Check out this thread from Matt Walker on exciting new work from the lab, dissecting transposon end requirements of CASTs using pooled libraries and HTS. Very proud of the collaborative effort from Matt, Dr. Sanne Klompe, and Columbia undergrad @DennisJZhang1! Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics

We are excited to announce this year's Commencement Prizes that were awarded to CMBS students! The Dean's Award was given to Sanne Klompe (Biochemistry) & Jordan Kesner (Systems Biology). Congratulations! 🎉

👏 So proud of you and the incredible work you've done to drive forward our understanding of pain! Cheers to your MD/PhD, Simon!! 🥂

I am thrilled to finally share my commitment to Columbia Medicine Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons for my MD-PhD training! This has been an incredible journey. I am so grateful to family, friends, and mentors who have guided me through it all. (1/14)

“This is crazy molecular biology. I would have never guessed this type of mechanism existed” Bacterial defensive systems scramble the standard workflow of life go.nature.com/3UVnNT4

Brilliance recognized! Sam Sternberg Sam Sternberg is our newest HHMI investigator a few months after becoming our newest tenured faculty! Congrats Sam and congrats to all the students and trainees that produced transformative science in Sam's lab.

Congratulations to Sam Sternberg on being named a new HHMI Investigator! The past years have been a thrill not only because of his scientific vision but also his emphasis on lab culture and mentorship-I could not be more proud! 🥳🍾

Really proud to see this work published -- a thrilling detective story I was lucky to be a part of. Big kudos to Stephen Tang and the entire team for an impressive collaborative effort. See Stephen's thread below to learn more... (and read the paper!). drive.google.com/file/d/1_paZuA…

Researchers report in Science that infected bacteria surprisingly fight back with “hidden” genes that halt cell growth, slowing viral spread. The results highlight the potential for other “hidden” genes to be unearthed in different biological contexts. scim.ag/7Yy

The central dogma of molecular biology states that genetic information flows from DNA and RNA to protein, with reverse transcription converting RNA to DNA. In the pursuit of understanding how bacteria defend themselves from viral infection, two groups have found alternative

Thrilled, and also in a bit of disbelief, to see our paper featured on the cover of Science Magazine! "Finding Neo" wasn't easy, but we just kept swimming (read: stared at a sequence of DNA) until the Eureka moment hit.

When experiments don’t work... build a phage costume! 🎃 Happy PHAGEOWEEN!!! 👻🧬#Teamwork

The cryptic world of prokaryotic reverse transcriptases continues to excite! 🦠🧬 Stoked and proud to see this story out--congrats to Stephen, Rimantė, Nate, Shishir, and the rest of the 'DRTeam'!

Excited to share our newest paper, online today nature! We report the discovery of a highly unusual mechanism of antiviral immunity through the synthesis of long, homopolymeric DNA. nature.com/articles/s4158…

Our latest story is now online nature! We discovered a phage defense system that deploys kilobase-long DNA homopolymers to protect against viral infection. Congratulations to all authors, and to the Wiedenheft Lab for a fun and fruitful collaboration! nature.com/articles/s4158…

Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from? Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral RTs, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria. doi.org/10.1101/2025.1…

Yet another case where bacterial immunity sparks cross-field discoveries!!🔥 Extremely proud of Mario R Mestre & Dennis Zhang for their contributions to this story! 👏🧬 Preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025.1… Thread by the (ph)antastic Stephen Tang 👇

Been working on a really strange retron bacterial immune system, here's the preprint: biorxiv.org/content/10.110… Type VI retrons are unlike any other. Phage infection triggers reverse transcription of a DNA fragment that activates translation of a toxin to kill the infected cell.