Research technologist Michelle Ibino joins the Xiao group — Welcome, Michelle!

Our collaborative study, “Disentangling polymer confinement from specific-folding interactions reveals the drivers of E. Coli chromosome organization“, is available on bioRxiv. This work is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Jie Liang, a wonderful colleague and friend.

New graduate student Cole Christensen joins the Xiao group — Welcome, Cole!

Don’t miss Martin’s showcase at this year’s Artscape – May 23rd & 24th!

Graduate student Martin Yepes featured on the cover of Leonella for his Bmore Micro arts!

Dr. Jie Xiao has been selected as the School of Medicine’s 46th recipient of the Johns Hopkins University Professors’ Award for Excellence in Teaching in Biomedical Sciences. This award is intended to recognize those faculty members whose investment in teaching School of Medicine students at both the pre- and/or postdoctoral levels is of the highest order.

Congratulations to undergraduate student Ruiwen Xiong for winning the competitive Provost Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) for a summer research internship in the Xiao Lab!

Congratulations to Graduate student Fran Harris and collaborators for preprinting “Repetitive extragenic palindrome (REP) elements are local, context-dependent, dual 3’UTR regulators in Escherichia coli” on bioRxiv!

The Xiao Lab is currently looking for an experienced Research Associate, specializing in single-molecule imaging.

Click here for more information.

Congrats to graduate student Martin Yepes on winning the Biophysica Society Student Research Achievement Award again!

Congrats to graduate students Martine Yepes and Nicolas Yehya and the team for preprinting our latest work on the substrate-binding and activation mechanism of the essential bacterial septal cell wall synthase FtsW.

Graduate student, Aaron Tran, gave his first talk at the Single-molecule Biophysics meeting in Les Houches, France, on the role of DNA topology in transcription.

‘Chromosomal Topological Domain Formation Modulates Transcription and the Coupling of Neighboring Genes in Escherichia coli‘ by Drs. Nico Yehya, Christopher Bohrer, and collaborators is now available on bioRxiv. This extensive five-year study draws on the expertise of multiple labs and establishes chromosome topology as a key regulator of both transcription levels and the coupling between adjacent genes.

Please enjoy Dr. Jie Xiao’s talk from the 2025 West Coast Superresolution Workshop on “Interrogating molecular organization and composition of the bacterial divisome using single-molecule and superresolution imaging”.

‘Differential effect of supercoiling on bacterial transcription in topological domains‘ by undergraduate student Boaz Goldberg is published in PLOS Computational Biology. Congrats, Boaz!

Dr. Jie Xiao has received the Carolyn Cohen Innovation Award from the Biophysical Society. The award recognizes her “work in developing single-molecule imaging and analysis approaches to investigate the molecular and cellular mechanisms of bacterial cell division and transcription.” Congratulations!

Click here to read the post on the BPS Newsroom webpage.

Click on the link here to read “The Construction Crew of Bacteria Cell Walls”, a new article in Johns Hopkins Medicine’s  July 2025 issue of Fundamentals.

Dr. Jason Lyu‘s new work on Third track model for the coordination of septal peptidoglycan synthesis and degradation by FtsN in Escherichia coli is now available on Nature Microbiology. Congratulations to Dr. Lyu and our long-time collaborator, Dr. David Weiss!

New graduate student Aaron Tran joins the Xiao group — Welcome, Aaron!

Dr. Xiao‘s editorial with Drs. Maria Filippa Addis and Ilana Kolodkin-Gal: “Women in microbial physiology and metabolism” is published in Front. Microbiol.! This editorial is part of the Research Topic “Women in Microbial Physiology and Metabolism: 2023″.

Dr. Amilcar Perez and Dr. Xiao‘s new review on Stay on track — revelations of bacterial cell wall synthesis enzymes and things that go by single-molecule imaging” is now available in Curr. Opin Micro!

Dr. Jason Lyu‘s new manuscript on a “third sPG degradation track” FtsN coordinates septal peptidoglycan synthesis and degradation through self-interaction of SPOR in E. coli is now on bioRxiv!

Congrats to undergraduate student Boaz Goldberg for receiving PURA (Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award) for the upcoming summer research!

Congrats to graduate student Martin Yepes for receiving the Student Research Achievement Award from the 2024 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting!

Congrats to Dr. Brooke Britton and graduate student Martin Yepes for receiving the 2024 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting Travel Awards!

Dr. Xiao, Dr. Brooke Britton, and graduate students Fran Harris, Nico Yehya, and Martin Yepes attended the 2024 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in Philadelphia and had fun!

Collaborative work between the Xiao lab and the Liu Lab on FtsZ-mediated spatial-temporal control over septal cell wall synthesis is now on BioRxiv!