News

  • May. 2024, congratulations for Calab for a successful defense. Caleb won George J. Schroepfer, Jr. Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis, Grace for Distinction in Research award, and Seye for McSherry – Poe Award for RNA research! Caleb and Grace papers on Pol Eta and I-ppo1 are accepted for publication in JBC and Elife. Welcome Francesca Alexa Talmaci, Hanyu Song, Alan Du, and Srihamsini Gullapalli for joining our lab for summer research.
  • Jan. 2024, welcome Leah Peralta for joining the lab for Ph. D. thesis!
  • Sep. 2023, welcome Leah Peralta and Nora Alkaiedi for lab rotation! Xiangyu’s collaborative paper on the compact Cas13 nuclease is online. See Rice News!
  • Jan. 2023, Caleb, Christine, Sarah, Aaron, and Grace’s paper on DNA polymerase ribonucleotide extension is published online. Congrats to all!
  • Dec. 2022, several great news at the end of the year, Xiangyu is having a baby son William Deng, Seye from BCB program joins the lab for thesis study, Chuxuan’s paper on DNA polymerase theta is accepted by Nucleic Acid Research, and we finally get the TF20/K2 cryo-electron microscope up and running in BRC! The lab celebrates at Gen Korean BBQ!
  • Sep. 2022, Xiangyu’s collaborative project with Dr. Jie Yang and Dr. Sherry Gao on structural-based engineering of Cas13a for nucleic acid detection is published on Nature Chemical Biology, Congrats! Also check out the RiceNews.
  • Sep. 2022, welcome Dr. Deepak Pathak to join our lab as a postdoctoral fellow, Seye Oladegi from BCB graduate program to rotate in the lab, Tiffany Nguyen, and Dilmi Ranpatabendi for laboratory research.
  • Aug. 2022, our molecular simulation result of T7 helicase translocation is published on PNAS, Congrats and thanks for the great collaboration with Dr. Peter Wolynes and Shikai Jin. Also check out the RiceNews.
  • May. 2022, Caleb and Christine’s paper on DNA polymerase misincorporation is published online, Congrats! Also check out the RiceNews.
  • Apr. 2022, Chen-Yu Lo’s method paper on T7 replisome is published online, Congrats!
  • Apr. 2022, Our lab is awarded the American Cancer Society Research Scholar award. Thank you very much, ACS for funding our research, and all Gao lab members for your hard work!
  • Jan. 2021, Chen-Yu Lo’s work on T7 replisome is published online, Congrats!
  • Jan. 2021, welcome BCB graduate students Yifei (Frankie) Yang and Rory Sharkey and undergraduate students Leora Maksoud, Risha Parmar, and Obiekezie Ozoigbo to join our lab!
  • Nov. 2021, our collaborative project with XPose on DNA polymerase eta drug screening is online. Congratulations to Caleb and Christine for their first publication!
  • Nov. 2021, welcome Frankie Yang and Luca Macias for rotations in the lab.
  • Sep. 2021, Welcome Xiangyu Deng, our new postdoctoral fellow.
  • Sep. 2021, Welcome back, Brian and Aaron for continuing undergraduate research and welcome Grace and Helen for joining the lab.
  • Aug. 2021, Chen-Yu’s review paper about bacteriophage DNA replication is online now. Congratulations!
  • Aug. 2021, our lab receives MIRA award from NIGMS, NIH! See details in the Rice News.
  • July. 2021, Christie is leaving the lab for graduate school at New York University. Congratulations Christie!
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  • Jun. 2021, welcome BCB rotation student Rory Sharkey!
  • Jun. 2021, welcome our summer researcher Neil Chopra, Brian Lee, Hanwen Feng, Karol Portillo, and Ariel Schumacher!
  • Jun. 2021, check out our new paper on DNA polymerase deprotonation. Multiple deprotonation paths of the nucleophile 3′-OH in the DNA synthesis reaction 2021  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118 (23), e2103990118.
  • Jan. 2021, Happy New Year! Matthew Garis from BCB program joined our lab for a six-week rotation. Welcome, Matthew!
  • Oct. 2020, welcome Esther Jimenez and Christie Lee Luo. Christie graduated from University of California, Davis with a bachelor’s degree of Biological Science and will visit us for a year. Esther is a first year graduate student from BCB program and will join us for a six-week rotation.
  • Sep. 2020, Ragini Mahajan from BCB program joined our lab for a six-week rotation.
  • Sep. 2020, welcome our new postdoctoral fellow Dr. Chuxuan Li. Chuxuan obtained her Ph. D. from Brown University.
  • Aug. 2020, Noel officially joined Gao lab for his thesis study. Welcome Noel.
  • Jul. 2020, Caleb Chang received Houston Area Molecular BioPhysics (HAMBP) T32 Fellowship for supporting his thesis research. Congratulations, Caleb!
  • Jul. 2020, welcome Noel Limon for a lab rotation and Neil Chopra for undergraduate summer research! Noel is a first year graduate student from Department of Bioengineering at Rice University. Neil is a freshman student in Neuroscience.
  • Apr. 2020, Gao Lab received Welch Research Award to investigate the catalytic mechanism of magnesium-dependent DNA synthesis. Many thanks to Welch Foundation!
  • Feb. 2020, Chen-Yu Lo and Caleb Chang joined Gao lab. Welcome!
  • Jan. 2020, Chen-Yu Lo joined Gao lab for rotation. Welcome, Chen-Yu!
  • Dec. 2019, Caleb and Jamie won the third place in 2019 Holiday Ornament Competition. Congratulations!
  • Dec. 2019, our review “Different mechanisms for translocation by monomeric and hexameric helicases” was published online in Current Option Structural Biology.
  • Dec. 2019, welcome our first postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Zhuo (Jerry) Li! Zhuo is interested in studying DNA replication in thermophilic archaea and bacteriophage.
  • Oct. 2019, Caleb Chang joined the lab for rotation. Welcome, Caleb!
  • Sep. 2019, Jamie Smith joined us as lab technician. Liyang Zhang and Bingyan Wu joined the lab for rotation. Welcome all!
  • Jul. 2019, Gao lab started in BioResearch Collaborative Building at Rice University!
  • Apr. 2019, Gao lab was awarded the CPRIT funding for Recruitment of First-Time, Tenure-Track Faculty Members!