Thomas Swartjes

PostDoc at the Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University & Research

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

Photo by Sven Menschel (https://t.co/eYutWj5tdo)

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

Last week I successfully defended my PhD thesis! 🎉
I'm a Doctor now 🙀

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

Resource published this nice article about the most exciting part (in my opinion) of my PhD thesis!

[Resource nieuws @ResourceWUR]

Met CRISPR-Cas kan je gericht stukjes DNA openknippen en veranderen. Promovendus @ThomasSwartjes bedacht een manier om evolutie in te zetten voor de verbetering van de eiwitten die het DNA openknippen. https://t.co/jXEYk5mk9m #CRISPRCas #WUR

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

Big thanks to the other authors: @peng_shang , Dennis van den Berg, Tim Künne, @Niels_Geijsen , @StanBrouns , John van der Oost, Raymond Staals and Richard Notebaart!

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

Can DNA oligos be used to prevent DNA cleavage by Cas9?

The short answer is 'yes'. But of course there's more to it, otherwise we wouldn't have published this article about our findings: https://t.co/DU6ANp0mdW
@CRISPRjournal

short thread of our main findings...

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

In the end, we conclude that guide-complementary DNA oligos can prevent DNA cleavage by Cas9, even without chemical modifications. Both the length of the complementarity and the presence of a PAM in the oligo contribute to strong and robust repression.

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

Day 1 & 2 of @crispr2022 were a blast! Lots of cool science and great conversations so far. Looking forward to day 3!

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

@joeBondyDenomy @MIB_WUR @UCSF @DTrasanidou @crispr2022 I had a great time with all the energetic talks! Thanks a lot for hosting us!

[Daan C. Swarts @DCSwarts]

I am super excited to share the inaugural paper of the Swarts lab published today @CellCellPress: Short prokaryotic Argonaute systems trigger cell death upon detection of invading DNA.

In this paper, we finally resolve the function and mechanism of short pAgos!🧵1/11

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

@barbara_synbio @jmarlesw @claudiaevickers @PabloINik @DunlopLab @ShrikrishnanS @NicoC_MicSynBio ?

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

Other authors:
@peng_shang , Dennis van den Berg , Tim Künne , @Niels_Geijsen , @StanBrouns , John van der Oost, Raymond Staals , and Richard Notebaart.

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

Happy to share a new preprint about CRISPR-Cas!

We showed that guide-complementary DNA oligos can inhibit Cas9 activity. To see how and why, read the preprint now on @biorxivpreprint :
https://t.co/tKG9Y4hkdr

[Franklin Nobrega @NobregaFL]

We have a computational PhD position available (3.5 years) with @BEDutilh on Investigating prokaryotic defence and bacteriophage anti-defence systems. Start on February 2022. DM for more details. I would appreciate it if you could RT through your network.

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

@EAsinTHETIC I really liked your talk!

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

I interned at @editasmed in 2018 working on Cas12a. Exciting to see the results with this engineered version!

https://t.co/FhgYjSNta9

[Editas Medicine @editasmed]

Today Editas and @idtdna announced publication in @NatureComms of research supporting use of optimized AsCas12a nuclease variant in researching potential of gene-edited cell medicines. Read more: https://t.co/pGlpbSEDgE #geneediting #cellmedicines

[DNA&RNA Universe 𝕏 @DNA_RNA_Uni]

The Krebs cycle cycle

[Thomas Swartjes @ThomasSwartjes]

@JeroenGK Just wait until we run out of pipette tips completely 😟