News – Goentoro Lab

Research Tech wanted

Fri, 29 Mar 2019 09:18:46 +0000

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Welcome new people.

Fri, 15 Mar 2019 16:52:13 +0000

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First major turnover

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 17:02:52 +0000

The lab is experiencing the first major turnover. These past several months we said goodbye to Michael, Noah, and Harry who graduated. We said goodbye to David who is starting his own lab. We recently said goodbye to Ty, who moved to Pennsylvania to be closer with his family. And Chris and Kibeom are graduating this summer. It is a bittersweet milestone. We celebrate their next adventures. But, the lab as we have known it these past 7 years will be no more. Together, we have dreamed and imagined. We have taken things apart, and we have built things. We have encouraged each other to always reach for the sky. Thank you, to each of you, for all the adventures, and the friendship.

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Harry’s paper

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 17:28:20 +0000

*drum roll* Check out Harry’s paper that just came out in eLife! The title of the paper is: Signaling pathways as linear transmitters. Also check out an accompanying Insight article by Steven Andrews, Roger Brent, and Gabor Balazsi. We are so proud of this paper, so much work went into it. The peer-review process was tough, but it really made the paper better in the end. So thank you to the editor and reviewers at eLife who kindly took their time to critique the paper!

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Fri, 20 Apr 2018 16:05:53 +0000

Noah wrote an opinion piece for Current Opinion in Biotechnology, There is (still) plenty of room at the bottom. Inspired by Feynman’s lecture 60 years ago, Noah argues that even as the field moves forward to analyze more and more complex networks comprised of many molecules, there are still many fascinating computations to be discovered within the molecules, and that understanding these computations may have interesting ramifications.

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Welcome Lev

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 17:45:46 +0000

Welcome, Lev Tsypin! Lev is rotating in the lab this quarter. He is exploring several fun ideas for projects, some of which involve possibly expanding the organismal ecosystem in the lab. Check out Lev posing with an old microscope from Seymour Benzer’s lab.

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Lea promotion

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 14:03:02 +0000

Lea is promoted to Professor of Biology. Props to everyone, it is a recognition of our work together.

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Congratulations, Noah

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 12:55:49 +0000

Congratulations, Noah! Noah will join Johan Paulsson’s lab at the Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School as a postdoc. What great news! But of course, he has to graduate first.

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Student update

Thu, 15 Mar 2018 15:32:06 +0000

The lab has welcomed many young trainees over these years. It is wonderful to hear their updates, and cherish their adventures. Here are some updates we’ve received so far: Beatriz Aleman graduated from high school and is now at UC Berkeley. Isabella Boyle is at University of Chicago, and Ivan Schmidt will start there soon, too. Paola Benefo will join David’s lab at UC Davis as a research technician. William Yuan is now pursuing PhD in Biological Sciences at Harvard. And Bryan Ryba is in his third year pursuing MD/PhD at UCSD. We hope they are all having fun.

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Congratulations, David

Mon, 12 Feb 2018 15:18:08 +0000

Many congratulations to David! David will start as a junior faculty in UC Davis later this year. Big, awesome milestone, congratulations again!

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Congratulations, Michael

Mon, 08 Jan 2018 15:13:16 +0000

Congratulations Michael on receiving the Miller Research Fellowship from the Miller Institute at UC Berkeley! It is very, very well deserved. Now he just needs to graduate.

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Sleep paper

Fri, 06 Oct 2017 14:58:38 +0000

Check out our recent paper in collaboration with the Sternberg and Gradinaru labs, on the discovery that jellyfish show a sleep-like state. Props to the first authors Michael Abrams, Ravi Nath, and Claire Bedbrook! As well as Ty Basinger who helped with setting up the experiments, Justin Bois who gave critical help with developing the computational methods, and David Prober who gave important insights and discussion on the experiments.

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NSFsite

Tue, 05 Sep 2017 15:11:23 +0000

Our Big Picture Science interview is featured in NSF Science360 Radio. Check it out!

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beta-catenin paper

Fri, 28 Jul 2017 15:19:23 +0000

The beta-catenin paper is officially online! Congratulations Kibeom, Jay, Tom, Andrew, and Harry for the excellent work. Also an author is Bryan Ryba, who helped us with the project a couple of summers as SURF and Amgen fellow. Check out the paper, where we describe a novel cis-regulatory element in the Wnt pathway and a novel role for beta-catenin acting as a signal and a feedforward sensor: Two-Element Transcriptional Regulation in the Canonical Wnt Pathway.

We dedicate the paper to the late Eric Davidson, who had many suggestions for the project, and whose presence we deeply miss.

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Goodbye Andrew

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 15:27:17 +0000

Andrew leaves the lab to join the biology graduate program at Northwestern. Good luck Andrew, it was so much fun having you in the lab, visit us when you come home.

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Angel and Ashley

Thu, 20 Jul 2017 21:00:33 +0000

And we have more new people in the lab! Welcome Angel Galvez Merchan and Ashley Chen. Angel is a rotation student from the Biology program. He is setting experiments to tackle important aspects of fold-change detection in the Wnt pathway. Ashley is a rising junior at South High School, Torrance. She is building a movie set to tape jellyfish swimming.

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A brief respite.

Wed, 28 Jun 2017 15:57:42 +0000

Lea gets a chance this week to breathe a little from a whirlwind year of writing papers, writing grants, and going on trips to give talks (… including the cherished ones down the memory lane to Princeton and Woods Hole).

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Welcome Paola

Mon, 26 Jun 2017 15:55:38 +0000

And another young student has arrived to the lab. We welcome Paola Benefo from Berea College. Paola is an Amgen Scholar, who is working with David to probe the regenerative capacity (or the lack of it) in jellies.

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Welcome Ivan and David

Wed, 31 May 2017 19:03:13 +0000

We look forward to a fun summer as young students are beginning to pop in the lab to try their hand at doing experiments with cells and jellies. This month we welcome Ivan Schmidt and David Berger! Ivan is a junior at Flintridge Prep high school, and he is now learning how to do cloning. David is a sophomore at Caltech, and he is learning how to grow bacteria in the lab.

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Caltech’s release on Tgfb

Tue, 09 May 2017 19:30:13 +0000

Caltech released a story on Chris’ paper: Cells calculate ratios to control gene expression. Thanks to Lori Dajose, who put in a lot of effort to write about our work in a way that non-experts can understand!

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Chris’ first paper.

Mon, 20 Mar 2017 23:00:14 +0000

Congratulation, Chris! Chris’ paper came out today. Chris showed in the paper that Smad signal in the Tgfbeta pathway is sensed in a relative manner. Clare Yarka and Harry Nunns contributed too. Check out the paper, it’s open access in PNAS.

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Lea’s review

Sun, 15 Jan 2017 16:02:59 +0000

Lea wrote a piece for the inaugural issue of Current Opinions in Systems Biology. She described the emerging, intriguing similarities across biological hierarchies, Cross-hierarchy Systems Principles. Also see a wonderful introduction by Arnold Levine on the Future of Systems Biology.

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Noah’s blurb

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 18:40:27 +0000

Check out an invited blurb we wrote for Cell Systems on Noah’s paper: How do cells compute logarithm?

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Noah’s paper

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 03:04:31 +0000

And hooray!!! Noah’s work just came out in PNAS. Read the paper: Allosteric Proteins as Logarithmic Sensors.

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Mon, 13 Jun 2016 21:11:11 +0000

And it’s summer time again. We welcome Laura Ratliff, a rising senior from Flintridge Prep, returning to the lab this time to learn to clone and make movies of cells. We also welcome a new technician in the lab, Andrew Liu, who graduated from Cal and joined the lab to tackle the b-catenin project with Kibeom. We have great hopes for him.

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Noah’s website

Tue, 05 Jan 2016 03:00:13 +0000

Happy New Year! Check out Noah’s new website at www.noaholsman.com

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Tech opening

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 17:07:59 +0000

We have an opening for a lab tech. If you are a college graduate looking for more lab experience, consider applying to us. Click here for project description.

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Big Picture Science

Tue, 25 Aug 2015 23:05:38 +0000

We got interviewed again! This time by the NPR Big Picture Science. Click here to listen to Lea and Michael explaining symmetrization to Molly Bentley and Seth Shostak, a Caltech alumnus himself.

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Goodbye Clare

Wed, 05 Aug 2015 19:55:51 +0000

We are sad Clare is leaving. She has been such a great presence in the lab. But we are happy that she’s going to an exciting Master program in Regenerative Stem Cells at USC. Here is a toast to the bright future ahead!

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Goodbye SRC students and teacher

Mon, 03 Aug 2015 19:49:05 +0000

Goodbye Alcina, Beatriz, and Laura. They spent 5 weeks in the lab as a part of the Summer Research Connection program from the Caltech Teaching, Learning, and Outreach Center. We enjoyed having them in the lab, and learnt a great deal from their questions and curiosity. Alcina and Beatriz are brave high school students who plunged straight into doing embryo and FISH experiments with Chris, Harry, and Tom. Laura O’Dell teaches middle school students at the STEAM Academy at Burke, and this summer, she has developed several awesome lesson plans based on ongoing research projects in our lab. It’s really inspiring to see how she translates what we think is so complicated into simple lessons young students can understand, along with fun activities to demonstrate the insights. She will continue visiting our lab beyond the summer, so we look forward to continue learning from her.

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Jelly video

Thu, 18 Jun 2015 00:52:42 +0000

Caltech made a nice video of our jelly work. Thanks to Gina Napolitan-Witz and Jessica Stoller-Conrad. Click here to watch the video.

Moon jellyfish. Click image to watch the video. Photo credit: Ty Basinger.

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Jelly paper out!

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 12:48:03 +0000

Congratulations Michael and Ty! Our paper on self-repairing symmetry in jellyfish is published today. Chin-Lin Guo collaborated on the modeling part of the paper. And William Yuan contributed a cool experiment for the paper. Check out our paper here.

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High school volunteers 2015

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 02:43:55 +0000

Welcome Isabella Boyle and Laura Ratliff! Isabella and Laura are both volunteer students from Flintridge Prep. They will be working this summer on the jelly projects.

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Ker Lee wins science art

Fri, 05 Jun 2015 02:46:52 +0000

Congratulations, Ker Lee Yap! For winning the 2015 Caltech’s Art of Science competition. Ker Lee submitted a photograph of her reproduction of Stephane Leduc’s experiment on Osmotic Growth – a project she did in Bi192 last Fall. Check out Leduc’s original paper published in 1911. And here is one of Ker Lee’s pictures. You can see her winning photographs on display at Chandler.

Osmotic Growth. Photo credit: Ker Lee Yap.

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Lab lunch

Thu, 21 May 2015 17:13:53 +0000

From our most recent lab lunch… followed by nap.

Photo credit: Clare Yarka

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Opening in the lab

Fri, 24 Apr 2015 21:52:43 +0000

Attention! High school students looking for experience in biology research? We have an internship position in the lab, to start in the summer or asap. See description, and email your CV to Lea.

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Welcome Baby Frick

Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:56:01 +0000

Hippity hip hooray! Welcome to the world, baby Eli Thompson Frick. Congratulations to Courtney and Chris. Come by the lab to see cute pictures.

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Welcome Mengsha!

Mon, 20 Apr 2015 21:43:19 +0000

Welcome Mengsha Gong! We are so excited she decided to join the lab. Mengsha loves to think about how biology can inspire technology, art, and teach us to live in a more energy sustaining way. And as a bonus, it’s another Cal alumnus in the lab!

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Welcome Kibeom

Thu, 19 Mar 2015 01:00:46 +0000

Welcome to the lab, Kim Kibeom! Kibeom hails from the Systems Biology program, likes to think about signaling dynamics, and rides a skateboard to the lab.

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Hawaii

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 04:26:52 +0000

And the lovely view from Noah’s vacation … ahem, conference trip.

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Misha’s TedX talk

Mon, 16 Feb 2015 07:21:57 +0000

Check out Misha’s recent TedX talk on developing and nurturing natural curiosity!

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Back from hiatus

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 02:38:38 +0000

It is high time that we get the lab updates going again! We have all been quietly and gratefully hiding under the rock in the idyllic sunny Southern California. We just submitted the jelly paper (congratulations, Mike, Ty, and Will). Harry, Noah, and Chris (yes, all three of them) are going to give talks in the upcoming Q-Bio. It is hard to say whether the palpable excitement is because of the exciting Q-Bio conference, or because the conference takes place in Hawaii. Clare and Tom joined the lab as post-bac technicians. Clare is holding the torch in cell analysis, having just segmented her 600th cell. Tom is discovering how mysterious a 3-protein circuit can be. We welcome Kim Kibeom and Andres Ortiz, our rotation students from Biology. Kiboem has just produced a record-breaking clearest-ever Western blot, and Andres is enjoying that enviable first experience of watching frog embryos develop. Movie-making, stuff-building, mixing and separating clear liquids, playing and imagining – all happily going. New projects are popping up in the lab, from biochemical reconstitution to behaviour studies. More on that and pictures to follow.

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Harry joins the lab

Sat, 12 Apr 2014 20:08:16 +0000

Welcome to the lab, Harry Nunns! We are very thrilled Harry decided to join the team. That’s another Cal alumnus in the lab. He is now busy doing lots and lots of math, and already onto something interesting…

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William and Bryan return

Wed, 02 Apr 2014 02:37:01 +0000

Congratulations to our awesome summer students who are returning to the lab: William Yuan from Oxford has just been awarded the SURF, and Bryan Ryba from UCSD has been awarded the Amgen Scholar! William will be our resident Dr. Prometheus, and Bryan will be our resident Whiz Undergraduate who can make any experiments work.

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New species in the lab

Tue, 18 Mar 2014 02:44:28 +0000

Our ecosystem in the lab is expanding! We are thrilled to welcome 4 more jellyfish species arriving from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

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Fri, 07 Mar 2014 19:35:37 +0000

Technician wanted! For helping us with the cell signaling project in the lab. See more details.

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JellyCam

Fri, 28 Feb 2014 03:30:36 +0000

Live Jellyfish Cam in the lab, enjoy and please feel free to tell us your favorite music pairings!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/goentoro-jellyfish-streaming

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Welcome Sofi and Harry

Fri, 24 Jan 2014 03:27:05 +0000

Welcome to our new rotations students! Sofi Quinodoz and Harry Nunns are both from Biology. And Noah Olsman from CDS, who is non-officially rotating.

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SysBio class

Wed, 15 Jan 2014 03:26:02 +0000

Lea finished teaching her first class, Introduction to Systems Biology. Whew! Here were the first students of Bi 192. We all came from different backgrounds (physics, math, biology, engineering, economics…), so lots of fun discussions!

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Lab Christmas

Sun, 15 Dec 2013 05:12:41 +0000

Lab Christmas Party! Thank you to Ty for bringing the christmas tree. We each had fun making a little something to represent our projects in the lab.

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Wallace Trip 2013

Tue, 10 Sep 2013 01:35:53 +0000

Lea survived an epic trip to the Wallace’s Line with the awesome Rob Phillips, Steve Cho, and 18 brave students from Caltech and GIST, South Korea. What is Wallace’s Line? Check out this article by Jared Diamond.

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Goodbye SURFers!

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 06:46:10 +0000

Goodbye SURFers! Thank you Bryan, William, and Julian, for a fun and productive summer! We hope you’ll come back next year. And thank you Chris for organizing a farewell lunch at the Ath.

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Chalk Art at Broad

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 21:07:39 +0000

A grassroots Chalk Art is going on around Broad. Join in the conversation! This was taken very close to Broad yesterday.

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SysBio at Caltech

Thu, 08 Aug 2013 04:16:42 +0000

Check out our new Systems Biology Program at Caltech!

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Michael joins the lab

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 04:37:01 +0000

Welcome Michael Abrams! We are delighted Michael finally joins the lab. He is the first Biology graduate student in the lab.

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Radhika’s writing

Mon, 22 Jul 2013 01:07:10 +0000

Check out this nice writing from Radhika Nagpal at Harvard, about enjoying academic life. And Uri Alon’s theory lunch (and singing) on a gentler approach to science (part 1, part 2, part 3). And since you’re at it, might as well check out Alain de Botton’s wonderful TED talk on a gentler approach to success.

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Second scope

Thu, 18 Jul 2013 05:34:47 +0000

Our second microscope arrived! Now we can do twice as many experiments.

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Chris joins the lab

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 01:09:08 +0000

Welcome Christopher Frick! We are excited he joins the lab. Chris hails from the Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics program.

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JSFM award

Tue, 25 Jun 2013 01:09:37 +0000

Our lab received the James S. McDonnell Foundation Award in Studying Complex Systems. Thank you everyone for help with writing and making figures.

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Summer students

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:01:48 +0000

Welcome to our very enthusiastic summer students this year: Bryan Ryba from USCD, William Yuan from Oxford, and Julian Kimura from Duke. They all went straight to doing experiments!

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Jelly tank in the lab.

Wed, 01 May 2013 01:10:05 +0000

The ecosystem in the lab is expanding: we are now growing jellyfish, brine shrimps (food for the jellies), and rotifers (food for the brine shrimps). Check out the jelly tank that Ty set up.

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First Post!

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 02:03:01 +0000

The lab website is up!

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