Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Van Deventer Lab
Van Deventer Lab

News

January 2023

December 2022

November 2022

October 2022

  • Rafael Alcala-Torano finishes his Postdoc in the Van Deventer Lab and starts at Flagship Pioneering. Best of luck Rafa!
  • Priyanka Lahiri finishes her Postdoc in the Van Deventer Lab and starts work at Genentech. Best of luck Priyanka!

August 2022

  • Ming Lei successfully defended his doctoral thesis. Congrats Ming!

July 2022

May 2022

  • Matthew Zackin graduates from Tufts University with a BS in Chemical Engineering and goes on to start a PhD at MIT. Congrats Matt and best of luck in this new chapter!

April 2022

January 2022

  • Alexa Gilbert, an undergraduate at Tufts majoring in biology with a minor in biotechnology, joins the lab. Welcome, Alexa!
  • Sanjeev Jeyabalan, an undergraduate at Tufts majoring in Chemical Engineering, joins the lab. Welcome, Sanjeev!
  • Jessica and Jim publish a chapter in Methods in Molecular Biology entitled Incorporating, Quantifying, and Leveraging Noncanonical Amino Acids in Yeast. Congrats Jessica and Jim!

December 2021

November 2021

October 2021

August 2021

  • Marina Rueda-Garcia, a Masters student at Tufts, joins the lab. Welcome, Marina!
  • Kelly successfully defended her master thesis! Congratulations, Kelly!

July 2021

  • Jessica successfully defended her doctoral dissertation and becomes Jim’s first graduated doctor! Congratulations, Jessica!
  • Matt Zackin and Mariha presented a poster at the 35th Annual Symposium of The Protein Society. Solid work, Matt and Mariha!
  • Mariha’s poster won an award at the 35th Annual Symposium of The Protein Society. Keep up the good work, Mariha!

May 2021

  • Rafa will be joining the Tufts Advisory Partners volunteering program as a consultant for Spring 2021. Good job, Rafa!

April 2021

  • Jim received the GSC Outstanding Faculty Contribution to Graduate Studies Award. Congratulations, Jim!
  • Jessica received the SoE Award for Outstanding Academic Scholarship and the GSC Diversity & Inclusion Award. Congratulations, Jessica!
  • GSWE got the GSC Outstanding Graduate Student Organization Award. Congratulations to everyone on the team!
  • Ming and Jim, along with collaborators Prof. Arul Jayaraman and Prof. Kyongbum Lee publish a review entitled Engineering Selectively Targeting Antimicrobial Peptides in Annual Reviews of Biomedical Engineering. Congrats!

March 2021

  • Matt Zackin received a Summer Scholars Grant from the Nathan Gantcher Student Summer Scholar Program. Well deserved, Matt!

February 2021

  • Jim received an Exemplary Engineer Award from the Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering Society (BEaChES) at Tufts. Congratulations, Jim!
  • Jessica received an Exemplary Engineer Award from the Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering Society (BEaChES) at Tufts. Congratulations, Jessica!
  • Jim publishes Liven up that Linker in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Congrats Jim!

 

January 2021

December 2020

  •  Priyanka Lahiri, a postdoctoral researcher with a PhD in molecular biophysics, joins the lab. Welcome, Priyanka!

November 2020

  • Briana Lino, a first year PhD student at Tufts, joins the lab. Welcome, Briana!
  • Under the leadership of Jessica Stieglitz and Kelly Potts the Tufts Graduate Society of Women Engineers receives 2 awards: a SWE Mission Award (Gold), and a SWE Mission Award for Best Practice: Awards & Recognition. Strong work, Jessica and Kelly!
  • Jessica is awarded a Society of Women Engineers Outstanding Collegiate Member Award. Congratulations, Jessica!

October 2020

  • Mariha, Manjie, and Jim, along with lab alumni Haixing, Jacob, Christopher, Gregory, and Hanan, post a preprint entitled: “Chemical Diversification of Simple Synthetic Antibodies”. Congratulations Mariha, Haixing, and coauthors! We welcome feedback on this work as we seek to strengthen it prior to publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

September 2020

  • Through support of NIGMS and Tufts University, the Van Deventer Lab was able to obtain a new cell sorter machine, jointly owned with the Kritzer Lab in the Department of Chemistry. Exciting research ahead!
  • Jim has been named the Bright Futures Assistant Professor in the Tufts School of Engineering. Congrats, Jim!  

July 2020

  • Two members of our lab received honors from this years GSWE awards. Jessica was presented with the Advocacy Award, and Rebecca was given the Participation Award. Great work!

June 2020

  • The Van Deventer Lab is permitted to return to lab after pandemic-related closures. We’re grateful for the opportunity, and we plan to continue our research as safely as possible. Best wishes to everyone!

May 2020

  • Jessica will be inducted this year into Tufts University Honos Civicus Society. Congrats, Jessica!

April 2020

  • Jessica is awarded the Presidential Award for Civic Life. Congrats, Jessica!
  • Former lab member, Laura Quinto, is awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Congratulations, Laura!
  • Under the leadership of Jessica Stieglitz and Kelly Potts, the Tufts Graduate Society of Women Engineers receives the Outstanding Graduate Student Organization Award. Great work, Jessica and Kelly!
  • Jim  co-authored a publication titled “ASAP-SML: An antibody sequence analysis pipeline using statistical testing and machine learning”, check it out here!

March 2020

  • The Van Deventer Lab members begin participating in the Green Office Certification lead by Jessica Stieglitz and Arlinda Rezhdo.
  • Jessica is awarded a Society of Women Engineers Guiding Star Award. Congrats, Jessica!

February 2020

  • Arlinda is one of the winners of the Graduate Student Research Competition. Congrats, Arlinda!
  • Jim shares the lab’s work in a talk at the Gordon Research Conference on Chemistry and Biology of Peptides.

January 2020

December 2019

  • Rafael Alcala-Torano, a postdoctoral researcher with a PhD in chemistry, joins the lab. Welcome Rafael!

November 2019

  • Jim presents work from the lab in a talk at the AIChE Annual Meeting.
  • Jessica wins the People’s Choice Award at the Tufts 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. Congrats, Jessica!
  • Jessica receives a Society of Women Engineers (GradSWE) Individual Award. Congratulations, Jessica!
  • Under the leadership of Jessica Stieglitz and Kelly Potts the Tufts Graduate Society of Women Engineers receives 3 awards: the GradSWE New Group Award, a SWE Mission Award (Bronze), and a SWE Mission Award for Best Practice: Leadership Development and Mentoring. Excellent work, Jessica and Kelly!

September 2019

  • Yan Zhou Chen, an undergraduate at Tufts majoring in chemical engineering, joins the lab. Welcome, Yan!

August 2019

  • Kelly, Jessica, Ming, and Jim post a preprint titled, “Reporter system architecture affects measurements of noncanonical amino acid incorporation efficiency and fidelity.” Congratulations Kelly and coauthors! We welcome feedback on this work as we seek to strengthen it prior to publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
  • Michael Ream returns to West Virginia for his senior year. Best of luck this next year, Michael!
  • Jim shares work of the lab with high school students in the Tufts Summer Research Experience program.

July 2019

  • In collaboration with the Scheck Lab (Tufts Chemistry), the Van Deventer Lab is awarded a Tufts Collaborates grant to work on tools for studying the phosphoproteome. Thank you, Tufts Collaborates!
  • Jim, Manjie, and Arlinda share work from the lab with high school students in the Tufts University Biomedical Engineering Research Scholars Program.

June 2019

  • The Van Deventer Lab has been awarded an NIH R35 Outstanding Investigator Award for Early Career Researchers from the National Institutes of Health (Award #1R35GM133471), on the topic of inhibitor discovery on the yeast surface. Tufts Engineering wrote an article about the award here. Thank you, NIH!
  • Jessica presents her work in a poster presentation at the 2019 Synthetic Biology, Engineering, Evolution, and Design Conference.
  • Jim presents work from the group at the first Tufts “Converging on Cancer” meeting. Special thanks to Madeleine Oudin (Tufts BME) for being the driving force behind this meeting.

May 2019

  • BS/MS student Catherine Lessard successfully defends her Master’s Thesis. Congratulations, Kate!
  • University of West Virginia Undergraduate Michael Ream joins the lab as an REU student for the summer. Welcome, Michael!

March 2019

  • Jim presents an invited seminar detailing the group’s work at North Carolina State University in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

February 2019

  • Arlinda, Mariha, Manjie, and Jim have a review article accepted for publication in Current Opinion in Biotechnology: “Future Prospects for Noncanonical Amino Acids in Biological Therapeutics.” Congratulations to all! Read the article here.

January 2019

  • Jim presents work from the group in a contributed talk at the International Conference of Biomolecular Engineering.

October 2018

  • Jessica presents her work at the 4th annual Science and Engineering Fair at Medford High School.

September 2018

August 2018

  • Jessica, Haixing, Ming, and Jim have a manuscript published in ACS Synthetic Biology, “A Robust and Quantitative Reporter System To Evaluate Noncanonical Amino Acid Incorporation in Yeast.” Congratulations, Jessica and coauthors! Read the article here.
  • Olivia Frasher returns to Notre Dame for her senior year. We enjoyed hosting you for the summer, Olivia!