Assistant Prof
@MITChemE
; mom^4 + wife; enjoys building cell-fate circuits, exploring dna topology, reprogramming the living world, and soccer; soli gloria deo
How does transcription of proximal genes influence the expression of their neighbors? How do we engineer compact circuit designs for specific profiles of expression that enable robust cellular engineering? Today
@CellReports
we provide some answers (1 /n)
pro-tip: you can just delete every instance of "has been shown to" to switch to active voice
This writing tip has been shown to work.
This writing tip works.
How does transcription of proximal genes influence the expression of their neighbors? How do we engineer compact circuit designs for specific profiles of expression that enable robust cellular engineering? Today
@CellReports
we provide some answers (1 /n)
Levels of gene expression matter! So how can you control a transgene precisely? Is there a tool that can ensure uniform control & the ability to adjust the setpoint of expression from a single promoter? Introducing DIAL! 🧵 (1/n)
Link:
First NOA!!! Thrilled to announce that the Galloway Lab received a 5 year $1.94 M
@NIGMS
R35 MIRA ESI grant! This will fund our work to understand the molecular processes that support cellular reprogramming. SO PROUD of our lab for their hard work!
@MITChemE
How do individual transcription factors (TF) influence reprogramming? Isn’t it just the cells with the highest levels of TF expression that reprogram? So just blast them & it should work, right? 🤨Buckle up for our lab’s preprint & tour de force led by Nat Wang
@nbwang22
! (1/n)
In wake of all this chaos, I got some excellent news! My husband is officially cancer-free at his 6 month scan! So relieved and grateful to be able to share this news! Thankful for all who helped including
@MITChemE
who helped us find an oncologist in Boston
#thanksMGH
#PraiseGod
Every year in September people start asking for advice about going on the job market. I cringe bc for most people September is too late. You need to start planning NOW! So how can you start preparing now? A short 🧵(1/6)
Excited to say our lab's about to do some "understanding and engineering" with the support of the NSF CAREER Award! Really grateful for fantastic work by my students and support from my department
@MITChemE
Delighted for the research and outreach this will support. Excelsior!
Our hearts are breaking at
@MITChemE
. On Friday, we lost Jim Swan
@Jim_Swan
. Jim was a wonderful mentor, colleague, and friend. We had so much left to learn from you, Jim... 😭
Can we please dispense with early career definitions by degree date? Or are we just content tacitly saying "you'll be sorry if you take time off (to take care of your family)" ?
#earlycareer
@momadamia
#momadamia
@AcademicChatter
1/n Rounding out the best of 2020 for our lab, newly published “Engineering Cell Fate: Applying synthetic biology to cellular reprogramming.” We review cellular reprogramming+
#synbio
Vision brought to life in vivid color by
@nbwang22
and
@beitz_adam
My students invented Eiko bootstrapping: you ask the PI the same question a few times, 4-8 weeks apart, and he'll have forgotten he was asked the question before.
If he gives the same answer multiple times, we'll call it a robust and reliable outcome.
Excited to share our new
@biorxivpreprint
! Integrating DNA biophysics with classic
#synbio
to map how to improve transgenic systems by tailoring expression levels, variance, and transcriptional dynamics. TL;DR: Don’t build your systems to fail. Build beautiful dynamics! 🧵(1/n)
Decade reflections: A decade ago I was a struggling grad student at Caltech with a 5-month old daughter. My entire lab had moved the prior year to Stanford. My husband was at UCLA. My journal says, "things just keep not working" and that was definitely a journal theme...
The lab's first paper is accepted!!! yasss! Congrats
@nbwang22
and
@beitz_adam
! Excited to share our review on the synthetic biology of cellular reprogramming when it's published!
on unimodal setpoints and how to get them from synthetic promoters...
tweetorial coming soon...
or see you next Thursday
#SEED2024
in Atlanta...
Stay tuned for more control systems coming soon...
Transgenics have the potential to massively expand the power of cell therapies. However, transgenesis adds a step in the already substantial challenge of scaling up cell-based therapies. How do we ensure that cell therapies can harness the power of synthetic biology? 🧵 (1/n)
Its signing day
@MITChemE
! Delighted to be welcoming Emma Peterman
@emmapeterman_
to lab. She joins us from UD as an alumna of
@cfromen
lab. Excited to watch Emma launch into building synthetic models of tissue regeneration!
(Also, yes, signing day is now signing month)
This is a very clever approach to control expression. They engineer recruitment of transcriptional activators fused to RNPs to sites of nascent transcription by embedding RNP-binding sequences within the intron
@NatureComms
Do you know who Grace Hopper is? You should. "One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of computer programming who invented the first compiler." She is an inspiration! Happy Halloween!
I always appreciate when authors utilize an axis of scale...this one has TWO for understanding chromatin organization, imagining techniques, and mechanisms that support structure and dynamics!
grief isn't linear or homogenous; it's an asynchronous, heterogeneous process; as with all time-varying phenomena, a single snapshot may not capture the picture, so be kind and generous to those around you
@dgonzales1990
3 things have been useful.
1. Journal Club. I recommend leading the first few on a single paper. Deep dive.
2. Speed JC. 1 topic; 5-8 papers. 1 slide per paper. Helps ppl see themes. Everyone gets 2-3.
3. Lit commentary channel on slack to share as papers are posted...(1/n)
Do you have a favorite guide or tutorial for writing papers? How do you approach thinking through structure? Engineering vs biology seem to require different approaches to structure. Given his papers, I bet
@MoKhalilLab
has this down to precise art. Any tips, docs, resources, Mo?
each year I give a state of the lab (SOL) to introduce the lab to new students and summarize where we are and where we're going...I wanted a way to capture the founding members of the lab...
@nbwang22
sent me this...🤣🤣🤣 love it!
15 years ago! Best decision ever! Fortunate to have an unbelievably supportive partner...especially in these crazy times, this has made all the difference in facing the many challenges and joys
What limits synthetic control over cellular behaviors? How can gene circuits be used to buffer or harness transcriptional noise in achieve predictable multicellular responses? Where does
#sybio
go from here? Read on!
@ChrisPJohnstone
@MITChemE
@NatRevMCB
What's your definition of synbio? I'll start. Synbio is the systematic engineering of native biological systems to extract design principles (e.g. build-to-understand) and construct novel tools, devices, and systems. Ok, now your turn! ( I expect a wide variance in opinion ;))
A year ago I got in the car with my family to drive to from California to Massachusetts and start a lab. Today our lab submitted two manuscripts (reviews). It's been a wild year. But the memes from the students are the best. Below is how we make decisions on figures.
Perhaps the greatest challenge in growing up is to see the world as it really is and yet not grow cynical or weary; to retain courage and hope, no matter what looms on the horizon.
"The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it." John 1:5
May Light and Life guide you and fill you in the coming year! Merry Christmas!
Got to write a bit for
@NatureRevGenet
on what sparked my love of the cell cycle as a (underappreciated) determinant of cell fate.
See here:
For the lovely work from
@Kueh_Lab
when he worked with
@ElowitzLab
see here:
It's Signing Day
@MITChemE
! Excited to sign with these three awesome (and brave) founding grad students... In honor of signing day, we got tshirts like grad lab selection is some kinda NCAA sport 😄...intros to follow...
This is not my experience at MIT. My latest recurring meeting ends at 5:30 pm. I don't have any recurring weekend meetings. My department
@MITChemE
supports its parents thru time & finances. Excellent research, brilliant students, massive support. To me, "This is MIT."
Multiple times senior professors have asked to schedule recurring meetings in the evenings or on weekends and when I gently told them that those times are difficult for parents, they responded along the lines of “well this is MIT”. And yet our diversity issues persist! Curious.
Finally getting to meet your twitter and
#newPISlack
friends in real life is a highlight of post-vax life. Fun times
@baym
! Cheers to more great time chatting about science and startup!
An unnamed hero, the folks at
@JetBlue
, and my awesome postdoc
@KeiTakahashi720
got it back to me!!! I'm happy to be in CA but happy to know I can get on the plane home 🤣
If Twitter dies, then thanks to you all who shared beautiful science, sassy reflections, and provided a window into your world. It has been a joy to find connection over these last 3 years. Resurgam et Excelsior!
yesterday was my "academic birthday." I defended my thesis 9 years ago ⏳ 😮 Like most "birth" days it was the beautiful culmination of lots of hard work, hope, passion, and pure grit...but it wasn't pretty... it was rough...
MIT has this lovely month-long "independent activity period" (IAP) and it's amazing! No required classes or admin, just research and short courses in January. It was a great time training new team members in lab. Now back to the real world!
I got such a sweet gift from my lab! 2021 has been filled with such wonderful memories, rigors and challenges, and some very hard things. Knowing they are with me has been the energy and the encouragement that I have needed. In 2022, excelsior!
First day of teaching my new elective in-person...over 18 months, I had forgetten the adrenaline rush (and intense post-lecture exhaustion) of standing in front of a live room; I look awake but I am tired
1/n So you love the 3D genome and want to know more about how synthetic biology will address open question in the structure and function of chromatin? This review is for you! (And it’s open access!) Think
@4DNucleome
meets
#synbio
->
@CellSystemsCP
After several months and lots of work, our review is finally out!
In it we discuss how 🧬sequencing, 🔬 microscopy, and 🧑🔬 synbio approaches can be used to both understand and engineer chromatin as a dynamic system!
@GallowayLabMIT
@ChrisPJohnstone
Before CRISPR, what did ppl used for engineering mammalian cell lines and animals? Transposon systems, etc? I'm reading about "stable" transfection. And what is the mechanism!?! Is this just chucking genetic cargoes into the cell and hoping things work out? I bet
@chorye
knows
First Galloway Lab Beach Day was a blast! Fun times in honor of our most recent PhD candidates, Sneha Kabaria
@science_sneha
and Brittany Lende! Welcome summer!
@MITChemE
Delighted to officially welcome Kasey Love (
@kaseyslove
) to the group! Kasey is a first-year BE PhD student hailing from Stanford, who enjoys hiking, watching soccer, and building genetic controllers that regulate stem cell fate. Welcome Kasey!
@MITdeptofBE
@MITChemE
After a decisive faculty vote,
@MITChemE
has decided to drop the GRE (not just for this year) for graduate admissions. Thanks to many current PhD students for helping make the push for
#GRExit
Kiddo: can I brush you hair?
Me: yes. (Typing furiously while my stylist works)
Kiddo: can I help you put on deodorant?
Me: yes. (More typing, more help)
Kiddo: can I do your makeup?
Me: sure. (More typing, more help)
Hurray I edited a paragraph! And got a makeover!
I'm excited to announce we've officially survived 4 weeks with the kids at home and have toilet paper and paper towels! Celebrating the minor victories!
if you're on the market, you're going to get asked these questions (and some you will get over and over again). Take the time to think on your answers now and be ready! You got this!
Our junior faculty search committee has decided on the top 6 candidates to invite for in person interviews. Here are the questions we asked in the Zoom interviews. These are similar to what most places ask from what I gather, but wanted to post these to help anyone about to 1/
Delighted to be welcoming Binette Wada
@binettem11
as our group's newest UROP. Binette is a sophomore in chemical engineering
@MITChemE
. This summer she's deploying her awesome modeling skills in the development of genetic controllers for reprogramming. Welcome Binette!
To the nameless hero that quickly intervened when a belligerent woman aggressively came after me as I walked to my ACS morning session, thank you! I'm stunned but fine. Very grateful for this kind, brave stranger.
Achievement unlocked! Getting to celebrate 4th of July with my lab...a dream 2 years in the making! Even in the rain the fireworks were worth it! Such a great view from
@MITChemE
😮😅🤣"after dehydration loops remain (top center), even after a year at room temperature (top right), and even if (bottom right) the sample is subsequently blasted with a shotgun, run over by a car, or hit with a fastball."
The lab's second paper is accepted!!! Congrats
@ChrisPJohnstone
,
@nbwang22
, and Stuart Sevier
This was a long-planned review and big lift! I will be very excited to share our perspective on the emerging synthesis between worlds of
#SynBio
and the
@4DNucleome
when posted!
My out of office:
If you're reading this, I'm in California...email will be slow.
If you're not reading this, our email-to-telepathy experiment has finally worked.
“This issue on C&EN’s Black Trailblazers has special meaning to me. I know the impact of having scientific role models who have the same heritage and background, who have faced the same obstacles,” says Paula Hammond, guest editor for this upcoming issue publishing on Feb. 22.