Doudna Lab

New preprint! We are excited to share a novel paradigm for generating antiviral second messengers via a CRISPR-associated nuclease. Congrats to first authors @luisvalentin.bsky.social, Peter, and Santiago.

VIPR is now out in Science! What started with a mysterious RNA led us to an unexpected way of recognizing DNA, as well as some clues to CRISPR’s origins. So happy to share these two papers with an incredible team. Links below; original discovery thread here ↓

Pretty surreal to see our work in The New York Times. Thank you, Carl Zimmer, for sharing the story of VIPR! www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/s...

RNA structure prediction lags behind proteins for lack of data. RNASSTR, our new dataset, offers millions of RNA sequence-secondary structure pairs, split structurally to avoid train/test leakage. 📄 doi.org/10.1261/rna.... 📰 innovativegenomics.org/news/ai-mode...

I'm very excited to share that this January, I’ll be joining Columbia University’s Department of Biological Sciences as a tenure-track Assistant Professor 🏙️🦁🍎 @columbiauniversity.bsky.social 🧬 Learn more: dohertylab.org Thank you to all those who supported me along the way!

Research Highlight: An RNA-guided ‘chromatin shredder’ for selective cell killing www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Finally managed to get my hands on a physical copy of this! Great to see in our paper literally in print

The latest work from the lab now out in @cp-molcell.bsky.social! New mechanistic insights into TnpB DNA unwinding and hypercompact plant genome editors🌱 Congratulations to leads @zehanzhou.bsky.social, Iren Saffarian, @honglue.bsky.social, Trevor Weiss & team, and Jacobsen, Savage and Bryant labs

Scientists have harnessed AI models to create synthetic CRISPR proteins that edit the genome more efficiently than those seen in nature go.nature.com/4f8AN3n

In a new Science study, researchers report the design of synthetic RNA-guided nucleases that match or exceed the activity of natural enzymes, revealing how structure-guided design can generate functional genome-editing proteins with substantially different sequences. https://scim.ag/45fbSFf

First preprint from the lab of postdoc alumni @jnoms.bsky.social. Check it out!

Happy to share the first preprint out of the Nomburg lab! Many aspects of cellular immunity are shared across the tree of life. Here, we show that some of these conserved aspects of cellular immunity are mirrored by conserved effectors of immune antagonism. Thread below! 1/15

So excited to see our paper out in Science! Beyond grateful to my co-leads @petrskopintsev.bsky.social @evandeturk.bsky.social, all co-authors & collaborators, everyone in Doudna lab, and @innovativegenomics.bsky.social Being EsAIn in the DouDNA lab, it couldn't have been any other way ✨

Proud to present our work, published today in @science.org! My deepest gratitude to @isabelesain.bsky.social, @evandeturk.bsky.social, Jennifer and our collaborators in the Doudna, Cate, Banfield, and Jacobsen labs, and the @innovativegenomics.bsky.social! I hope you enjoy reading it! ✨

Out today in @science.org, Doudna lab researchers describe an #AI-assisted method for designing enhanced genome editors, testing close to 2000 in lab. Read more: innovativegenomics.org/news/ai-desi...

Targeting Cancer-Specific Mutations with RNA-Triggered Chromatin Shredding @nature.com @doudna-lab.bsky.social @gladstoneinst.bsky.social @jingkunzeng.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A team led by Jennifer Doudna developed an innovative chromatin-shredding technique shown to destroy cancer cells carrying a prevalent mutation while keeping healthy cells intact. @doudna-lab.bsky.social @innovativegenomics.bsky.social @ucsanfrancisco.bsky.social @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social

Huge congratulations to Doudna Lab postdoc, Santiago!

We now present our latest work, now out in @nature.com! A creative new CRISPR-based approach can selectively destroy cells carrying undruggable mutations in cancer. Work led by @jingkunzeng.bsky.social In collaboration with Alan Ashworth, Yang Liu and Ryan Jackson. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our lab is proud to present our latest work harnessing Bridge Recombinase for genome-scale editing in diverse bacteria, microbiome editing, and programmable horizontal gene transfer.

In our new work published in @natbiomedeng.nature.com in collaboration with @theottlab.bsky.social and @doudna-lab.bsky.social, we introduce "interfering" guide RNAs (igRNA) for CRISPR-Cas13a that regulate enzyme activity after activation. Congrats to all the authors! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A big challenge for CRISPR gene editing 🧬 is altering a high enough proportion of target cells in the body 🧪 So @doudna-lab.bsky.social have developed editors that can amplify themselves by spreading from cell to cell Comment from @gaetanburgio.bsky.social www.newscientist.com/article/2514...

Congratulations to Jennifer Doudna, 2018 #KavliPrize Nanoscience Laureate and CRISPR pioneer, for her recent election to the National Academy of Engineering! She's now one of a few people elected to all three academies @nationalacademies.org. Learn more: bit.ly/4s4k98m @doudna-lab.bsky.social

Today’s the day to make a BIG impact for the MCB community! 🌟 MCB faculty share—in their own words—why our initiatives matter. @doudna-lab.bsky.social @hariharanlab.bsky.social ✅ Read about our goals bit.ly/BigGiveMCB26goals ✅ Click 🔗 bit.ly/BigGiveMCB26 to donate

🚀 New preprint! @jacobsenucla.bsky.social x @doudna-lab.bsky.social collaboration: High-activity TnpB (Ymu1-WFR) + a multi-gRNA system in TRV enables heritable, tissue-culture-free multiplex editing in plants. Big potential for plant biotech 🧬🌾🌱 doi.org/10.64898/202...

How do the ancestors of CRISPR-Cas unwind DNA and how can this lead to better genome editing? With our collaboration between @doudna-lab.bsky.social x @jacobsenucla.bsky.social x Zev Bryant's lab x @savagecatsonly.bsky.social we've uncovered the secrets behind TnpB's dynamics!

Check out the latest episode of Rewriting the Code, featuring Jennifer Doudna and #SickleCell patient pioneer Victoria Gray who was cured with a #CRISPR-based treatment in a groundbreaking clinical trial: https://ow.ly/t6FY50XVNO7

Targeted delivery of genome editors in vivo - @doudna-lab.bsky.social @innovativegenomics.bsky.social go.nature.com/4qKp6Tb

New preprint 👉Doudna x Bryant x Jacobsen x Savage collaboration! Work led by @zehanzhou.bsky.social, I. Saffarian-Deemyad, @honglue.bsky.social, T. Weiss We dissect how stepwise DNA unwinding gates TnpB genome editing, revealing how unwound DNA states enhance cleavage www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New in Science Magazine Science Advances from the Doudna Lab, Rubin Lab and Cress Lab —Identification of proteins influencing #CRISPR-associated #transposases for enhanced #GenomeEditing. Read here: https://ow.ly/U0s450XS82n

During my postdoc in @therubinlab.bsky.social, @leosong.bsky.social and I aimed to make CRISPR-associated transposons more efficient for editing bacteria. Couldn’t have done it w/o a CAST of characters at IGI and beyond @innovativegenomics.bsky.social, @cresslab.bsky.social, @doudna-lab.bsky.social

🎺New paper alert🎺 Out now in Nature Chemical Biology from IGI's Jennifer Doudna (Doudna Lab) and collaborators: Temporal photoproximity labeling of ligand-activated EGFR neighborhoods using MultiMap Read here: https://ow.ly/izGo50XAkog

Excited to share our work designing genome editors with machine learning! 🧬💻 Huge thanks to @petrskopintsev.bsky.social @isabelesain.bsky.social @doudna-lab.bsky.social and all co-authors. Check out the thread for a summary of what we found 👇

A very nice Preview of our work in @cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social this morning from Chrishan Fernando & Nicole D. Marino! www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Congrats to IGI's Jill Banfield, Jennifer Doudna, Mary Firestone, Patrick Hsu, Alex Marson, Kris Niyogi, Eva Nogales, Dan Nomura, and Jennifer Puck — each is on Clarivate's Highly Cited Researchers 2025 list for ranking in the top 1% in their field by citations!

Excited to share our first work on protein design! Huge thanks to the entire team, and especially to Bel, Evan, to the Doudna, Jacobsen, Cate, Banfield labs, all co-authors, and my D-lab mates! 💫