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2023

• May: Khoa’s preprint “Sequence-independent, site-specific incorporation of chemical modifications to generate light-activated plasmids” is now available on bioRxiv!
• April: We’ve published another paper in JACS on “Orthogonal Light-Activated DNA for Patterned Biocomputing within Synthetic Cells“, led by Denis!!!
• April: Jack and Denis’ paper on “Precise, Orthogonal Remote-Control of Cell-Free Systems Using Photocaged Nucleic Acids” has now been published in JACS!!!
• April: Another paper from Denis on “Handcuffed antisense oligonucleotides for light-controlled cell-free expression“, published in Chemical Communications!
• April: Denis’ paper “Accessible light-controlled knockdown of cell-free protein synthesis using phosphorothioate-caged antisense oligonucleotides” has been published in Communications Chemistry!
• April: Great to have Giacomo stay with us for a postdoctoral position!
• February: Welcome to Charlie Newell, a PhD rotation student from the LIDo DTP!
• January: Here’s a new preprint from Jack and Denis on “Precise, orthogonal remote-control of cell-free systems using photocaged nucleic acids“, now on ChemRxiv

2022

• December: A new preprint from Denis on “Light-controlled cell-free protein synthesis using phosphorothioate-caged antisense oligonucleotides” is now on ChemRxiv
• October: The first Master’s students from UCL have now joined the group. Welcome to Romain, Yuting, and Jonathan!
• September: We’re super happy to welcome the first UCL PhD student to the group, Ina Bradic. Looking forward to seeing the amazing things you’ll do!
• September: A paper we collaborated on with the Di Michele group (Imperial), ‘Reaction–Diffusion Patterning of DNA-Based Artificial Cells’, has been published in JACS!
• September: Excited to welcome Sònia to the group as a postdoc
• July: Denis has preprinted his work on “Blue light-activatable DNA for remote control of cell-free logic gates and synthetic cells” on ChemRxiv!
• July: Jeff’s work on “Engineering cellular communication between light-activated synthetic cells and bacteria” is out as a preprint on BioRxiv!
• June: Mike has written the ‘DNA and RNA sequencing’ Chapter of the 4th Edition of Nucleic Acids in Chemistry and Biology that has now been released!
• June: Welcome to Modinat Tijani as an undergraduate summer student from the Black in Cancer Mentorship Programme
• June: Naoki has submitted his Part II thesis, well done! Good luck for the future
• April: Congratulations to Jeff for a successful DPhil viva!
• April: It’s great to welcome Ellen Parkes to the group as a PhD student from the Oxford Inorganic Chemistry for Future Manufacturing Centre for Doctoral Training!
• March: Assala and Mike collaborated with the Di Michele group (Imperial) to produce ‘Reaction-diffusion patterning of DNA-based artificial cells‘, which has been posted on bioRxiv
• March: Mike gave a talk about the group’s research as part of the SynBio Young Scientist Seminar series: Video
• March: Mike has started as a Lecturer in Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the Department of Chemistry, University College London.
• January: We’re excited to welcome Disha Kashyap to our group from the Chemistry in Cells PhD programme!
• January: Jeff and Razia’s review titled ‘Controlling Synthetic Cell-Cell Communication’ has been published in Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences!

2021

• Mike will be starting a Lecturership at UCL Chemistry in 2022!