News
August 6, 2024
The Journal of Immunology selected our paper for their cover. Colors of the rendered cells display density of different immune cell types in a tuberculosis granuloma based on their cytokine mRNA expression. Granulomas form as infected cells secrete cytokines to attract more immune cells to surround and isolate the site of infection.
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July 24, 2024
In situ Imaging and quantification of human and viral circular RNAs just published in Nucleic Acids Research. We used ampFISH to specifically light up circular RNAs. A pair of hairpin probes bind to sequences that are contiguous in circular RNAs but are distant in their linear counterparts, unmask a sequence which initiates HCR amplification.
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July 9, 2024
​Our work on imaging tuberculosis granulomas with smFISH is published in The Journal of Immunology . The tussle between bacteria and immune cells goes on for years. Here secondary granulomas are forming outside the narcotic core of the initial one. Densities of various immune cell types in the tissue was determined from expression of several mRNA and protein makers. Green lines trace areas where macrophages expressing IFNg are highly prevalent.
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January 6, 2024
Yousaf et al from Mayo Clinic published a study in Plos Pathogens on measles virus sequestering in brain to evade immune pressure. In this sheltered environment the virus can persist for many years causing a fatal disease, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE). The story documents how the virus adopts to the new environment by changing its genome sequence. Our lab contributed ampFISH for distinguishing in situ viral genomes that differ only by a few nucleotides.
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March 27, 2023
Ryan Dikdan brilliantly defended his Ph.D. dissertation and is now going back to New Jersey Medical School to complete his MD.
February 4, 2023
Our report on imaging tuberculosis granulomas with single-molecule FISH and its derivatives is now available on BioRxiv. Click the image on the right to go to the article.
May 5, 2022
Ryan Dikdan explains our beacon SARS-CoV-2 variant assay in an interview at New Jersey's channel 12 news. Click image on the right.
February 1, 2022.
Our multiplex PCR assay for identifying all Major SARS-CoV-2 variants including Omicron is published in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics. This is a two tube assay that accurately detects currently circulating Covid-19 variants in less than three hours from RNA extracted from patient samples. Procedures to rapidly develop similar tests for variants of concern that will emerge in future are described.
October 10, 2021.
Stop the noise emanating from the genes. In a paper just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we explored the molecular origins of the enigmatic phenomenon of “noise” in gene expression. We show that mammalian genes are not expressed in a steady and continuous stream but are expressed in episodic bursts. This occurs because the regulatory regions of genes are normally hidden in impervious chromatin and random “breathing” events in chromatin provide intermittent access to factors that turn the genes on, rendering the gene expression intermittent. The picture of human cell on the right shows nuclei in blue, certain active genes in orange, and their mRNA products in red.
June 20, 2019.
Our article on amplified FISH is published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This paper describes a method that produces amplified signals from single RNA molecules, using Hybridization Chain Reaction and probes in which the HCR initiator sequence is conditionally sequestered. The binding of probes to a target unmasks the initiator and generates an amplified signal. These probes enable detection of sparsely expressed mRNAs and are so specific that related mutant and wild-type mRNAs, differing from each other by as little as a single-nucleotide variation, yield distinct in situ signals in two distinguishable colors. This technology will aid in studies of differential expression from alleles and will be useful for the identification of mRNAs harboring somatic mutations in cancer tissue biopsies.
April 12, 2019.
LaTasha Fraser successfully defends her Ph.D. dissertation, "Exploring the Role of Chromatin Decondensation at a Gene Locus in Stochastic Gene Expression".
LaTasha-Graduation
November 1, 2018.
Arjun Raj and Sanjay Tyagi receive Thomas Alva Edison award for their patent on single-molecule FISH (Stellaris) probes.
