E. Rodríguez-Robles
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emirodrob.bsky.social
E. Rodríguez-Robles
@emirodrob.bsky.social
98 followers 210 following 7 posts
Postdoc in Steven Benner's Lab | 🧬 Genetic alphabet expansion in bacteria 🧫

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9404-5300
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emirodrob.bsky.social
Really cool study from Katrin Lang lab
biorxiv-synthbio.bsky.social bioRxiv Synthetic Biology @biorxiv-synthbio.bsky.social · Oct 4
A Modular Genetic Code Expansion Approach to Site-Specific Lysine Acylations https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.03.680225v1
October 8, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
bejalab.bsky.social
When less is more: Counterintuitive stoichiometriesand cellular abundances are essential for ABC transporters’ function www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
When less is more: Counterintuitive stoichiometriesand cellular abundances are essential for ABC transporters’ function
Unexpected stoichiometries in E. coli ABC importers reveal design principles linking protein abundance to transporter function.
www.science.org
May 25, 2025 at 11:31 AM
emirodrob.bsky.social
Directed evolution of a plant Rubisco chaperone with altered client recognition | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
www.pnas.org
September 16, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
jerorb.bsky.social
🚨🚨New paper out in @natcomms.nature.com!!

Come for the first large-scale analysis of plasmid copy number across species,
stay for one of the most intriguing results of my lab: universal scaling laws in plasmid biology! 📈🧬

👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Universal rules govern plasmid copy number - Nature Communications
Plasmids exhibit a broad range of sizes and copies per cell, and these two parameters appear to be negatively correlated. Here, Ramiro-Martínez et al. analyse the copy number of thousands of diverse b...
www.nature.com
July 2, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
timothyfuqua.bsky.social
Excited / nervous to share the “magnum opus” of my postdoc in Andreas Wagner’s lab!

"De-novo promoters emerge more readily from random DNA than from genomic DNA"

This project is the accumulation of 4 years of work, and lays the foundation for my future group. In short, we… (1/4)
De-novo promoters emerge more readily from random DNA than from genomic DNA
Promoters are DNA sequences that help to initiate transcription. Point mutations can create de-novo promoters, which can consequently transcribe inactive genes or create novel transcripts. We know lit...
www.biorxiv.org
August 28, 2025 at 6:37 AM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
zeynepbaharoglu.bsky.social
E. Coli with linear growth 🦠🤯 #micdosky "linear proliferation for a finite number of generations" where only one daughter cell continues to divide, with split cyaA making cAMP only in one daughter cell. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Engineering non-exponential proliferation in Escherichia coli using functionalized protein aggregates
Uncurbed exponential proliferation might not always be required for genetically modified microorganisms, and might even cause unpredictable liabilities in their behavior and impact. We therefore const...
www.biorxiv.org
August 27, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
natmicrobiol.nature.com
#NatMicroPicks

Synthetic evolution overdrive 🦠🔧🚅

A highly mutagenic DNA replication system speeds up evolution in Escherichia coli, without harming the host, opening a new way to accelerate protein engineering.

#SynBio #MicroSky

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
An orthogonal T7 replisome for continuous hypermutation and accelerated evolution in E. coli
Systems that perform continuous hypermutation of designated genes without compromising the integrity of the host genome can substantially accelerate the evolution of new or enhanced protein functions....
www.science.org
August 8, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
amazeld.bsky.social
A 2-year postdoc position in my lab, under the supervision of P-Alex Kaminski, on Z-DNA phages and the benefit given by ZTGC DNA and the replication machinery, with attempt to create a Z based minireplicon
research.pasteur.fr/en/job/a-two...
A two year post-doctoral position at the BacterialGenome Plasticity Unit starting October 1st - Research
research.pasteur.fr
July 28, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
vdlorenzo.bsky.social
A 2 yr postdoc position at the Bacterial
Genome Plasticity Unit of the Institut Pasteur (Paris) led by @amazeld.bsky.social in collaboration with Pierre-Alexandre Kaminski, funded by the French National Research Agency 👇
July 24, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
c-majumdar.bsky.social
Check out our latest preprint describing two structures of ribosomes complexed with the two enantiomers of a β2-hydroxy acid. Our structures show that despite stereochemical differences, both are ultimately well positioned for bond formation within the ribosome!
chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...
Escherichia coli ribosomes support translation of (R) and (S) β2-hydroxyacids in vitro: a structural and biochemical study
The ribosomal incorporation of backbone-modified amino acid analogs into peptides and proteins enables the programmed synthesis of sequence-defined biopolymers with tunable properties. However, the su...
chemrxiv.org
May 9, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
ericcolumbus.bsky.social
🚨🚨 Deranged letter from Education Secretary Linda McMahon to Harvard’s president, cutting off federal funding for any new grants.

Worth reading in full. It is NUTS.
THE SECRETARY OF EDUCATION WASHINGTON, DC 20202 May 5, 2025 Dr. Alan Garber Office of the President Harvard University Massachusetts Hall Cambridge, MA 02138 Dr. Garber, The Federal Government has a sacred responsibility to be a wise and important steward of American taxpayer dollars. Harvard University, despite amassing a largely tax-free $53.2 billion dollar endowment (larger than the GDP of 100 countries), receives billions of dollars of taxpayer largess each year. Receiving such taxpayer funds is a privilege, not a right. Yet instead of using these funds to advance the education of its students, Harvard is engaging in a systemic pattern of violating federal law. Where do many of these "students" come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country—and why is there so much HATE? These are questions that must be answered, among many more, but the biggest question of all is, why will Harvard not give straightforward answers to the American public? Harvard University has made a mockery of this country's higher education system. It has invited foreign students, who engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the United States of America, to its campus. In every way, Harvard has failed to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any semblance of academic rigor. It had scrapped standardized testing requirements and a normalized grading system. This year Harvard was forced to adopt an embarrassing "remedial math" program for undergraduates. Why is it, we ask, that Harvard has to teach simple and basic mathematics, when it is supposedly so hard to get into this "acclaimed university"? Who is getting in under such a low standard when others, with fabulous grades and a great understanding of the highest levels of mathematics, are being rejected? Harvard has even been embroiled in humiliating plagiarism scandals, exposed clearly and plainly in the media, with respect to your then… running the institution in a totally chaotic way. Harvard alumnus and highly successful hedge fund manager Bill Ackman noted that, under her leadership, Harvard has become "a political advocacy organization for one party." Ackman has called for the resignation of Pritzker, concluding that the "[t)he mismanagement here is Penny Pritzker" and noting that any serious corporation would have removed her after a litany of recent failings and the fact that, incredibly, "Harvard is not in a good financial position." According to Ackman, one of the world's foremost finance experts, Harvard's so-called S53 billion endowment is "massively overstated as far as what it's really worth," and Harvard has irresponsibly taken out $8 billion in debt. If this is true, it is concerning evidence of Harvard's disastrous mismanagement, indicating an urgent need for massive reform-not continued taxpayer investment. If Harvard prefers not to change, then Harvard should have no problem using its overflowing endowment to fund its bloated bureaucracy. At its best, a university should fulfill the highest ideals of our Nation, and enlighten the thousands of hopeful students who walk through its magnificent gates. But Harvard has betrayed this ideal. Perhaps most alarmingly, Harvard has failed to abide by the United States Supreme Court's ruling demanding that it end its racial preferencing, and continues to engage in ugly racism in its undergraduate and graduate schools, and even within the Harvard Law Review itself. Our universities should be bastions of merit that reward and celebrate excellence and achievement. They should not be incubators of discrimination that encourage resentment and instill grievance and racism into our wonderful young Americans. The above concerns are only a fraction of the long list of Harvard's consistent violations of its own legal duties. Given these and other concerning allegations, this letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the fede… Federal Agencies. The Administration's priorities have not changed and today's letter marks the end of new grants for the University. These requests will advance the best interests of Harvard University, so it can reclaim its status as a respected educational institution for the future leaders of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter! Sincerely, Linda E. McMahon Secretary of Education
May 6, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
greening.bsky.social
Energy from air? No problem! In our new preprint, we reconstitute the machinery that allows microbes to endure starvation. By using the trace amounts of hydrogen in air alone, they produce plenty of chemical energy (2 ATP) to get by. The only byproduct? Water. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Hydrogenase-driven ATP synthesis from air
All cells require a continuous supply of the universal energy currency, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), to drive countless cellular reactions. The universally conserved F1Fo-ATP synthase regenerates ATP...
www.biorxiv.org
March 20, 2025 at 12:57 AM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
oborkowski.bsky.social
Sustainable regeneration of 20 aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases in a reconstituted system toward self-synthesizing artificial systems

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Sustainable regeneration of 20 aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases in a reconstituted system toward self-synthesizing artificial systems
An in vitro system is capable of sustainably regenerating 20 aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases toward artificial cells.
www.science.org
April 5, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
proftomellis.bsky.social
Amazing work from Farren Isaacs team at Yale - reducing E.coli's genetic code down to only using a single stop codon. A 62 codon GRO with lots of potential for applications. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Engineering a genomically recoded organism with one stop codon - Nature
Ochre, a strain of Escherichia coli engineered to have a single stop codon, enables reassignment of four codons for non-degenerate functions, such as incorporation of non-standard amino acids into pro...
www.nature.com
February 6, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
biorxiv-synthbio.bsky.social
Hijacking a bacterial membrane transporter for efficient genetic code expansion https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.06.641855v1
March 7, 2025 at 4:13 AM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
erikvannimwegen.bsky.social
What do bacterial cells do when they run out of nutrients? Although most bacterial studies focus on cells in exponentially growing states, in the wild bacteria likely spend most of their time slowly starving to death. 1/n
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
E. coli prepares for starvation by dramatically remodeling its proteome in the first hours after loss of nutrients
It is widely believed that due to nutrient limitations in natural environments, bacteria spend most of their life in non-growing states. However, very little is known about how bacteria change their p...
www.biorxiv.org
January 15, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
biorxiv-synthbio.bsky.social
Simultaneous in vitro expression of minimal 21 transfer RNAs by tRNA array method https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.15.638384v1
February 16, 2025 at 6:06 AM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
addgene.bsky.social
Switching an C to a T in your DNA? Sounds like you need a cytosine base editor! Learn about them in our updated CRISPR 101 blog post "Cytosine and Adenine Base Editors"!

blog.addgene.org/sin...
CRISPR 101: Cytosine and Adenine Base Editors
An overview of cytosine and adenine base transition editors, which make precise changes in DNA bases without causing double-strand breaks.
blog.addgene.org
February 14, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
erictopol.bsky.social
A Direct Hit, by @holdenthorp.bsky.social @science.org
www.science.org/doi/full/10....
"This is a moment to unite."
February 11, 2025 at 3:18 PM
emirodrob.bsky.social
Cys-tRNAj as a Second Translation Initiator for Priming Proteins with Cysteine in Bacteria in ACS Omega!
Cys-tRNAj as a Second Translation Initiator for Priming Proteins with Cysteine in Bacteria
We report the construction of an alternative protein priming system to recode genetic translation in Escherichia coli by designing, through trial and error, a chimeric initiator whose sequence identit...
pubs.acs.org
January 30, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
vdlorenzo.bsky.social
Leveraging AI for Systems & Synthetic Biology 🤔? Learn about the latest developments in the upcoming annual Colloquium of our Sys Bio Department this Feb 14. Starring @hsalis.bsky.social as opening speaker and featuring @alfonsovalencia.bsky.social along with other luminaries in the field 😱!
January 29, 2025 at 9:35 AM
emirodrob.bsky.social
Growth in Low Carbon Conditions Reveals Amino-Acid-Coupled Iron Uptake via @biorxiv-microbiol.bsky.social
Growth in Low Carbon Conditions Reveals Amino-Acid-Coupled Iron Uptake
Bacteria in nature encounter substrates at widely varying concentrations, yet studies of bacterial physiology have focused more on nutrient type than concentration, partly due to challenges in maintai...
www.biorxiv.org
January 19, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
kunjapur.bsky.social
Genetic code expansion - meet synthetic ecology!

We can design an exclusive reliance of one engineered bacterial strain on another mediated by a non-standard AA

Such exclusive reliances between free-living organisms aren't known in nature

Tremendous work led by NSF GRFP recipient Amanda Forti
biorxiv-synthbio.bsky.social bioRxiv Synthetic Biology @biorxiv-synthbio.bsky.social · Jan 6
Design of an exclusive obligate symbiosis for organism-based biological containment https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.05.631398v1
January 6, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by E. Rodríguez-Robles
biorxiv-synthbio.bsky.social
High-throughput protein binder discovery by rapid in vivo selection https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.06.631531v1
January 7, 2025 at 2:05 AM