Faculty recognized with award for superior teaching
April 22, 2024
Nine Rice University faculty members received the 2024 George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching, which honors top Rice instructors based on votes from alumni who graduated within the past two, three and five years.
Rice’s new Synthesis X Center has winning formula for cancer innovation
March 21, 2024
Rice has created the new Synthesis X Center to bring together clinicians treating cancer and researchers looking for cures to help spur drug discovery make precision adjustments to drug properties and translate fundamental research discoveries into clinical applications.
Rice breakthrough could make automated dosing systems universal
March 15, 2024
Automated insulin dosing systems combine low-cost blood-glucose monitors with insulin pumps that use precision dosing to continuously regulate blood-sugar and hold it steady. Rice synthetic biologists have found a way to piggyback on the technology and make it universally applicable for the precision dosing of virtually any drug.
Weaker transcription factors are better when they work together
August 14, 2023
Rice bioengineer Caleb Bashor and colleagues have developed a generalizable method to address “off-target” gene activation, a significant problem in the field of synthetic biology. Taking a cue from nature, the researchers showed they could all but eliminate the activation of off-target genes by designing weak transcription factors that cooperatively assemble.
Reporters broadcast live, on-the-scene, inside living cells
July 10, 2023
Synthetic biologists from Rice University and Princeton University have demonstrated “live reporter” technology that can reveal the workings of signaling networks in living cells with far greater precision than current methods. The first-of-its-kind reporting tool can show how quickly signaling networks respond and how responses vary from cell to cell in time and space.
Rice U. bioengineering Ph.D. named Schmidt Science Fellow
May 3, 2023
Rice U. doctoral alum Joshua Chen has won a prestigious Schmidt Science Fellowship that will support his goal of building new technologies to address pressing health care challenges by drawing on his interdisciplinary skill set in bioelectronics and synthetic biology.
James Chappell wins NSF CAREER Award
March 27, 2023
Rice bioscientist James Chappell has won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to develop RNA programming methods that can improve human health and the environment.