Jonathan G. Strecker

The paper identifies a CRISPR-associated kinase system that uses a tRNA-derived RNA fragment as a second messenger to enhance antiviral defense by upregulating immune genes.

This study determines the structural basis of phage terminase recognition by Avs2 and Upx, revealing distinct binding mechanisms despite structural differences.

LAMP-Seq combines three-step isothermal RT-LAMP amplification with combinatorial barcoding to pool and sequence SARS-CoV-2 clinical samples en masse for scalable diagnostics.

The paper tests 16 Cpf1 orthologs for genome editing activity in eukaryotic cells, identifying four active enzymes including Mb3Cpf1 with robust indel formation and PAM tolerance.