Lab News – Morehouse Lab

05.09.2025 Daniel, selected as a finalist for his undergraduate research, has earned Honors Committee selection to receive the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research and the UROP Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research! (yup, both)

04.24.2025 Anny Wang and Daniel Izrailevsky both receive distinction for Excellence in Research for their poster presentations and written reports of their projects. Congratulations!

03.31.2025 The lab welcomes Aidan Visher and Sapphire Wang as undergraduate volunteers conducting their first ever biochemistry research projects!

03.31.2025 The lab welcomes Amber Lee to the lab for her M.S. in Biotechnology thesis research!

03.30.2025 Preprint alert- Our lab, in close collaboration with Aaron Whiteley’s lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, has uploaded a manuscript to bioRxiv describing the characterization of an antiphage immune system we call Panoptes which synthesizes cyclic nucleotides! Unlike other nucleotide second messenger producing defenses, Panoptes is constitutively active. It’s only when accidentally targeted by phage anti-defense proteins which sequester the nucleotide signals that the effector becomes active and drives abortive infection. Read more about what we’ve learned about the mechanism so far ** here ** and stay tuned for more!

02.01.2025 The lab receives its first external funding from the NIH! The Morehouse Lab now has support from a Maximizing Investigators Research Award (MIRA) for Early Stage Investigators administered by NIGMS. We look forward to making some progress on a few exciting projects related to cyclic nucleotide signaling in immunity! Stay tuned…

01.06.2025 The lab welcomes CMB graduate student Jocelyn Leon for a Winter quarter rotation!

12.20.2024 Congratulations to MSBT trainee Alex Llamas for being awarded a BioMarin Scientific Leaders of Tomorrow fellowship to support his graduate studies!

12.17.2024 Three undergraduate researchers are newly awarded UROP Fellows! Congratulations Anny, Daniel, and Emma! We look forward to hearing about your awesome research in May at the Undergraduate Research Symposium!

12.2.2024 Ali Nabhani successfully passed his Advancement Committee meeting. Congratulations Ph.D. candidate!

9.23.2024 Our first collaborative paper with the Molecular Diversity of Microbes (MDM) Lab and Poirier lab is now available in preprint form on bioRxiv. We discovered a new component of the human innate immune system through its homology to bacterial antiphage defense proteins. SIRanc (FAM118B, ancestral SIR domain) is an NAD+ cleaving enzyme which is implicated in TLR signaling. We are excited to have been able to work with these fantastic collaborators to establish the first data supporting an immune function for this human protein and we look forward to deciphering the molecular mechanism behind SIRanc activity. Stay tuned! (Check out the twitter/X thread from our friends in France for the Cliff’s Notes version)

6.23.2024 Undergraduates Naryung Oh and Suhaan Suharno begin research in the lab this Summer. Welcome to the team!

6.7.2024 Congratulations to David for winning the award for best poster presentation at the UCI BioSci QTABS 2024 Community Symposium!

6.3.2024 Congratulations to graduate student Eirene Marie for being selected as the recipient of The Robert Warner Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nucleic Acid Biochemistry this year within the School of Biological Sciences!

6.3.2024 Stavan Shah begins research in the lab this Summer as a high school volunteer. Welcome Stavan!

5.28.2024 Congratulations to undergraduates Anny Wang and Emma Huang for being selected for UROP SURP (Summer Undergraduate Research Program)! We look forward to your continued success in the lab this Summer!

5.17.2024 Congratulations to undergraduates Elena Ter-Petrosyan and Madison Elliott on being awarded Excellence in Research! All of that hard work paid off! Great poster presentations.

5.8.2024 Our comprehensive review on cyclic nucleotide signaling in immunity and the potential therapeutic aspects of targeting these pathways, in bacteria and humans, is now published in its final form at Pharmacology & Therapeutics. Thanks to the editors for the invitation and we hope that the community finds this work useful! Congrats to Eirene, Ali, and David on a truly team effort to get this thing done. Check out the pub here!

4.26.2024 David won an award for his oral presentation at the UCI 8th Annual Postdoctoral Scholar Research Symposium, congrats!

4.01.2024 Daniel Izrailevsky begins research in the lab as a Bio 199 student. Welcome Daniel!

3.21.2024 Eirene Marie’s commentary on recent Gabija antiviral defense structural studies is published today in Nature Communications! Congrats Eirene! Check out our pub here or check out the exciting original works from Huo et al., Antine et al., and hot off the presses (not in our Comment) from Li et al.

1.08.2024 The lab welcomes Christy Nguyen to the lab for a Winter quarter rotation!

10.12.2023 The lab welcomes two new 1st year undergraduates to the lab. Welcome Anny and Emma!

9.25.2023 Shelly Lee (CMB) begins her Fall quarter rotation in the lab. Welcome Shelly!

9.13.2023 Our lab’s first article, a Preview, is published today in Cell Host & Microbe with only authors from the new lab! Congratulations to Ali! Check out our pub for an overview or check out the original piece published at Science where authors Orta el al. presented the cryo-EM structures of a complex formed between a phage lysis protein and host peptidoglycan machinery that ultimately drives membrane disruption.

7.12.2023 Dual appointment with the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences begins!

7.01.2023 The lab welcomes our first permanent graduate students- Eirene Ednacot and Ali Nabhani!

4.13.2023 Ali Nabhani (CMB) begins his Spring quarter rotation in the lab. Welcome Ali!

4.03.2023 Eirene Ednacot (Pharmacological Sciences Doctoral program) begins her Spring quarter rotation in the lab. Welcome Eirene!

3.09.2023 The lab is now finally complete with renovations and new furniture! (check out the FUN section for photos of the new space)

3.09.2023 The lab welcomes its first members! Undergraduates Jessica Tan and Madison Elliott join as volunteers.