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Rabitz, Goun, Jonikas Awarded $3.4M Moore Foundation Grant
Nov. 30, 2023

In a funding venture that could be transformational for imaging single molecules within a cell, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded a $3.4M grant to a collaboration between Princeton’s Departments of Chemistry and Molecular Biology.

The four-year grant supports the development of a new microscope that will enable…

Jonikas Receives 2023 Okazaki Award
Nov. 27, 2023

Martin Jonikas, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, is the recipient of the 7th Tsuneko & Reiji Okazaki Award, for which he will be honored at the The 9th International Symposium on Transformative…

Schottenfeld-Roames and Lorenz: Higher Educating
Nov. 13, 2023

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A year ago, a discussion grew about notoriously hard classes and how they were (or were not) evolving in the wake of New York University’s cutting loose organic chemistry professor Maitland Jones — who retired from Princeton in 2007 and is now an emeritus professor of chemistry — after students filed a petition…

John Brooks: Putting the microbiome on the clock
Nov. 1, 2023

Our intestines are home to trillions of bacteria and other microorganisms. Collectively known as the microbiome, these organisms, and the metabolites they produce, are mostly harmless or even beneficial to their human hosts. For example, interactions between gut bacteria and the immune system can help prepare the body to fight off pathogenic…

2023 MolBio Retreat Award Recipients
Oct. 10, 2023

Last weekend, Friday through Sunday, October 6-8, Princeton University's Department of Molecular Biology welcomed over 250 students, postdocs, and faculty to its 39th Annual Departmental Retreat, this year at the Jersey Shore at Ocean Place Resort in Long Branch, NJ. The annual retreat is an opportunity for departmental and associated labs…

JAK in the box
Oct. 10, 2023

Type I, II and III interferon receptors are critically important for cells’ antiviral defenses. The three classes of interferon receptor each evoke different antiviral responses—for example, Type I interferon receptors set off a stronger but shorter response than Type III interferon receptors—but the reasons for this are unknown; a black box…

Bassler awarded 2023 Albany Prize
Oct. 4, 2023

Today, the Albany Med Health System announced that Bonnie Bassler, Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology & Chair, also Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has been awarded the 2023 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research. Bassler shares the prize with Jeffrey I. Gordon of the Washington…

MolBio alumna Biney-Amissah is 2023 C3E International Award Winner
Sept. 13, 2023

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the winners of the 2023 Clean Energy Education & Empowerment (C3E) Awards, honoring 11 women for outstanding leadership and accomplishments in clean energy. Among them, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Biney-Amissah '05, a molecular biology concentrator, has been honored as the 2023 C3E…

Singling out a bacterium from the crowd
Sept. 11, 2023

Bacteria are nearly ubiquitous and have tremendous impacts on human and ecological health. And yet, they remain largely mysterious to us. Princeton MOL faculty Zemer Gitai, Britt Adamson and…

Bassler Lab: How eavesdropping viruses battle it out to infect us
July 26, 2023

They can lie low, quietly infiltrating the body’s defenses, or go on the attack, making many copies of themselves that explode out of hiding and fire in all directions. Viral attacks are almost always suicide missions, ripping apart the cell that the virus has been depending on. The attack can only succeed if enough other healthy cells are…

The best spots to see and be seen in the chloroplast
July 11, 2023

Chloroplasts are a specialized structure found inside the cells of land plants and red and green algae. Through the process of photosynthesis, chloroplasts convert sunlight and atmospheric carbon dioxide into the starches we eat and the oxygen we breathe. Despite their importance, we have only a fuzzy idea of how chloroplasts work. Now, a study…

Petry selected to receive Dean for Research Innovation Funds
June 14, 2023

Sabine Petry, associate professor of molecular biology, together with Joshua Shaevitz, professor of physics and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics are among five groups selected to receive the Dean for Research Innovation Funds for New Ideas in the Natural Sciences. The fund supports the…

Brooks named Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences
June 13, 2023

The Pew Charitable Trusts announced today that John Brooks, assistant professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, is one of 22 new Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences.

Brooks and the other Pew scholars will receive four years of funding to spearhead innovative studies exploring human health and…

Bassler receives Princess of Asturias Award from the Spanish Crown
June 8, 2023

Bonnie Bassler, the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology, has been awarded the 2023 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research. The Princess of Asturias Awards are the highest form of recognition bestowed by the Spanish Crown and among the most important prizes conferred in the European Union.