Karishma leaves the group and returns home (Aug 31)
After the long lockdown, post-doc Karishma Mohan is finally able to return home to her family. A bittersweet moment for the lab. Good luck to her in the next stage of her career!

Bruno’s manuscript is accepted for publication! (Aug 20)
The paper will appear soon in Metabolic Engineering Communications as part of a special edition called “Development of Chassis Microorganisms for Bioproduction”. Link to the special issue and the paper.

Zac leaves the lab as Dr. Mays for a real job! (Aug 14)
Congratulations, Zac for accepting a job as Organism Engineer at Ginkgo Bioworks! He is the 3rd Nair lab graduate to join Gingko after Joe Bober and Brett Irwin (tweet).

Bruno’s manuscript submitted! (July 17)
We just submitted Bruno’s manuscript on engineering poly-γ-glutamic acid biopolymer production in E. coli for publication. See the preprint here. (tweet)

TENURE!! (May 15)
The Tufts Board of Trustees approved the tenure and promotion of Prof. Nair to Associate Professor, effective September 1, 2020! (tweet)

Zac and Todd defend their respective PhD theses! (April 17, 22)
Congratulations to the both of you! Of course, we had to hold the defense virtually – but the one advantage was that it was easier for family members and former lab members to attend the thesis and lend moral support! (tweet1, tweet2)

We just submitted Vikas’ manuscript! (April 13)
Vikas’ paper about the effect of bystander microbes and/or other microbial community members on the potency of antimicrobials is submitted!
Pre-print on bioRxiv. (tweet)

Todd’s manuscript is submitted! (April 8)
We just submitted Todd’s manuscript that encompasses the majority of his work as a PhD student. Fingers crossed!!!
Pre-print on bioRxiv. (tweet)

A hat-trick for Zac! (April 2)
Zac’s third manuscript in a row is now available as a preprint on bioRxiv! The work described the development of a resource called ALT-CAT – a PK-PD model for microbial therapeutics. The code for the work is available on GitHub. Awesome job Zac! (tweet)

Zac’s and Karishma’s paper is accepted! (Mar 30)
Congratulations to Zac and Karishma for co-first authoring a paper on directed evolution of AvPAL – the active ingredient in Palynziq/Pegvaliase – used in the treatment of PKU! The paper will soon appear in ChemComm!

Lab closes temporarily amid COVID-19 concerns (Mar 20)
We’re closing the lab to minimize the spread of SARS-CoV2 in the Medford area. We hope to be back soon once everyone has a better handle on the pandemic and pick up in a few weeks.