November 3, 2025
A new paper in collaboration with the Polikanov group published in Nature communications! Highlighting the the context-specific action of macrolide antibiotics.
Congratulations to Max.
October 23, 2025
We are thrilled to celebrate Alex, who has successfully defended his doctoral thesis, “The impact of depleting the essential bacterial enzyme peptidyl-tRNA hydrolase on translation”. This achievement marks a huge step forward for him and an exciting highlight for our lab.
Alex’s research uncovered how cells respond when a universally essential translation-quality control enzyme is removed. These insights continue to deepen our understanding of translation.
Congratulations, Dr. Alex!
October 15, 2025
We are proud to share that Kasra has successfully defended his doctoral thesis, “Orthogonal Protein Synthesis by Ribosomes with an Integrated mRNA“. This work is a major milestone for him and our lab.
His research reimagined how ribosomes can be engineered to work with integrated mRNAs, advancing the field of orthogonal protein synthesis and opening new possibilities in synthetic biology.
Congratulations, Dr. Kasra!
June 28, 2025
Triennial “Ribosome” meeting took place in Pacific Grove, CA on 22-27 of June bringing together the leading scientists in the field of protein synthesis. The research from our lab was represented with four posters and two talks.
March 26, 2025
A new paper in collaboration with the groups of Gerard Wright (McMaster University) and Yury Polikanov (UIC) is published today in Nature! Lariocidin, the first lasso peptide targeting bacterial translation and a promising new lead for antibiotic development, is in the news today. Congratulation to all authors!
Original publication: www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08723-7
Nature News and Views; Nature News; Nature Review Microbiology Research Highlight; UIC Today Article; Nature Podcast;
March 11, 2025
We are happy to welcome Mandisa (Mandy) Timba as a new PhD Candidate in the lab! Best of luck with your future projects.
October 16, 2024
Congrats to Weiping, Chaetana, and Alena with the new paper on apidaecin-like peptides diversity hidden in the insect genomes just published in EMBO Reports!
https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1038/s44319-024-00277-5
September 9, 2024
Together with colleagues from Yury Polikanov’s Lab we have been presenting our research at the 2024 Translational control meeting at Cold Spring Harbour, NY, USA.
July 23, 2024
A new paper “Macrolones target bacterial ribosomes and DNA gyrase and can evade resistance mechanisms” is published in Nature Chemical Biology! Another great collaboration with the lab of Prof. Yury Polikanov at UIC. Congrats to Alena, Dorota, and Faezeh.
July 11, 2024
The researches from the lab took part in the Annual Day Camp for children organized by Chicago Park District. Together with scientist from Murphy lab Shura, Clemence, and Max performed the experiments in physics and chemistry with the future researches.
July 7, 2024
A new paper “Sequence diversity of apidaecin-like peptides arresting the terminating ribosome” is published in Nucleic Acids Research! Congratulations to Weiping and Chetana!
June 16, 2024
Lab volleyball season has just started at the North Beach!
April 3, 2024
Dr. Mankin presented the lab’s research at UIC Spark Talks. SparkTalks are UIC’s take on faculty lightning talks, and provide an opportunity for faculty, leaders, and others across campus to learn about the exciting activity happening in every corner of UIC.
March 5, 2024
Dorota again won in the “Best savory dish” category at CBS Potluck. Congratulations from the team! We are all looking forward to taste new masterpieces by the Chef!
February 15, 2024
Congratulations to Dr. Maxim Svetlov with a publication in Science! Joint effort of Myers (MIT) and Polikanov (UIC) labs on the antibiotic cresomycin.
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adk8013?af=R