News
December 2022:
Congrats to Jenna Meanor, PhD on her successful thesis defense!
Welcome to Luke Abbott, embarking on his scientific journey as a CBE PhD student, co-advised with the Rao Lab.
November 2022:
Congrats to Katie! Winner of the AICHE Second Year Student Academic Excellence Award!
Welcome to Aman who will be working with Begum on organoid engineering!
September 2022:
A big Thank You to the Simons Foundation for supporting Albert through a Pivot Fellowship to learn new big (and tiny) things =). news release.
August 2022:
Congrats to Ryan Tam, PhD on his successful thesis defense. Onwards to Tune Tx!
July 2022:
Tenured! From the very core of the histones of my epigenome, thank you lab members past and present.
Congrats to Leandra for being awarded an NIH NCI F31 fellowship!
Congrats to Rachel for being awarded an MBTP fellowship!
April 2022:
Welcome to Rachel Polak and Will Gross!
Congrats to Alexis on being awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!
Alison wins 2nd place in the Vivian Stannet best early PhD paper competition!
Check out Ryan’s new paper in Cells.
February 2022: Congrats to Jenna on her paper in IJMS identifying key challenges and opportunities for engineering and mapping affinities of proteins against histone peptides.
January 2022: Thank you to NSF-MCB for supporting our work on epigenome engineering through an NSF CAREER award!
Thank you to NC State University for recognizing our lab with University Faculty Scholar and Goodnight Early Career Innovator designations!
November 2021: Welcome to Dr. Maria Fadri (Research Scholar) and Ty Johnson (CBE 1st year PhD student)!
Congrats to Alexis for winning best paper award at the AICHE National Meeting, and Albert for the FAST CURE Innovation in Investigation Award!
September 2021: Congrats to Begum on winning the CBE TA Award! 
Congrats to Dilara and Alexis on their paper in BMC Biotechnology, a first foray into how geometry affects human cerebral organoid development.
Congrats to Alexis on being selected as a NCSU CBE Future Leader in Chemical Engineering.
The lab welcomes 1st year Genetics PhD student, Samantha Stuppy!
August 2021: Congrats to Jessica on her work just out in Cell Systems on dynamic signal processing by eukaryotic genes and chromatin! And a shout out to Leandra on the models! View pdf, Online link.
Dr. Kyle Tomek successfully defends his PhD thesis with his pioneering work in DNA data storage!
July 2021: Congrats to Alison on her work just out in Cell Chemical Biology on a new platform for studying histone modifications and their writers.
June 2021: Kyle’s work on implementing a function analogous to “File Preview” in DNA-based data storage systems is published in Nature Communications!
The lab welcomes BME undergraduate Seth Kodkara and high school intern Antonio Alonso-Stepanov. Looking forward to working with you!
Dr. Jessica Lee successfully passes her PhD defense wowing the committee with a MacGyver-like combination of techniques and analyses to generate new insights into eukaryotic TF dynamics. Congratulations!
April 2021: Congratulations to Tommy for being awarded an NIH NIDA F31 fellowship!
March 2021: Dr. Dilara Sen successfully passes her PhD defense with flying colors. Congratulations, we can’t wait to see the big things you do next!
Check out Nature Biotechnology’s Voices of Biotech Research, including our own 2 cents.
Congrats to Alexis for her 1st place winning talk on how shape regulates human cerebral organoid development @ the AIChE Southern Regional Conference. Also check out the work by Dilara and Alexis on biorxiv Online link.
February 2021: Kevin win’s the Vivian Stannet Award for best early PhD publication.
Welcome biochemistry undergraduate Samuel Aklilu to the group!
January 2021: Congratulations Karishma on the lab’s first paper of the new year, a Perspective/Review in Nature Communications on how DNA stability impacts the design of DNA-based data storage systems. A fun piece in collaboration with Prof James Tuck.
December 2020: The lab welcomes 1st year PhD students Magdelene and Gautami and Genetics undergraduate Jennifer O’Neill to the lab!
Check out an article by NCSU undergrad Elle Whitlock on Synthetic Biology.
September 2020: Dilara’s paper on UBE3A, Angelman Syndrome, and human cerebral organoids is out at Stem Cell Reports!
August 2020: The NSF SemiSynBio-II program is supporting our team with the Velev, Tuck, and Timp (Johns Hopkins) groups to engineer next generation information storage systems using DNA.
June 2020: Leandra is selected as an NIH MBTP fellow, congrats!
Work by the lab and collaborators is recognized by the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award.
Kevin’s work on Dynamic and Scalable DNA-based information storage systems is published in Nature Communications!
May 2020: Check out Dilara’s review on how multicellular systems can provide insights into epigenetics, in Current Opinion in Biomedical Engineering! Online link.
January 2020: Kyle win’s the Vivian Stannet Award for best early PhD publication.
Dilara wins a Schoenborn Graduate Student Symposium talk award and Kevin wins the poster award. Congratulations team!
December 2019: The lab welcomes 1st year PhD students Joe Penrod, Begum Zarife, and Leandra Caywood to the lab!
May 2019: Christa is selected for a 2019 Women and Minority Summer Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) in the NCSU College of Engineering.
Kyle and Kevin Volkel’s work on engineering scalable DNA storage systems is accepted at ACS Synthetic Biology. This was the result of a fun ongoing collaboration with the Tuck group in the ECE department @NCSU. Check out a description of it here.
January 2019: Kyle wins Best Poster award at the AICHE International Conference on Biomolecular Engineering in Newport Beach, CA.
December 2018: Tommy was selected as a Finalist for the Praxair Exceptional Teaching Assistant Award.
The lab is excited to welcome Dr. Linna Han and 1st year PhD students Chris Estridge and Alison Waldman to the group!
November 2018: Dilara and Tommy win GSA Travel Awards to attend SfN2018!
October 2018: Jenna wins a best poster award at the 2018 NCSU MBTP Symposium, congrats!
Our work with the Khalil lab on engineering synthetic epigenetic circuits in human cells is accepted for publication in Cell. Special congratulations to Minhee!
The lab welcomes two undergraduate researchers, Chloe Tenn and Ben Morris.
Albert co-chaired the Epigenetics & Bioengineering Conference in San Francisco, CA. Check Twitter #EpiBio2018 for summary coverage of the exciting findings and developments from the speakers.
August 2018: Dilara is awarded an AAUW International Fellowship, a highly competitive fellowship across all disciplines of science, engineering, and the humanities. Congrats Dilara!
Tommy is selected as an Praxair Exceptional Teaching Assistant Award Finalist!
The NSF Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation program is supporting our team with the Laplante and Rao labs to engineering new molecular tools to control and track the epigenome.
July 2018: A big welcome to Dr. Zuzana Drobna (Research Associate Professor) and Dr. Sally Yacout (Postdoctoral Associate)!
May 2018: Welcome to Zach McCracken and Nicholas Levering (CBE undergraduates).
The lab is awarded RISF funds with the Tuck group to push forward on our DNA storage work.
Best wishes to Lainey and Taylor, newly minted CBE BS graduates, and both moving on to Merck.
April 2018: Congratulations to Alexis for being selected as an NCSU NAE Grand Challenges Scholar!
Welcome to Austin (Biochemistry undergraduate).
March 2018: Dilara and Jessica’s book chapters in Methods and Molecular Biology are published. Check them out here!
January 2018: Jenna wins the Praxair Exceptional Teaching Assistant Award!
Ryan is selected as an Exceptional Teaching Assistant Award Finalist!
Kevin is awarded a GAANN Molecular Biotechnology Fellowship!
December 2017: Dilara wins best poster (and $300!) at the International Conference on Epigenetics and Bioengineering. Congratulations Dilara!
Tommy, Kevin (CBE PhD students) and Alexis (CBE undergraduate) join the lab. Welcome!
September 2017: The lab is selected for the Avenir NIH-NIDA Director’s Pioneer Award to apply new synthetic biology tools to study addiction.
August 2017: Jenna is selected as an Outstanding Teaching Assistant Finalist!
June 2017: Jessica is awarded an MBTP Fellowship!
March 2017: Dilara presents at Brain Night. 
January 2016: Kyle is awarded a GAANN Molecular Biotechnology Fellowship!
Jessica is selected as an Outstanding Teaching Assistant Finalist!
December 2016: Ryan, Kyle, and Jenna join the group. Welcome!
November 2016: The Simons Foundation supports the lab with a SFARI Explorer Grant.
Sept 2016: The NIH and NSF fund collaborative projects with the Rao and Tuck Groups at NCSU. Time to get to work!
Jennifer joins the lab. Welcome!
Our new review with the Khalil lab on Epigenome Engineering is out in Genome Biology.
August 2016: Aneesh heads off to his new faculty position at the National Institute of Immunology in New Delhi, Delhi, India. The lab wishes him the best of luck starting up his group!
May 2016: The Keung Lab is awarded an FRPD grant from NCSU and the College of Engineering. Thank you!
Lainey and Taylor are awarded NCSU Undergraduate Summer Research Grants. Congratulations!
February 2016: Aneesh, Jessica, and Dilara make the first batch of competent cells, run the first PCR.
Aneesh joins the group!
January 2016: Dilara, Jessica, Taylor, and Lainey join the group!