News
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Happy Halloween from the Rubin Lab!!
Behind the science: meet the faces of the lab!
The Lab
October 16, 2024
We're excited to welcome postdoc Kuang Hu to the Rubin Lab! Kuang will be working on the bioinformatics side of the lab, including the discovery of novel RNA-guided editing tools.
A picture of Kuang.
Media
August 20, 2024
The Rubin Lab was excited to host Hampton University student Alex Mendez this past summer as part of the IGI's participation in the UC-HBCU Initiative.
The Lab
July 1, 2024
Sarah Hasham begins her position as the full-time Rubin lab manager! We are excited and lucky to have her on board facilitating the administrative work, organization, and overall support of our lab functions!
A picture of Sarah.
The Lab
May 10, 2024
We are thrilled to congratulate our stellar lab manager Leo Song on his graduate school decisions and announce that Leo will be continuing with the Rubin Lab as a graduate student through the UC Berkeley Comparative Biochemistry department!
A picture of Leo.
The Lab
May 2, 2024
Congratulations to our undergraduate researchers Abby Wang and Danh Tran for receiving the 2024 UC Berkeley Rose Hills Summer Scholarships, which generously awards $5,000 to support undergraduate students in pursuing intensive research over the summer!
A picture of Abby and Danh.
The Lab
April 5, 2024
Sophia (co-advised by Jennifer Doudna and Brady Cress) has passed her qualifying exam with flying colors! She spectacularly presented her proposal on studying CAST post-transcription complex disassembly. We are endlessly proud of our lab's first PhD candidate and all of her accomplishments!
Photos from Sophia's qualifying exam celebration!
The Lab
January 31, 2024
Christine Corry and Danh Tran join the lab as undergraduate researchers, working with Jigyasa on implementing and research models in the context of microbiome editing.
A picture of Christine and Danh.
The Lab
January 1, 2024
Sarah Hasham joins the lab as an assistant lab manager, supporting Leo with administrative work before she transitions into the Lab Manager role after graduating in the spring!
A picture of Sarah.
Social
December 15, 2023
The Rubin Lab celebrated the end of the year with the Cress Lab at the annual Doudna Lab holiday party!
Happy holidays from our lab to yours!
The Lab
December 8-10, 2023
The Rubin Lab attended the International Conference on Microbiome Engineering (ICME) 2023, co-chaired by Ben and Brady Cress! We had a great showing at the conference, with presentations from Amanda, Jigyasa, and Jon, and Leo and Sophia giving a fantastic presentation on our lab's work on CAST regulators.
Photos from ICME 2023!
Publication Alert
November 16, 2023
Social
November 6, 2023
Lab members had a blast at the first Rubin and Cress Lab retreat at Point Reyes! Many happy memories were made hiking, hanging out at the beach, kayaking, and cooking together despite the rain.
Photos from retreat!
The Lab
October 16, 2023
We are excited to welcome postdoctoral researchers Bingliang Xie, Lindsey Pieper, and Jon Martinson to the lab! They will be investigating positive metabolic selection, advancing microbiome editing with a focus on community dynamics, and exploring microbial genes and their role in Inflammatory Bowel Disease, respectively.
Bingliang, Lindsey, and Jon (from left to right).
Media
October 11, 2023
Introducing Precision Microbiome Editing | Innovative Genomics Institute
What exactly is precision microbiome editing, and why is it such an important tool? Ben discusses its exciting applications and how our lab aims to harness microbiome editing in the latest Inside Genomics video from
the Innovative Genomics Institute.
The Lab
September 28, 2023
The Rubin Lab had a splendid time at the annual Inside IGI Conference! Congratulations to Leo, Sophia, Amanda, Jigyasa, and Abby for scoring second in the best poster contest!
Photos of the lab at the Inside IGI: Health Conference!
The Lab
September 13, 2023
A warm welcome to Agnès Oromi-Bosch, joining the Rubin Lab as a research associate! She will be working jointly with the Cress Lab to develop strategies for enabling efficient CRISPR-based editing of non-model gut bacteria and uncovering microbe-host interaction mechanisms.
A picture of Agnès.
Media
August 27, 2023
Precision Microbiome Editing To Tackle Methane Emissions, by Molly Campbell | Technology Networks
Ben chats about ET-Seq and DART in this article on the work behind CRISPR and precision microbiome editing, the exciting TED Audacious Project, and how we can harness microbiome editing to tackle climate change.
The Lab
August 15, 2023
We are honored to announce funding by The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to UC Berkeley. The generous grant will propel our work on microbiome editing tools, aiding in the understanding of Crohn's disease, with the ultimate goal of creating innovative treatments for this chronic condition.
This project will be co-led by the Cress Lab at the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley and is in collaboration with the Devkota Lab at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
The Helmsley Charitable Trust logo.
Social
August 9, 2023
The Rubin Lab celebrated the first anniversary of our lab with lunch (missing Amanda and Zoë)! It was an amazing time chatting about the past year of science and community-building, and all the exciting changes ahead!
Leo, Abby, Ben, Jigyasa, and Sophia (from left to right).
The Lab
June 29, 2023
Leo and Sophia present on CAST regulators at the CRISPR2023 Conference in Würzburg, Germany!
Photos of Leo and Sophia's poster and CRISPR2023 conference!
The Lab
June 5, 2023
Ben attends the Sequencing to Function: Analysis and Application for the Future (SFA²F) conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Photos from the SFA²F conference!
The Lab
May 15, 2023
Welcome to Jigyasa Arora who is joining the Rubin Lab as a staff scientist! She will be spearheading the bioinformatics side of the lab and working on optimizing tools to investigate the regulation of CRISPR-associated transposon and more.
A picture of Jigyasa.
The Lab
May 8, 2023
A warm welcome to our new graduate student Sophia Swartz! She will be working on investigating the regulation and integration mechanism of CRISPR-associated transposons to develop and optimize editing tools for non-model microbes. Sophia is co-advised by Jennifer Doudna and Brady Cress.
A picture of Sophia.
The Lab
May 2, 2023
Huge congratulations to our undergraduate researcher Sara Smith who will be attending UCSF’s Biological and Medical Informatics program later this fall! We are tremendously excited and can’t wait to see all the great things she will accomplish in graduate school in the coming years!
Sara's graduation picture!
The Lab
April 21, 2023
Congratulations to undergraduate researcher Abby Wang for receiving a UC Berkeley 2023 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF)! The fellowship will support Abby’s research over the summer as she works on projects related to VcDART with the lab.
A picture of Abby.
Media
April 17, 2023
What is precision microbiome editing? Learn more about microbiomes, why microbiomes matter, and how the lab is tackling creating tools to edit the genes of microbes within their complex, natural environment.
Media
April 17, 2023
The Rubin Lab is excited to be part of the initiative headed by Jennifer Doudna and Jill Banfield to use CRISPR genome editing to engineer the microbiome in order to address global problems in climate and human health. This initiative is generously supported by $70 million in funding through the Audacious Project.
The Lab
February 1, 2023
Big smiles from the lab's first solo lab meeting!
Abby, Sara, Ben, Leo, Amanda, and Sophia (from left to right)!
Social
January 10, 2023
The lab welcomes Amanda with members of the Cress Lab!
Leo, Sophia, Kate, Amanda, Ben, and Brady (from left to right).
The Lab
January 9, 2023
Amanda Alker joins the lab as a postdoctoral researcher. She will be developing microbial community editing techniques and applying them to new systems (such as plant-root microbiomes!).
A picture of Amanda.
Social
December 14, 2022
The Rubin Lab holds its first annual holiday dinner with friends from the Cress Lab! (Also, check out our Twitter launch!)
Great food and good company!
Media
October 4, 2022
A $2.5 million gift from the Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation supports BIOME's research efforts on developing microbiome editing technology.
The Lab
September 26, 2022
The Rubin Lab takes its first group photo featuring all the members of the lab!
Abby, Sara, Ben and Leo (from left to right)!
The Lab
August 23, 2022
Abby Wang joins the Rubin Lab as an undergraduate graphic designer and researcher, designing this website and working on other graphical tasks!
A picture of Abby.
The Lab
August 2, 2022
The Rubin Lab sets up its first lab space at the Innovative Genomics Institute Building!
The Rubin Lab space at the IGIB!
The Lab
August 1, 2022
The Rubin Lab starts at UC Berkeley, focusing on the applications of microbiome editing. Its first members are Ben Rubin, Leo Song, and Sara Smith!
Leo, Ben, and Sara (from left to right)!
Media
July 26, 2022
A fantastic article featuring Ben and colleagues discussing the experimental process and how they employ CRISPR to edit gut microbiomes.
Media
May 17, 2022
A toolkit for microbial community editing, by Susannah G. Tringe | Nature Reviews Microbiology
An article detailing how microbial community editing works and its current status in research.
Media
February 18, 2022
A conversation with Ben, Brady Cress, and Spencer Diamond on how microbiomes can be edited, the strategies, and its applications for future research.
Media
December 13, 2021
Genome editing in complex microbial communities, by Immy Mobley | Front Line Genomics
Front Line Genomics covers the new findings and strategies characterized by Ben and colleagues to edit genomes of microorganisms in microbial communities as published in Nature Microbiology.
Media
December 8, 2021
CRISPR editing within microbial communities, by Linda Koch | Nature Reviews Genetics
A research highlight detailing how the editing approaches ET-seq (environmental transformation sequencing) and DART (DNA-editing all-in-one RNA-guided CRISPR–Cas transposase) were developed and are currently being applied to edit microbiomes.
Media
December 6, 2021
DART takes aim at community editing, by Connie W. Y. Ha & Suzanne Devkota | Nature Microbiology
DART (DNA-editing all-in-one RNA-guided CRISPR–Cas transposase), one of the methods used to conduct community editing, is explained.
Media
December 6, 2021
An article from the Innovative Genomics Institute discussing the exciting applications of CRISPR to modify microbiomes. The article goes into depth on Ben, Brady Cress, and Spencer Diamond's work.
Publication Alert
December 6, 2021