News Archive

Apr 20, 2022 - Laura gave a talk in The Living Histories series! Find the talk here!

Apr 1, 2022 - Anna successfully defended her thesis and received high honors!

Mar 2, 2022 - Yue presented a talk "Proteins mediating different DNA topologies block RNAP elongation with different efficiency" at BPS! Laura, David and Jin also presented three posters at BPS!

Feb 17, 2022 - Wenxuan & Yan's paper on "Positive supercoiling favors transcription elongation through lac repressor-mediated DNA loops" has been published by Nucleic Acids Research. DOI: 10.1063/10.0006622

Dec 03, 2021 - Wenxuan successfully defended her PhD dissertation and is now Dr. Xu! Congratulation, Wenxuan!

Dec 02, 2021 - Come and join Wenxuan's Ph.D. defense: "Supercoiling and Protein-mediated loops in Bacterial Transcription". Time: Dec 3, 2021, 02:00 PM to 04:00 PM, Eastern Time (US and Canada). Zoom invitation: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3015714681?pwd=eGhIaUorMTRJK25scW9DaFlHM3lEdz09 , Meeting ID: 301 571 4681, Passcode: 3TMTK6, Looking forward to your "kind" advice!

Oct 29, 2021 - Laura will be keynote speaker at the Nanoscopy 2.0 workshop co-organized by the Nikon Imging Center and the Italian institute of Technology on Nov 29,2021

Oct 20, 2021 - Our review on "Single-molecule insights into torsion and roadblocks in bacterial transcript elongation" has been published on journal "transcription", check that out!

Oct 19, 2021 - Our article in the Journal of Applied Physics was featured in SciLight!!! DOI: 10.1063/10.0006622

Oct 18, 2021 - Allison Published an article "A Physical Perspective on Molecular Biology" on Science News. Congratulations, Allison! Find the article here!

Oct 16, 2021 - Alex and Yan's paper is posted on BioRxiv: MS ID#: BIORXIV/2021/464438, TITLE: Ionic strength modulates HU protein-induced DNA supercoiling.

Oct 13, 2021 - Joe & Josh's review on "Force spectroscopy with electromagnetic tweezers" has been published in Journal of Applied Physics. Congratulations, Joe, Josh!

Jul 13, 2021 - Wenxuan's review on "Energetics of twisted DNA topologies" has been published in Boiphysical Journal. Congratulations, Wenxuan!

May 03, 2021 - Laura receives URC grant!

Apr 05, 2021 - Gustavo successfully defended his Honors Thesis!Congratulations Gustavo!

Apr 01, 2021 - Sam successfully defended his Honors Thesis!Congratulations Sam!

Mar 31, 2021 - Stefano successfully defended his Honors Thesis!Congratulations Stefano!

Mar 02, 2021 - Wenxuan and Yan's paper on transcription through lac repressor-mediated loops is posted on BioRxiv: MS ID#: BIORXIV/2021/433568, TITLE: Transcription elongation through lac repressor-mediated DNA loops.

Yan and Wenxuan's paper on the deterministic effect of DNA supercoiling on protein-mediated looping is posted on BioRxiv: MS ID#: BIORXIV/2021/432970, TITLE: Negative DNA supercoiling tunes protein-mediated looping.

Qing and David's paper on the torsional properties of DAP DNA is published in BioRxiv: MS ID#: BIORXIV/2021/432629, TITLE: Nanomechanics of negatively supercoiled diaminopurine-substituted DNA.

Jan 11, 2021 - Jin's review on "Basic mechanisms and kinetics of pause-interspersed transcript elongation" has been published in Nucleic Acids Research. Congratulations, Jin!

Dec 01, 2020 - Joe received Highest Honors from the Thesis committee, Congratulations Joe!!!!

Nov 29, 2020 - Joe Piccolo will be defending his Honors Thesis this Tuesday, December 1, 2020, 4:00 pm EST. His thesis Title: "Electromagnetic Tweezer Development: Improving Single-Molecule Techniques for the Study of DNA Mechanics and Gene Transcription".

We are all cheering for you Joe!

Nov 09, 2020 - Welcome postdoctoral fellow Eugeniu Ostrofet!

Sep 1, 2020 - Welcome postdoctoral fellow Yue Lu! Yue comes from the lab of Prof. Piero Bianco at U. Buffalo where he was studying DNA replication.

Aug 27, 2020 - Congratulations to former lab undergraduates Yoojin and Chandler who are engaged to get married!!!!!
https://www.theknot.com/us/yoojin-lee-and-chandler-fountain-sep-2021#other-events.

June 10, 2020 - On June 10, 2020, we will #ShutDownAcademia, #ShutDownSTEM, and #Strike4BlackLives.

#ShutDownSTEM https://www.shutdownstem.com/

#APS statement https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/updates/racism.cfm

#BPS statement https://www.biophysics.org/blog/biophysical-society-statement-supporting-black-lives-matter-and-ending-the-cycle-of-violence

#AAAS statement https://www.aaas.org/news/aaas-ceo-statement-shutdownstem-and-black-lives-matter/

May 27, 2020 - Zixing (Betty) Zheng received Highest Honors! Her Honors Thesis is entitled, "Nanomechanics of Diaminopurine and inosine-substituted DNA".

Jan 16, 2020 - The Finzi-Dunlap lab and the C-Trap facility at Emory University seek a motivated experimentalist to study transcriptional regulation, and supervise the use of the new NSF/Emory-sponsored C-Trap instrument from Lumicks, which integrates optical tweezers, single-molecule fluorescence detection, and microfluidics. The position is a unique opportunity to do cutting edge research and collaborate with a variety of exceptional investigators.

Required qualifications:

- Ph.D. in biophysics, physics, chemistry, engineering, biochemistry, or a related field.

- Fluent English (spoken and written).

- Self-motivated with a strong work ethic.

- Ability to work independently as well as collaboratively.

Additional Desirable Qualifications:

- Proficiency with optical instrumentation.

- Proficiency with MatLab or Labview programming.

- Proficiency in data analysis.

- Prior single molecule experience.

- Proficiency with routine molecular biology and/or biochemistry.

Salary will be competitive and commensurate with experience.

Applicants should send a curriculum vitae, the names and email addresses of three references, as well as a brief statement on how their experience and goals relate to our work to lfinzi@emory.edu.

Emory University is an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer in Atlanta, GA, USA. Women, minorities, people with disabilities and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply.

Nov 07, 2019 - Laura was recognized for her excellent teaching by the Gamma Chapter of Georgia, Phi Beta, Kappa Society both in the Spring and Fall of 2018: a rare distinction!

Sep 20, 2019 - Laura received an NSF MRI award to acquire a C-Trap microscope by Lumicks. The microscope will combine a dual optical trap, a 3-color confocal fluorescence detection system and a microfluidic chamber. C-Trap will be part of the facility placed in the Physics department, and available to users. Co-PIs on the award are: Guy Benian (Pathology), Yonggang Ke (BME), Renhao Li (Pediatrics) and Khalid Salaita (Chemistry). For more information about C-Trap check out this link"

Aug 29 - Sep 01, 2019 - Laura and Wenxuan presented our work at the Single Molecular Force Spectropy (SMFS) Workshop in Duke University

Aug 16, 2019 - Our lab was awarded the funding from the NSF for the acquisition of a C-trap microscope (MRI)

April 03, 2019 - Leon Tare and Gustavo Borjas received a "Summer Undergraduate Research at Emory" (SURE) fellowship and an "Initiative for Maximizing Student Development" (IMSD) fellowship, respectively, to continue their research projects during the summer. Congratulation Leon and Gustavo!

March 05, 2019 - Yan Yan gave a platform talk at the annual Biophysical Society meeting in Baltimore, entitled "Supercoiling Makes Protein-mediated Looping of DNA Tethers Deterministic". For more information check out the abstract (DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2018.11.1732). Dan Kovari and Wenxuan Xu also gave poster presentations at the meeting. You can find Dan's abstract here (DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2018.11.2309), and Wenxuan's here (DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2018.11.1164).

January 11, 2019 - Laura and David presented our work at the Single-molecule biophysics Meeting in Aspen

June 08, 2018 - Zsuzsanna defended her PhD thesis at Semmelweis University. Congratulations Dr. Voros!!

April 13, 2018 - Joe Piccolo from Emory at Oxford was awarded a SURE fellowship to do research in our lab this summer. Congratulations Joe!

April 13, 2018 - Dimitris Ntaras from Princeton University was awarded a grant by the Office of Undergraduate Research Student-Initiated Internship Program (OURSIP) at Princeton to join our lab this summer. Congratulations Dimitris!

April 03, 2018 - Geethika Malla and Crissy Hendrickson defended their Honors Thesis and they both obtained Highest Honors. Congratulations Geethika and Crissy!!!

March 10, 2018 - Yan's work, Protein-Mediated Loops in Supercoiled DNA Create Large Topological Domains, has been published in Nucleic Acids Research. Congratulations, Yan!

March 02, 2018 - Yan successfully defended her PhD dissertation and is now Dr. Yan!

February 17-21, 2018 - Laura was invited to speak at the Biophysical Society Meeting in San Francisco (2/17 - 2/21). The symposium "DNA Supercoiling" will be co-chaired by her and Sara Harris from the University of Leeds, UK. See BPS for more details.

January 22, 2018 - Yan's work, Protein-mediated looping of DNA under tension requires supercoiling, has been published in Nucleic Acids Research. Congretulations, Yan!

July 16-22, 2017 - Yan Yan attended the 2017 CPLC Summer School at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on July 16-22, 2017.

April 6-9, 2017 - Laura has organized the first annual Southeastern Single Molecule Biophysics Networking Meeting, to be held at Amicalola Falls Lodge in Georgia's Chattahoochee National Forrest. For more information see the meeting website: www.southeastsm.org.

April 6-9, 2017 - Laura has organized the first annual Southeastern Single Molecule Biophysics Networking Meeting, to be held at Amicalola Falls Lodge in Georgia's Chattahoochee National Forrest. For more information see the meeting website: www.southeastsm.org.

Feb 13, 2017 - Yan Yan gave a platform talk at the annual Biophysical Society meeting in New Orleans, entitled "Protein-mediated Loopts in Supercoiled DNA Create Large Topological Domains". For more information check out the abstract (DOI:10.1016/j.bpj.2016.11.938).
Dan Kovari and Zsuzsanna Vörös also gave poster presentations at the meeting. You can find Dan's abstract here (DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2016.11.421), and Zsuzsanna's here (DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2016.11.1169).

Spring 2016 - Laura is editing a Special Issue of Biophysics Reviews entitled “DNA supercoiling, protein interactions and genetic function� The Issue will appear in early September and will contain contributions by Travers and Muskhelishvili; Levens, Baranello and Kouzine; Corless and Gilbert; Ordu, Lusser and Dekker; Ma and Wang; Dorman; Seol & Neuman; Higgins; Fenfei Leng; Laura Finzi and David Dunlap; Perez and Olson; Harris, Noy and Sutthibutpong.

Read Laura’s editorial and David and Laura’s review!

07/02-08/16 - Yan will participate in the Gordon conference on Single-molecule approaches to Biology in Hong Kong and present a poster entitled “Protein-mediated DNA looping traps surprisingly large topological domains.�

03/01/16 - Yan wins 2016 Student Research Achievement Award from biophysical society. Congratulations, Yan!

02/23/16 - Presenting at Biophysical Society Meeting
Please come and see the works from our group at the 2016 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting: Yan (Nanoscale biophysics subgroup, and 1173-Pos/B150), Daniel (917-Plat/Room 511ABC) on Feb. 27~March.2, 2016. We are looking forward to meet you there!

01/01/16 - Yan receives Education Committee Travel Award from biophysical society to attend biophysical society 60th annual meeting in Los Angeles. Congratulations, Yan!

06/10/15 - Finzi Lab Visitors
Matteo Cristofalo, from the Mantegazza lab at the Universita�di Milano Bicocca, Italy, is visiting for a month.

09/30/15 - Gyrase negative supercoil publication
Monica, Qing and Chandler's work "E. coli gyrase fails to negatively supercoil diaminopurine-substituted DNA" was accepted for publication in "JMB". Congratulations!

09/20/15 - RNA Polymerase I presentation
Suleyman presented his work "A single molecule perspective of elongation by RNA polymerase I" in "RNA Replication and Transcription" Platform in the 59th Biophysics Society Annual Meeting on Feb. 11th, 2015

Laura succesfully chaired "Nanoscale Biophysics" Subgroup in the 59th Biophysics Society Annual Meeting on Feb. 7th, 2015

Suleyman succesfully defended his Ph.D. thesis on October 27th, 2014. Congratulations, Dr. Ucuncuoglu!

Yue's work "DNA supercoiling: a regulatory signal for the lambda repressor" was accepted for publication in "PNAS". Congretulations, Yue!

Yan's work "Quantitation of interactions between two DNA loops demonstrates loop-domain insulation in E. coli cells" was accepted for publication in "PNAS". Congretulations, Yan!

Yue succesfully defended her Ph.D. thesis on March 26th, 2014. Congratulations, Dr. Ding!

Yue Ding is portrayed, while describing her research, in the poster advertising the 59th Biophysical Society meeting, which will be held in Baltimore next year. Great Yue!

Yue presented her work from the ORDER program on interdisciplinary studies at the 43rd Annual Conference of the International Society for Exploring Teaching and Learning (ISETL) on Oct. 18th, 2013.

Ning's work "Purification of Bacteriophage Lambda Repressor" was accepted for publication in "Protein Expression and Purification".

Diane received a Burroughs Wellcome Fund traveling award. Congratulations, Diane!

Hamin successfully defended his undergraduate thesis with high honor and graduated on May 13th, 2013. Congratulations Hamin, we are so proud of you! Job well done!

Laura talked at the "Atlanta Science Tavern" on march 23rd, 2013. Come to enjoy her talk if you are interested! The address is Manuel's Tavern located at 602 N. Highland Ave NE, Atlanta, GA.

Laura presented our work on "Essential of An Epigenetic Switch" at the 7th biennial workshop on Single Molecule Biophysics (SMB) at the Aspen Center for Physics on Jan. 11th, 2013.

Please feel free to come and see the posters from our group at the 2013 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting: Yue (1343-Pos/B235), Monica (842-Pos/B611), and Sandip (895-Pos/B664) each will present a poster on Feb. 3rd~6th, 2013.

Laura presented our work at the Emory University Emeritus College, Luce Center on Sept 10th, 2012.

Laura was interviewed by eScienceCommons on August 23th, 2012, for our recent discovery on the role of non-specific protein binding in bacteriophage lambda repressor mediated DNA looping. "Biophysicists unravel secrets of genetic switch"

Diane and Yue received the Howard Hughes Medical Institute ORDER (On Recent Discoveries by Emory Researchers) fellowship for the 2012-2013 academic year as teacher-scholars. They will teach their own research in an interdisciplinary undergraduate course with teaching fellows from other departments. Congratulations, Diane and Yue!

Chandler successfully defended his undergraduate thesis with the highest honor received on Apr 11th, 2012. Congratulations Chandler, we are so proud of you! Job well done!

Haowei will leave us around June 2012 and head for his new postdoc position in Dr. Joshua N. Milstein's group at the Department of Physics, University of Toronto. Take care, Haowei, we wish you enjoy your new life in Toronto, and we will always miss you.

Yoojin has been awarded a Research Internship in Science and Engineering (RISE), which provides her the opportunity to do research at the Institute of Experimental Physics at Ulm University, Germany for 2-3 months during the summer. Congratulations, Yoojin! Please check out our department website for more info: "Undergrad Researcher Awarded RISE Internship"

Please feel free to come and see the posters and talks from our group at the 2012 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting: Yue (369-Pos/B155), Qing (1393-Pos/B163), and Sandip (1952-Pos/B722) each will present a poster on Feb. 26~27th, 2012; Haowei will present a platform talk (3057-Plat) on Feb. 29th, 2012.

Mónica received the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Curriculum Development Fellowship on Feb. 17th, 2012. Congratulations, Mónica, we are looking forward to your new course!

We celebrated Qing's wedding on Feb. 17th, 2012. Congratulations, Qing, we are so happy for you! Wish you a wonderful new life & live happily ever after!

For the Biophysical Journal, Laura interviewed the National Lecturer at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society, Prof. Steven Block from Stanford University, on December 15th, 2011. This podcast below includes Prof. Block's fascinating presentation on multiple applications of optical tweezers at the single-molecule level from the complex behavior of kinesins, RNA polymerases, to riboswitches, and is followed by his discussion with Laura about his career and his views on future directions of both the field and the technology. Enjoy! "Optical Tweezers: Biophysics, One Molecule at a Time"

Dr. Diane Wiener will join our lab in January, 2012. Welcome, Diane!

Sachin will leave us in year 2012 and head for his assistant professor position in Department of Mechanical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology - Gandhinagar, then join UC-Merced later as a faculty member. Well done, Dr. Goyal, we wish you all the best in the future, and you'll be missed as our colleague.

Dr. Ning Gao and Dr. Mónica Fernández Sierra joined our lab in September and October, respectively. Welcome, Ning and Mónica!

Haowei succesfully defended his Ph.D. thesis on Oct 5th, 2011. Congratulations, Dr. Wang!

Qing and Laura published their undergraduate physics education material for CASES (Creating Active Student Engagement in the Sciences) on June 28th, 2011. "Illusion"

Qing attended the 2011 CPLC Summer School at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on July 18th~23th, 2011.

Yue attended the 2011 GEM4 Summer School at Georgia Tech on June 20th~30th, 2011.

Qing succesfully defended her Ph.D. thesis on May 25th. Congratulations, Dr. Shao!

Laura was elected to the Biophysical Society Executive Board on March 4th.

Qing presented a platform talk at Biophysical Society Meeting on March 7th,2011.

Laura, David, Sachin, and Haowei each presented a poster at the Biophysical Society Meeting on March 6th~7th,2011 (375-POS, 404-POS, 373-POS, 1259-POS).

Suleyman gave his rotation talk on Feburary 2nd 2011.

Sachin and Laura were interviewed by eScienceCommons on Janurary 13th, 2011. "Undersea Cables add twist to DNA research"