Busy week for the Khalil lab getting ready of our big move next week!

P.s. Graveyard of Oligos 🧬 from our prolific former postdoc @willshaw.bsky.social

A glassy addition to a split-level home gives an Arlington family more space - The Boston Globe Adding 850 square-feet to the back of the ranch home brings in sunlight and views of greenery.

Interrupting the regular (science) broadcast to brag about my wife and Hisel Flynn Architects on having their beautiful work featured in the @bostonglobe.com! 🏠😍

www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/26/m...

AI turbocharges antibody hunt for binders with drug-like qualities - Nature Biotechnology Startups are providing tantalizing glimpses of AI-assisted antibody discovery and claiming game-changing potential, even as new models remain hidden and industry awaits full disclosure and benchmarkin...

Startups are providing tantalizing glimpses of AI-assisted antibody discovery and claiming game-changing potential, even as new models remain hidden and industry awaits full disclosure and benchmarking www.nature.com/articles/s41...
[🔓read free with login]

Unstructured transcription factor interactions enable emergent specificity How intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) influence chromatin binding and nuclear organization of transcription factors (TFs) remains unclear. We employed proximity-assisted photoactivation (PAPA), ...

Unstructured transcription factor interactions enable emergent specificity | @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Live-cell single-molecule dynamics of eukaryotic RNA polymerase machineries Eukaryotic gene expression is orchestrated by RNA polymerases (RNAPI, II, and III) and associated factors, yet their real-time dynamics remain obscure. Using single-molecule tracking in living yeast, ...

🧬🔬🎥 @science.org Live-cell single-molecule dynamics of eukaryotic RNA polymerase machineries | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

EiraBio

FYI, Eira Bio is #hiring for a Senior Research Associate/Associate Scientist in Protein Science. This is a unique opportunity to join an exceptional team developing transformative therapies that are rapidly progressing toward the clinic.
www.eirabio.com/home#careers

EiraBio

Our company has a new name, Eira Bio (www.eirabio.com) (formerly K2 Therapeutics), but the same important mission to apply our advanced synthetic biology, directed evolution, and protein design technologies to discover and develop next-generation antibody-based medicines for a range of diseases!

This is a beautiful paper examining the molecular genetics of facultative multicellularity in a marine black yeast.

I also love that they figure out the ecological context for the behavior (MC form when in sponges, where there are nutrients, & uni when starving!).

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Took us a bit, but proud of this published version. We now examine the genetic interaction of phosphorylation with oligomerization and where bulk and phospho-Swi6 localize. Wonder if chromatin affinity tuning to enable Suv39 H3K9me3 spreading is a conserved mechanism ?

doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

🚨 AIMBE calls on the scientific community to urge Congress to ensure timely passage of the FY2026 budget 👇

Strong, sustained funding for our nation's health and science agencies is essential for economic prosperity, U.S. global competitiveness, and public heath.

takeaction.io/aimbe/protec...

JOB OPPORTUNITIES!!

FYI, K2 is #hiring for two positions in the Research Biology and Synthetic Biology teams! If you’re excited about using cutting-edge science to solve big problems, then check out our careers page (lnkd.in/gvtFnZ5K) and apply now.

K2 Therapeutics

Years ago, we set out to develop new synbio technology to solve a major drug discovery challenge: generating precision antibodies for challenging membrane proteins.

It's a DREAM COME TRUE to report that we've launched K2 Therapeutics (k2-tx.com) to advance this into transformative medicines!

Congratulations on this exciting next step, Rita!

Phenotypic landscape of an invasive fungal pathogen reveals its unique biology The construction and high-precision fitness profiling of a C. neoformans knockout library reveals a high-resolution functional map of its genome and allowed for the identification of fungal analogs of...

In today's issue of Cell-->if you are looking for a good distraction from the news (who isn't), check it out!
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

We traveled to DC to talk to Congressional Staffers about the impact of NIH and NIBIB funding. It enables us to develop synthetic biology tools to advance cell & genetic medicines for patients in need. REPOST to deliver the message that SCIENCE saves lives & makes America GREAT!

7 years old! 🎂🎉🎈Happy birthday to our adventurous twins!

I hailed a Tesla Model 3, according to Uber-equivalent in Cairo, Egypt 😂😂

Excited to share that our work building in vivo biosensors for receptor tyrosine kinases (pYtags!) is now out www.cell.com/cell-reports...

9/n Rabat

8/n Fes

7/n MORE Mergouza desert camp

6/n Mergouza desert camp

5/n Toudgha Gorge

4/n Kasbah Ait Ben Haddou

3/n Driving through the High Atlas Mountains

2/n Marrakech

1/n Morocco 🇲🇦 is magical. A few pics from our whirlwind tour through this beautiful country. Enjoy!

A cellular entity retaining only its replicative core: Hidden archaeal lineage with an ultra-reduced genome Defining the minimal genetic requirements for cellular life remains a fundamental question in biology. Genomic exploration continually reveals novel microbial lineages, often exhibiting extreme genome...

So cool, a novel archaeon with a super small genome and no metabolic genes!
"An unprecedented level of metabolic dependence on a host, a condition that challenges the functional distinctions between minimal cellular life and viruses."
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited to share that our study, on how T cells selectively sense foreign antigens with single-molecule sensitivity, is out! This work was led by the brilliant Will White, and done in collaboration with Jay Groves and David Baker @uwproteindesign.bsky.social

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Furiously logging all the new budget news, laughing grimly that it landed *just after* we hit publish. Of course it did.

Grateful that the entire point of @unbreaking.org is to give us a durable platform where we can keep integrating new developments. We'll digest, contextualize & update next week.