Nair (Synthetic Biology & Systems Bioengineering) Lab @Tufts

Reversal of the Leloir pathway to promote galactose and tagatose synthesis from glucose Love and Toomey et al. demonstrate a whole-cell process that converts glucose directly to the rare sugar D-tagatose by reversing the Leloir pathway. Structural and biochemical analyses reveal how a sp...

New paper from the lab! We show a new pathway to make tagatose from glucose! After assessing several pathways, we identified a phosphatase specific to gal-1-P to enable this route. We also perform modeling to understand the molecular determinants of specificity.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Nikhil Nair - Tufts Rising Innovator of the Year 1 min 43 sec video

I'm honored to be selected as Tufts Rising Innovator of the year for 2025! This is awarded for demonstrating an ambitious entrepreneurial spirit by actively developing new innovations and moving them to the market.
Video: tuftsu.wistia.com/medias/imcxj...
Story: now.tufts.edu/2025/11/17/s...

Attending #AIChE2025 #AIChE in Boston next week? Connect with us! The group is presenting 5 talks on Wednesday & Thursday!

Meet Caravel: Pioneering a New Era of Biotechnology with the First Unified Platform for Protein Discovery and Delivery /PRNewswire/ -- Caravel Bio, the first joint platform for protein discovery and delivery that enables new applications of synthetic biology, today announces...

Congratulations to Trevor (@biotechalchemist.bsky.social) and the recent success he's had with building on his thesis work and spinning out Caravel Bio!
www.prnewswire.com/news-release...

Plan to attend #aiche2025 in Boston next month? Friends, alumni, colleagues, please visit the Tufts ChBE reception on Sunday night at 7 pm. #aiche

Engineered antimicrobial-derived peptides to manipulate mixed microbial systems Due to complexity of microbial communities and coarseness of currently available manipulation techniques (e.g. transplantation, antibiotic-treatment), it is often difficult to fully elucidate the inte...

🚨New manuscript alert!🚨We show that a natural, bacterial-derived, #antimicrobial #AMP can be used and engineered for targeted manipulation of specific species in a microbial community from the top-down! #microbiome. Thanks to @vandeventerjim.bsky.social for helping!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

High throughput screening of eukaryotic release factor 1 variants to enhance noncanonical amino acid incorporation Noncanonical amino acids (ncAAs) enable diversification of protein functions, but the efficiency of genetic code expansion (GCE) in eukaryotes is hindered by competition between suppressor tRNAs and r...

Today, I’m grateful that I can finally share Briana Lino’s @blino237.bsky.social work on engineering eukaryotic release factor 1 (eRF1) for enhanced noncanonical amino acid incorporation. I highlight some key findings in this thread (1/n).

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Tufts Will Be Tuition-Free for U.S. Families Earning Less Than $150,000 Tufts University announces that U.S. students from families earning less than $150,000 will not have to pay undergraduate tuition.

Today, I'm grateful to Tufts University--the university is trying to do good in the world, at a time when it's very easy for institutions of higher learning to stray wildly from their core missions.

(Disclosure: Tufts is my employer)

now.tufts.edu/2025/09/09/t...

Working Toward Reducing Chemical Industry Dependence on Petroleum Tufts researchers receive up to $4.5 million from DARPA to create robust, flexible biosynthetic manufacturing

I'm very excited to lead the @darpa.mil #SWITCH effort on #sustainable #biomanufacturing at #TuftsUniversity with Matt McNulty, Amin Nikkhah, and Todd Chappell! See more here:
now.tufts.edu/2025/08/19/w...

A Novel Phosphatase Reverses the Leloir Pathway to Promote Tagatose Synthesis from Glucose D-Tagatose is a natural, low-calorie, rare monosaccharide that has gained substantial interest as an alternative sweetener. It offers numerous benefits, including a low glycemic index, prebiotic prope...

New pre-print from the lab! We show for the first time that tagatose can be synthesized from glucose! After assessing several pathways, we identified a phosphatase specific to gal-1-P. We also perform modeling to understand the molecular determinants of specificity.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Here are the nearly 2,500 medical research grants canceled or delayed by Trump Some cuts have been starkly visible, but the country’s medical grant-making machinery has also radically transformed outside the public eye.

Great piece @nytimes.com with a database of thousands of NIH grants ended or delayed.

No matter the intention, the effects are clear: a huge slowdown in biomedical research into diseases & new therapeutics.

Share with your Rep & Senators, and spread awareness!

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The Nair lab is looking for a #post-doc experienced in yeast pathway and genome engineering. Please DM or email me if you are interested!! Please spread the word! #synbio #metabolicengineering

Congratulations 🍾

Tufts says federal authorities detained graduate student The university received reports that an international graduate student was taken into custody from an off-campus apartment Tuesday night, President Sunil Kumar wrote in a letter to the school communit...

ICE kidnapped another student.

This time a grad student at Tufts, Rumeysa Ozturk. Turkish national, in the United States on a student visa. Her lawyer does not know where she is being held.

Rumeysa wrote op-eds criticizing the university's response to student demands on Gaza.

Design, Construction, and Validation of a Yeast-Displayed Chemically Expanded Antibody Library In vitro display technologies, exemplified by phage and yeast display, have emerged as powerful platforms for antibody discovery and engineering. However, the identification of antibodies that disrupt...

The Van Deventer Lab’s first manuscript describing chemically expanded antibody discovery is now published! The genetically encoded “Clickable CDR-H3 Library” can become many, chemically diverse antibody libraries, enabling new drug discovery opportunities (1/n).

pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

Five Tufts Faculty Named Senior Members of National Academy of Inventors Tufts faculty newly named to the National Academy of Inventors have led to innovations in healing wounds, assessing health, treating rare disorders, and more

I'm excited to be named a senior member of the NAI! Thank you to all my group members and colleagues at Tufts for supporting my group's research!
now.tufts.edu/2025/02/20/f...

Want hands-on battery research experience? Join the Battery Research Summer School!

4 days of real labs, real data, real problem-solving. Learn to cycle, test & troubleshoot Li-ion batteries.

📅 June 3-6 | 📍 Tufts University
📌 More info: www.eventbrite.com/e/1234043610...

This pre-print is now published and available in final form here:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Finally, we show that engineered spores can be used to degrade plastic PET films #plasticdegradation

We compare coat proteins for surface availability and protection from inactivating agents (e.g., heat, protease), and their effect on sporulation efficiency. We also assess how different coat proteins can be co-utilized to increase display levels.

Allelic tagging allows us to examine the activation timing and strength of promoters associated with spore coat structural proteins.

In addition, this work investigates scarless allelic tagging of spore coat proteins using genome editing by co-transformation, analyzing factors affecting genome editing by congression.

🚨🆕New manuscript🆕🚨from the lab!! Started by @biotechalchemist.bsky.social and completed by Todd Chappell. This work assesses the utility of >30 #spore coat proteins for #surfacedisplay - almost 3x currently described! We found that SscA is a great carrier not used before‼️
biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Allelic tagging allows us to examine the activation timing and strength of promoters associated with spore coat structural proteins.

In addition, this work investigates scarless allelic tagging of spore coat proteins using genome editing by co-transformation, analyzing factors affecting genome editing by congression.

Here!

This effort was led by post-doc Damayanti Chakravarty (Nair) + @DolginJames (Kaplan) w/ support from Pomai Yamaguchi (Lee) + many others from the Nair & Kaplan groups.

Work showed that both, protein + metabolites, in VN lysate are needed to support fast growth. The cells were less stressed on VN lysate when compared to other serum alternatives and could be differentiated after several passages.

We found that different cell lines are compatible with different microbial lysates. We were able to adapt bovine satellite cells for long-term growth on Vibrio natriegens lysate. After adaptation, their growth rate on VN lysate was similar to that on serum.

🆕New pre-print🆕! Our first foray into 🥩cultivated meat🍖 with David Kaplan, Kyong Lee, and supported by Tufts University for Cellular Agriculture, Consortium! We report that microbial lysates can be used as serum alternatives for in vitro animal cell proliferation.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...