Kathy Liu Lab

• What's up - Liu Lab News

News & Update

• Kathy Liu has been approved by the Provost office for promotion with Tenure as Associate Professor. One significant milestone has been accomplished by all members of the LiuLab, with invaluable support from our supporters both within and beyond the Penn community! (03/29/2024)

• Warm Welcome to our new postdocs, Drs. Praneeth Bommisetti, Yanze Jian, and Sheetal Tushir! Excited to work together on RNA modifications and sex chromosomes in gene regulation! (Feb 2024)

• Warm Welcome to our new postdoc, Abby (Hyojeong Hwang)! Looking forward to happy and productive years with you (Aug 2023)!

• Our PI Kathy Liu receives a Linda Pechenik Montague Investigator Award. We are grateful to Laddie and Linda Pechenik for their generous donation that made this award possible and to the Perelman School of Medicine for the great honor. (Mar. 2023)

• Big congrats to our lab member Ellen Lavorando (2nd-year BMB student) is being awarded the NSF graduate research fellowship (GRFP)! We are grateful for the support from NSF! Ellen, we are so proud of you! (Mar. 2023)

• Our paper "Non-catalytic regulation of 18s rRNA methyltransferase DIMT1 in acute myeloid leukemia'' is accepted in Genes & Dev. Congratulations Yulia, Julian, Hui, and the teams!! (Mar. 2023)

• Our PI Kathy Liu has been named a Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovator by the Damon Runyon-Rachleff Cancer Foundation. Congratulations, Kathy! (Feb. 2023)

• Julian Stoute earned his Ph.D.! Huge congrats, Julian! (Feb. 2023) 

• Dr. Hui Shen completed his postdoctoral training in the LiuLab and will start his own research group in Mar. 2023. Warm congrats, Hui! (Feb. 2023)

• Justin Curtiss formally joined the lab as a graduate research assistant. Welcome, Justin! (Dec. 2022)

• Congrats to our PI Kathy Liu for being featured by Penn Medicine News Releases for her research efforts "driven to push RNA research boundaries" (September 2022)!

• Excited to launch Penn Institute for RNA Innovation, directed by Dr. Drew Weissman. Congratulations to Kathy Liu for serving as the Nucleoside Modification Group Lead (August 2022)!

• Mark our excellent collaboration with the Cherry Lab, a new publication accepted in Mol. Cell "The novel lncRNA ALPHA specifically targets chikungunya virus to control infection"!

• Mark our wonderful collaboration with the Bonini Lab, a new publication accepted in Nat. Commun. "Mettl3-dependent m⁶A modification attenuates the brain stress response in Drosophila"!

• Ellen Lavorando formally joined the lab as a graduate research assistant. Welcome, Ellen! (July 2022)

• Great news, the lab thanks for a new R01 from NIH/NHLBI; we look forward to productive years with this support! (June 2022)

• Our PI Kathy Liu has been named an ACS Research Scholar by the American Cancer Scholar with gracious funding support! Congratulations, Kathy! (May 2022)

• Our paper "Sexually dimorphic RNA helicases DDX3X and DDX3Y differentially regulate RNA metabolism through phase separation" is accepted for publication by Mol. Cell. Congratulations to the team! (April 2022)

• Welcome, Ellen Lavorando starts her rotation in the LiuLab! (April 2022). 

• Welcome Antony Chen joins the LiuLab as a joint student with Dawn Caroll's lab at Swarthmore College! (Feb. 2022)

• Welcome our new postdoc Sarai joining the lab! (Dec. 2022)

• Kathy Liu has been named a Scialog CMC Fellow (Oct. 2021).

• Two new papers from the LiuLab in Sep. 2021. (1) Recent technical advances in the study of nucleic acid modifications. Mol. Cell. (2) Human DIMT1 generates N₂^6,6A dimethylation-containing small RNAs. J. Biol. Chem.

• Big congrats to our lab member Heidi Elashal (2nd-year BMB student) is being awarded the NSF graduate research fellowship (GRFP)! We are grateful for the support from NSF and the people who always get our back! Heidi, we are so proud of you! (Mar. 2021)

• Yulia is awarded an Early Postdoc. Mobility fellowship by Heinrich Kronstein Foundation! Congratulations, Yulia!! (Dec. 2020)

• Our paper "TET-mediated 5-methylcytosine oxidation in tRNA promotes translation" is accepted in J. Bio. Chem. Congratulations to the team! (Nov. 2020)

• Welcome our new Postdoc Dr. Yulia Gonskikh! A big virtual hug! (Oct. 2020)

• Congratulations to Amber Yanas and Michael Owens both for being selected as Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics Fellows at Johnson Research Foundation (June 2020)!

• Our paper "Structural and catalytic roles of the human 18S rRNA methyltransferases DIMT1 in ribosome assembly and translation" is accepted in J. Bio. Chem. Congratulations to the team. (Aug. 2020)

• Jordan is awarded the F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award by the NIGMS. Jordan, way to go!!! (June 2020)

• Heidi Elashal formally joined the lab as a graduate research assistant (May 2020). Welcome, Heidi!

• Michael and Amber successfully passed their prelim exams! Congratulations!! (May 2020)

• Congratulations to Jordan, Hui (shared first-authorship), and all members of the lab group for our first PNAS direct submission paper entitled "Coordination of mRNA and tRNA methylations by TRMT10A"!!! (Feb. 2020)

• Congratulations to Kathy on her new PNAS direct submission paper from her dissertation work entitled "Observing 3-hydroxyanthranilate-3,4-dioxygenase in action through a crystalline lens"! (Feb. 2020)

• Welcome graduate students Ms. Bianca Pingul and  Ms. Heidi Elashal started their 1^st rotation with us (Sep. 2019)

• The NIH/NIGMS has recognized Kathy with an ESI MIRA award (R35) to support her quests in RNA epitranscriptomics. This is our lab’s first major federal grant! (July 2019)

• Kathy presented at the 2019 Eukaryotic mRNA Processing meeting organized by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (July 2019)

• Amber Yanas and Michael Owens officially join the lab as graduate research assistants. Welcome both of you! (June 2019)

• Kathy delivered a short talk at Gordon Research Conference (GRC): Nucleic Acids, Newry, ME (June 2019) (Kathy’s 2nd oral presentation at a GRC and the first as an independent faculty member)

• Alex Maldonado-Lopez completed her rotation with us. We will miss you, Alex! (June 2019)

• Congratulations to Jordan Ontiveros for successfully renewing the Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics Fellowship (June 2019)

• Congratulations to Julian Stoute for being selected as a Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics Fellow at Johnson Research Foundation (June 2019)

• Nicholas Schell joins us as an undergraduate research assistant. Welcome, Nick! (May 2019)

• Kathy delivered an invited seminar at the Department of Biochemistry at Emory University (April 2019) 

• Jordan and Julian successfully passed their prelim exams without conditions! Congratulations!! (April 2019)

• Jordan and Julian published their first paper entitled The chemical diversity of RNA modifications! Big congrats!!

• Michael Owens and Alex Maldonado-Lopez start their rotations with us. Welcome! (April 2019)

• Yuyu Zhang joins our lab as an undergraduate research assistant. She is from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. She will spend 9+ months with us through partial support from the Off-Campus Experience Program of The Philadelphia Center. Welcome, Yuyu! (Jan. 2019)

• Amber Yanas starts her rotations with us. Welcome, Amber :) (Jan. 2019). Welcome!

• Kathy delivered an invited seminar in the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at Penn (Oct. 15, 2018)

• Kathy delivered an invited seminar at the Epigenetics Institute at Penn (Oct. 11, 2018)

• Kathy delivered an invited seminar in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Department at Drexel University (Oct. 8, 2018)

• Julian Stoute and Jordan Ontiveros formally joined the lab as graduate research assistants. Welcome! (Aug. 2018)

• The New Lab, New Start, 2018!