Ross Lab
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
NEWS!
New paper accepted at Nano Letters on single molecule enzymes as active matter particles with first author, Biomedical Engineering PhD student, Ashley Scott! Ashley was also joined by former grad student, Mengqi Xu (not at UPenn), current grad student Anthony Estrada, and undergraduates Zainab Rana and David Jang on this article, which was a collaboration with Wylie Ahmed and Ben Rogers.
A. Scott, M. Xu, I. Murphy, D. Jang, Z. Rana, A. Estrada, W.W. Ahmed, W.B. Rogers, J.L. Ross,
“Enhanced Diffusion of Single, Lipid-Tethered Enzymes,”
Nano Letters 26, 7 (2026)
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c05619
Congratulations!!
(February 2026)
New paper accepted at biomolecules on PRC1 and the domains needed to form condensed droplets and microtubule tactoids from first author, Julia Bourdeau and undergraduate researchers Imara, Laci, and Sherlyn!
J. Bourdeau, I. Davis, E. Johnson, L. Shi, Y. Lan, K. Moody, A. Wolfe, L. Farhadi, H. Hehnly and J.L Ross,
“Assembly of microtubule tactoids through condensates of PRC1 constructs,”
Biomolecules 16 (5), 684 (2026).
https://doi.org/10.3390/biom16050684
(March 2026)
New paper on creating your mentoring network from Jenny and her friend, Surita Bhatia!
S.R. Bhatia, J.L. Ross, “Strengthening Your Networks and Responding to Stress and Strain: What Humans in STEM Can Learn from Soft Matter and Biological Materials,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research (2025). https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.5c02000
Physics PhD student, Nimisha Krishnan defends her thesis on kinesin-based cargoes and how the microtubule roads affect their transport. She is now at a postdoc at Harvard University! Congratulations, Dr. Krishnan!!
(October 2025)
Jenny Ross and Jen Schwarz awarded new funding from the National Science Foundation to examinien if enzymes can act as nanoscale active matter particles.
(September 2025)
Physics PhD student, Kevin Ching defends his thesis on enzymes used as an active bath to control condensates.
Congratulations, Dr. Ching!!
(August 2025)
New paper about bacteria mobility inside cytoskeletal scaffolds made from microtubules and actin published at Soft Matter! Congratualtions to Eric Frank (physics undergradaute) and Nimisha Krishnan (Physics PhD candidate) who performed experiments, analyzed data, and drafted figures and the paper along with our collaborators from the DMREF grant from NSF!
“Active and passive crosslinking of cytoskeleton scaffolds tune the effects of cell inclusions on composite structure”
Soft Matter 21, 4792-4806, (2025). https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SM01527D
(June 2025)
Graduate students, Julia Bourdeau and Prashali Chauhan co-author a review areticle on condensates interactions with cytoskeleton.
Current Opinion in Cell Biology Vol. 94, June 2025, 102506.
Special issue on Cell Architecture.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceb.2025.102506
(June 2025)
Physics PhD student, Prashali Chauhan defends her thesis and goes to a postdoc in the Netherlands with Marileen Dogterom! Congratulations, Dr. Chauhan!!
(April 2025)
Undergraduate physics student, Mason Grieb, publishes first author paper in PRE with graduate student Nimisha Krishnan!
Congratulations, Mason!
(February 2025)
Amazing new paper published with our collaborators Mike Rust, Rae Anderson, and Moumita Das about using circadian rhythm proteins from cyanobacteria to drive materials to form and fall apart published in Nature Communications!
(January 2025)
New grant awarded from the Sloan Foundation: Matter to Life Program with Jen Schwarz to examine the interplay between condensates, enzymes, and the cytoskeleton as organizing principles of the cell!
"Energy and Entropy Sculpting – How the Cytoplasm Organizes without a Manager"
We are so excited about all the science we can do with this new funding!
(June 2024)
For More News Items from Past Years, click: OLD NEWS