Mary Jia

Grad student in the Chory Lab @ Duke developing mammalian syn bio systems using automation 🤖 🧬

[Emma J Chory @chorye]

Deeply honored to be named a 2026 Beckman Young Investigator #BYI!🧬

This recognition reflects the creativity and hard work of my incredible lab, and we are so grateful and excited for the Foundation's support as we tackle the next generation of continuous evolution.

[Emma J Chory @chorye]

Another important step in the fight toward eliminating Lyme disease. 🐭🕷️ This paper from my postdoc lab shows progress toward engineering mice so they can no longer transmit the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. By targeting the animal reservoir, this approach could help break the cycle that keeps Lyme circulating in the wild.

Paper here: https://t.co/50SPg1aZkL

Great to see this work out in @NatureComms. Congrats to @JoannaBuchthal, @kesvelt and the rest of the Mice Against Ticks team.

[stefan @wasserstein_rao]

Biology is mostly too complicated to explain in tweets, which is why the most popular biology posters on here thrive off of oversimplified claims like that there are only four different kinds of immune cells, and that the cure for autoimmune diseases is sleep and vitamin D

[Emma J Chory @chorye]

For anyone still not taking this seriously, this is what defcon 1 looks like re: the end of America as a scientific superpower.

Heartbroken for our Harvard colleagues and for the world to lose these discoveries.

[Mary Jia @MaryJia4]

omg gianna slay

[Gianna T. Busch @giannatbusch]

Excited to share our new work on the distinct drug sensitivity profiles of heterogeneous therapy-resistant melanoma cells! @arjunrajlab https://t.co/LNG1GUfOA0 (1/10)

[Emma J Chory @chorye]

Imagine running a restaurant & suddenly only having budget for ingredients & chefs—no rent, electricity, heat, water, support staff, insurance, trash, toilet paper.

This is what 'cutting indirects' did to every major biomedical center & hospital in the US.

[Pete Buttigieg @PeteButtigieg]

I believe in showing up everywhere and engaging people across different platforms - whether it's right-leaning sites like this one, or a newer & bluer app where you can also find me from now on.

[Reviewer 2 @GrumpyReviewer2]

#AcademicChatter #AcademicX

[Niko McCarty. @NikoMcCarty]

The whole notion of "Write, Read, Edit" as some great driver of progress in biology is incredibly misguided.

Yes, DNA sequencing and synthesis costs have fallen rapidly. What have we gotten for it?

The vast majority of strains we make don't work, because we don't understand the underlying biology. Scale is still a major issue, too. And just as the Human Genome Project failed to live up to its grandiose expectations, the same is true of many claims made today about cheap genome sequencing.

Tools to study and manipulate DNA are one small part of the path toward biological superabundance. DNA is not some master blueprint of the cell, and controlling that DNA will not solve all cellular problems. We also need tools to delicately control protein complexes, intercellular signaling, cellular delivery, and more systems-level operations.

And then there are the training issues. It's still way too difficult for students to enter biotechnology as a career. Very few undergraduate programs have curriculums for biotechnology (in the U.S.) Companies still gatekeep people who don't have a Ph.D. The timelines here are way too long.

Better tools to read, write, and edit DNA will not lead to biological superabundance. DNA sequencing is absurdly cheap already (fractions of a penny for 1 million bases). So is DNA synthesis. These don't seem like the relevant bottlenecks to be talking about, and yet I hear it all the time in essays, podcasts, and so on.

If we want to actually accelerate progress in biotechnology, then we need to understand the cell, build models to drastically shrink engineering timelines, and solve the training bottlenecks. That is the route to a $20 trillion+ bioeconomy.

[Mary Jia @MaryJia4]

ASEE 2024!! So great connecting with my fellow educators! 🤩🤩🤩

[Emma J Chory @chorye]

So grateful to @HarmitMalik for the nomination and the Hypothesis Fund for the @ChoryLab’s first grant!

This is a huge milestone for our lab. The entire team, robots included, is eager to get to work! #phagebabies 🦾

@DukeU @DukeUBME @DukeCAGT

[Mary Jia @MaryJia4]

It’s time for CHO-mics 💪💪💪

[Emma J Chory @chorye]

You know things are coming up🌹🌹🌹when your grad students are getting grants faster than you are.

CONGRATS @MaryJia4! First official @ChoryLab $!!!

https://t.co/IKHrDrDocX

[Emma J Chory @chorye]

Thank you so much @ScienceKyle for these incredible @ChoryLab stickers!!

So much swag.

[Mary Jia @MaryJia4]

@taylorswift13 !!!!

[Emma J Chory @chorye]

Someone please give these students tickets to the @BlueDevils/@UNC_Basketball game.

🏀⛺️#MojoDojoCasaTent

[Emma J Chory @chorye]

Folks know I'm the biggest @Northeastern co-op fan & today marks another proud moment!
The @ChoryLab is welcoming our first co-op!! Ben Pyatski, a CE&CS major, joins us from a rich background at the NU Inst. of Exp. Robotics & is ready to tackle the bio frontier! Welcome Ben!👏🤖

[Emma J Chory @chorye]

🤖✨Meet our new & decked-out robots (Olivia & Meredith), bringing holiday cheer from the @ChoryLab.

Also, congrats to our 2nd place-winning robot cake, which crushed the @DukeCAGT holiday competition! ⛄️🕯❄️🛷

[Ryan Boileau @bffswithbiology]

Christmas and the holidays come early this year for the @ChoryLab 🎁🎉🎄Two new beautiful @HamiltonRobotic STARlets 😍 Ready for so much science🧬🦠

[Mary Jia @MaryJia4]

✨In our scientist era ✨

[Emma J Chory @chorye]

First ever @ChoryLab 🎃costume competition!… Tswift & her 3 cats: 🕵🏼‍♀️Olivia Benson, 👩🏻‍⚕️Dr. Meredith Grey, and 👴🏻Benjamin button.

We have A LOT going on at the moment #NewPI

https://t.co/Vq4SoaXyUB