What’s Happening Around the Lab?
(click on photos for enlargements or slideshow)
Happy holidays in the sternberg lab
December 12th, 2025
The lab celebrated the end of a year of incredible science and Stephen’s last days in the lab, complete with a rousing White Elephant game featuring a talking hamster, a vintage Veggie Tales VHS tape, and an enormous jackfruit!
The Wang and Sternberg labs celebrate metaedit
November 14th, 2025
We celebrated Diego Rivera Gelsinger’s Science publication, Metagenomic editing of commensal bacteria in vivo using CRISPR- associated transposases, which proved to be a fruitful collaboration between Harris Wang’s and Sam Sternberg’s lab.
Rimantė presents at EMBO workshop
November 6th, 2025
Rimantė Žedaveinytė shares her research at “The mobile genome: genetic and physiological impacts of transposable elements” in Heidelberg, Germany and fosters connections with old and new lab friends.
happy halloween from the sternberg lab and bmB!
October 31st, 2025
Killer costumes and scary snacks, a great time!
Daniel Moon presents at Columbia’s Undergraduate research symposium
October 17th, 2025
Younggi Daniel Moon, under the mentorship of Rimantė Žedaveinytė and Sam Sternberg, presented his poster on “Bacterial transposons encode Arc transcriptional regulators” at as part of the Undergraduate Research Symposium at Columbia University.
Matt Walker receives the 2025 Peter Sajovic Memorial Prize from the Biological Sciences department
September 3rd, 2025
The honor is awarded to a graduate student doing outstanding work in biology and this makes it a clean sweep for our three 2025 PhD graduates (George, Florian, and Matt)!!!
Henry le presents at Woods hole meeting
August 29th, 2025
Henry shares science, and a few laughs, presenting his work at the Mobile Genetic Elements meeting in Woods Hole, MA.
the lab sends chance off with a bbq fit for a southerner
August 27th, 2025
The lab said farewell to Chance Meers, who sets off to Vanderbilt University to start his own lab! Congratulations Professor Meers!!
sternberg lab retreat brings us together to share good food and exciting ideas
August 8th to 11th, 2025
We enjoyed a weekend upstate to deepen connections and relax a little. Highlights included making music, learning backgammon, and appreciating the beautiful surroundings.
2025 lab hackathon: Next generation sequencing!
August 6th to 7th, 2025
We dove into cDIP-seq, RNA-seq, and ChIP-seq, and RIP-seq workflows to empower all lab members to analyze their own data!
Once again we Brought the biology to >100 middle schoolers
August 4th - 5th, 2025
Lab members volunteered to teach East Meadow school district students to extract DNA from strawberries, sample the environmental microbiome, make BioArt with fluorescent E. coli strains, and enjoyed 6, 7 other activities!
Former, yet never forgotten, lab member starts new lab at eth
July 23rd, 2025
Former Sternberg lab member and current Assistant Professor at the Department of Biology, ETH Zurich, Dr. Sanne Klompe showed Sam around her new digs. Congratulations!
Rimante wows the crowd at NYBIG
June 27th, 2025
Rimantė Žedaveinytė shares the DRT9 story with an eager audience at the New York Bacillus Interest Group meeting.
Sternberg lab enters the matrix
June 25th, 2025
A fun watch to celebrate the lab’s love of Neo… and the first viewing of the 1999 classic for many lab members!
Americo passes his quals!
May 28th, 2025
Congratulations Americo Casas Ciniglio on passing your qualifying exam! And nice job popping the cork!
A tale of Two Graduates
May 19th- 21st, 2025
We celebrated the graduations of Dr. Florian Hoffmann and Dr. George Lampe with ceremonies at the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center as well as the Armory. Congratulations!
evocast is published in science and starts conversations at Columbia and beyond
May 15th, 2025
George and Sam discuss their new work, recently published in Science, on evoCAST, a new gene editing tool that could make gene therapy more reliable and efficient, with the news team at Columbia University. https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/sternberg-evocast-gene-editor
A viral goodbye
May 14th, 2025
The lab said goodbye to Sky Kang, and hello to her handmade gift of a “macro” phage….
Sternberg lab fleeces arrive
May 9th, 2025
The long-awaited lab fleeces featuring the HHMI and Columbia logos turned a few heads when they finally arrived!
honey, i shrunk the scientist
May 2nd, 2025
Stephen poses with a blown up version of his new Science cover…
Henry (hoang) le joins the 2025 class of paul & daisy soros fellows
April 9th, 2025
Henry is now a member of an outstanding group of immigrants/children of immigrants who are pursuing graduate school and are chosen for their potential to make significant contributions to the United States. Go Henry! Read more here
Egill, Stephen, and sam share science at the institut pasteur
April 8th- 10th, 2025
They participated in the lively “The Immune System of Bacteria” EMBO Workshop held at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France. Quote of the year, “Stephen drops DRT systems like they’re the new iphone”
Back to back defenses: Presenting, Dr. Matt walker!
April 3rd, 2025
Matt defended not only his thesis, but also the entire auditorium from a vicious rat attack… Congratulations Matt!
Introducing…DR. Florian Hoffman!
March 27th, 2025
Florian defended his thesis and was celebrated by leagues of international fans. Congratulations, Flo!
Matt walker becomes an american
January 8th, 2025
Our Canadian lab mate officially becomes an American! Check out those spangled stars in his eyes and on his flag! USA! USA!