Leconte Research Group

We are an undergraduate research group focused on protein engineering at the Claremont Colleges. We have a Twitter account now! I regret it already.

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

@pitzercollege Congrats, Marcell!

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

Super excited and grateful for this support from RCSA! This is a project dreamt up during the pandemic with @MadisonSeto1 (SCR '21) and started in the lab by Ysabel David (SCR '25). Very excited to have this support to fully explore this new fun direction for us!

[Research Corporation for Science Advancement @RCSA1]

RCSA has chosen 11 accomplished researchers to receive its Cottrell Plus SEED (Singular Exceptional Endeavors of Discovery) Awards for 2024. The award supports members of the #CottrellScholar community in high-impact research activities. https://t.co/55Ms2J57vC

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

@KleinerLabRNA @davidrliu @KapoorLab_RU Congrats, Ralph! I've been enjoying following your work at Princeton. This promotion is well-deserved!

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

Clair Colee (recently graduated student) and I wrote a short primer on Directed Evolution! It is a 4-6 hour read to introduce young grad students/senior undergrads to the fundamentals of the field. Please read and share and get the word out! https://t.co/KDqIs1aYAl

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

Excited to see @taiawu's work in @GestwickiLab in print! A truly beautiful story that has been fun to watch develop. Not only did Taia publish the big fancy paper (https://t.co/Pa5kFtnsIs), but she published companion works on the method and software so it is useful to others!

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

Congrats to @whit_lieberman who received an F31 fellowship from the NIH! The award supports her ongoing PhD work with @CKadoch at Harvard. Congrats, Whitney; the recognition is well-deserved!!

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

New paper from our group! Here, we use a high-throughput approach to identify 70 novel red-shifting mutations of luciferase. Congrats especially to the nine undergraduate student co-authors on the project! https://t.co/uwltVRfI7B

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

My department is looking for a visiting faculty member who will teach Biochemistry with us next year! This is a great opportunity for someone interested in a PUI to get some experience (I'll teach you everything that I know). Please share far and wide! https://t.co/H9V4euBQoS

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

Excited to share a preprint for this project: @MadisonSeto1, @taiawu and I wrote a guide to provide simple, usable, PRACTICAL advice for more inclusive, equitable, and effective hiring of researchers in labs. Comments and sharing are VERY encouraged! https://t.co/muyrKdFyUk

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

Check out our latest pre-print! https://t.co/aBU3WHXBFV. In this paper, we describe new high-throughput biochemical techniques to study firefly luciferase, and we use this approach to make some interesting discoveries about the mechanism of color determination.

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

@DYangMD @davidrliu In my opinion, they were very fruitful if they got you excited about research and prepared you for the next step of your career!

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

Congrats, David! My first undergraduate mentee is out there winning awards. This is really cool to see you still doing really exciting science after all these years!

[David Yang @DYangMD]

Incredibly grateful for @PCF_Science for graciously supporting our work and @DrPaulNguyen @VanAllenLab and @MtkingMD for their wonderful mentorship!

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

Congrats to lab alum @cayditty (SCR '19) on publishing this review article! The article discusses creating and applying aqueous droplets that can stably exist in water. It was really interesting to learn about this new-to-me field! Nice work, Caitlyn!

[Srivastava Lab at UCLA @_SrivastavaLab]

Our contribution reviewing interfacial stabilization strategies in aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS) is out now in @RoySocChem Materials Advances. Congratulations to graduate student authors Caitlyn Fick (@cayditty) and Zara Khan!
@samanvaya @UclaCBE

https://t.co/AbOst2wjEI

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

Such a treat and an honor to be invited by former students (@SusannaBar2 and Marya Ornelas) to give a seminar at UIUC! I even got to see the exact corn plot where the Illinois Long Term Selection Experiment is ongoing (been evolving corn since 1896 on this plot of land!).

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

The latest chapter in Marya Ornelas' (PIT '20) work in the @angadmehta lab! This work further explores platforms that can be used to develop drugs and vaccines against emerging viruses. This is the third Leconte Lab alum first author paper this week!! https://t.co/SYHIoGhUJ0

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

I guess I should have said: Freddy is Pitzer class of 2014 and one of the original members of my group!

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

Another groundbreaking paper from @FreddyMValencia and @CKadoch that thoughtfully blends genetics and biochemistry. So cool to see this in print since I remember when Freddy was an undergraduate telling me that he wanted to make an impact in this field! https://t.co/AQpA8X4xN3

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

New paper from lab alum @whit_lieberman! A really elegant approach to sensing Ac-CoA in complex samples (plus it is always fun to see alums using luciferase after leaving our lab). https://t.co/YFyS3HLOnJ

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

Congratulations to lab alum Ellery Koelker-Wolfe (CMC '19) who was awarded a prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Fellowship! This award supports her ongoing MD at Harvard and recognizes her excellence on the basketball court, the classroom, and the research laboratory! @CMCnews

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

@drdre4000 If you want a hand in creating some sort of database, I'd be happy to help proselytize for PUIs!!

[Leconte Research Group @GroupLeconte]

@drdre4000 Just overlapping with me from my four years at Carleton Chem: Matt Bush (Washington), Renee Frontiera (Minnesota), Matt Sheldon (Texas A+M), Andy Ault (Michigan).

I bet you could make a pretty crazy list by just emailing heads of Chemistry departments at PUIs and asking!