SELEX was used to develop a DNA that catalyzes Copper-mediated click reactions at low Cu concentrations. The simple triazole product and rapid rates are advantages of the original click and this DNAzyme reduces amount of Cu needed, reducing toxicity. academic.oup.com/nar/article/48…

Significantly improved BODIPY Photocages from the Winter lab. Art Winter pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ja…

Always intrigued by libraries vs. libraries selections. This discovery of RNA-binding small molecules by the Dinsey lab is a nice example. rdcu.be/b8et3

Nifty work by the Lei Wang lab. An genetically encoded amino acid with a latent quinone methide, activated by light. Here they demonstrate easy labeling with diverse amines and thiols. Lots of potential directions this could go! pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.102…

This paper is a great example of how careful analysis of an unexpected byproduct can lead to new, exciting chemistry. How often do we discard undesirable results that could be transformative? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/an…

Using a split promiscuous biotin ligase to detect proteins in the astrocyte-neuron synaptic junctions. This is cool! doi.org/10.1038/s41586…

An bi-specific antibody-version of PROTACs for cell surface protein degradation. Exciting approach! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ja…

Nice thorough study by the Lokey lab of short, lariat peptides ad their permeability. Certain scaffolds are surprisingly permeable. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ja…

SAR on antibodies with unnatural amino acids. Nifty use of dehydroalanine for the introduction of novel functional groups into antibody binding surfaces. cell.com/cell-chemical-…

DNA serves as a template for the assembly of NRPS modules. What's really cool here is that it is easy to alter the intersubunit distance maximal catalytic activity. Engineering DNA-Templated Nonribosomal Peptide Synthesis cell.com/cell-chemical-…

Really nice paper by Katoh and Suga showing how improving EF-Tu affnity leads to improved ribosomal incorporation of N-methyl AAs. academic.oup.com/nar/advance-ar…

Lots of small technical innovations here, and a careful in vitro selection approach. Cool work! Directed Evolution of 2′-Fluoro-Modified, RNA-Supported Carbohydrate Clusters That Bind Tightly to HIV Antibody 2G12 pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ja…

Our comprehensive review is out: Non‐canonical Amino Acid Substrates of E. coli Aminoacyl‐tRNA Synthetases. There are lots of interesting amino acids highlighted that have never been exploited. …mistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cb…

Want to learn mRNA display? We have a postdoctoral position available: hartmanlab.weebly.com/postdoctoral-p…

Check out our new paper showing that hyperaccurate ribosomes significantly improve translation with ncAAs and quadruplet codon reading. We expect there will be a lot of interesting applications for these ribosomes in synthetic biology. doi.org/10.1021/acssyn…

Check our our new strategy for spontaneous cyclization during translation to make peptide macrocycles. pubs.rsc.org/en/content/art…

Check out our new paper in NAR! We used a new fluorous capture method to isolate individual tRNAs from E. coli, and we show how they are superior to their in vitro transcribed counterparts in sense codon reassignment experiments. doi.org/10.1093/nar/gk…

We have a postdoc position available involving genetic code expansion in vitro translation and mRNA display. vcu.csod.com/ux/ats/careers…

We have a new paper in ACS Chemical Biology on mono and bicyclic cell-penetrating peptides! pubs.acs.org/articlesonrequ…

Check out our new paper in Nature Communications which takes breaking codon degeneracy to a new level. doi.org/10.1038/s41467…