensors! biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…

Engineering Plasmids with Synthetic Origins of Replication

Plasmids remain by far the most common medium for delivering engineered DNA to microorganisms. However, the reliance on natural plasmid replication mechanisms limits their tunability, compatibility,...

biorxiv.org
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Chappell Lab retweeted
Stanley Qi
@stanleyqilab
6 Feb 2025
We are excited to make #CRISPR accessible to high school education. 🧬 Go check out the article in @StanfordDaily to read about our frugal CRISPRkits. #democratizingscience #scienceaccessibility @bioe_stanford @Stanford_ChEMH @Stanford stanforddaily.com/2025/02/03…

Bioengineering lab provides affordable gene-editing kits

Stanford researchers introduced affordable gene-editing kits ready for the classroom, aiming to make the field more accessible for high school students.

stanforddaily.com
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