Connor Tou

STAT 2025 Wunderkinds Connor Tou he/him

Congrats to IGI alum Connor Tou on being named a 2025 #STATWunderkind! At the IGI, Connor worked on CRISPR EvolvR in John Dueber's lab and now, as a Ph.D. student at MIT, he's working on genome engineering with large insertions.

Antiviral reverse transcriptases reveal the evolutionary origin of telomerase Defense-associated reverse transcriptases (DRTs) employ diverse and distinctive mechanisms of cDNA synthesis to protect bacteria against viral infection. However, much of DRT family diversity remains ...

1/10 Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from?

Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral RTs, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congrats to @connorjtou.bsky.social on being named a 2025 #STATWunderkind. His enthusiasm in the lab is contagious and he thrives on doing really hard things.
Really well deserved recognition for an innovator and emerging leader in our field! 👏 🙌
@mgbresearch.bsky.social @harvardmed.bsky.social

3 Wunderkinds sit on stage with a moderator

Taking the stage are three of this year's #STATWunderkinds!

Meet the class of 2025: www.statnews.com/wunderkinds/

#STATSummit

Thanks Dimitrios! 🙏

Meet the 2025 STAT Wunderkinds This year, as in past years, we've found inspiring stories and innovative research. All are blazing new trails as they attempt to answer some of the

At a time when conflict and cynicism seem to be shadowing much of health and medicine, @statnews.com is recognizing some of the brightest young minds in their fields this morning.

www.statnews.com/wunderkinds/

Honored to be part of the 2025 #STATWunderkinds! Grateful for the many supportive mentors, colleagues, and friends with special shoutout to @bkleinstiver.bsky.social.

Full list: www.statnews.com/wunderkinds/

@statnews.com @mitdeptofbe.bsky.social @mgbresearch.bsky.social @harvardmed.bsky.social

How can we understand the earliest events in evolution of eukaryotic immunity? @yao-li.bsky.social reports incredible molecular fossils of complete bacterial-like operons in eukaryotes that illuminate how animal immunity was first acquired from anti-phage defense

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

Today in the journal Science: BioEmu from Microsoft Research AI for Science. This generative deep learning method emulates protein equilibrium ensembles – key for understanding protein function at scale. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

If you like transposons...
If you you love genome editing...
Or if you just like random bird animations,

we have the paper for you!

We (@kedmonds.bsky.social et al) are happy to share our work turning a songbird retrotransposon into a genome editing tool. 🐣 (1/n)

Click editing enables programmable genome writing using DNA polymerases and HUH endonucleases - Nature Biotechnology Click editing uses DNA polymerases, HUH endonucleases and oligonucleotide templates for genome modification.

Click editing uses DNA polymerases, HUH endonucleases and oligonucleotide templates for genome modification go.nature.com/3zPEIjp
rdcu.be/erfhL

1/10 New pre-print(s) from the Sternberg Lab in collaboration with Leifu Chang's Lab! We uncover the unprecedented molecular mechanism of CRISPR-Cas12f-like proteins, which drive RNA-guided transcription independently of canonical promoter motifs.
Full story here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/10 Today in @science.org in collaboration with
the Liu group we report the development of a laboratory-evolved CRISPR-associated transposase (evoCAST) that supports therapeutically relevant levels of RNA-programmable gene insertion in human cells. drive.google.com/file/d/1I-Ub...

Reprogramming site-specific retrotransposon activity to new DNA sites - Nature A study of retrotransposon activity repurposes a retroelement called R2Tocc to create a programmable system called STITCHR that enables diverse genome edits including efficient, scarless large pa...

So excited to share our new paper out today in @nature.com. We repurposed R2 retrotransposons to create STITCHR, a tool that can make virtually any kind of edit in mammalian genomes including the scarless multi-kilobase scale insertions 🧵

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Interested in learning more about genome editing tool dev & their application to treat human diseases? 🧬 🏥
We're hiring graduating seniors who are seeking ~2 years of post-bac research experience.
If you're interested in gaining experience in next gen medicines, please reach out and apply!
Link 👇

Would also love to be added! 🙏

Thanks Dimitrios! Maybe almost time for a starter pack 🤔