News from the Sternberg lab at Columbia Univ., HHMI. Posts are from lab members and not Samuel Sternberg unless signed SHS. Posts represent personal views only.
New York, NY
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7/7 As a lab we believe in sharing both our science and our research knowledge with others, and hope we’ve inspired a few minds! Looking forward to the next visit!
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4/7 Students also had the opportunity to check out hands-on work in the lab with stations on robotics, microbiology, cryoEM, phages, gel electrophoresis, HT sequencing, and human tissue culture.
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3/7 The East Meadow students are asking big questions: How does TikTok shape teen identity? Can AI be trusted for health info? How do climate shortages affect NYC restaurants? We had the chance to discuss these topics (and more) and give feedback on the research process.
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2/7 We shared our personal research backgrounds with the students, and they had the opportunity to present elevator pitches on their current research projects.
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1/7 Last week the Sternberg Lab welcomed ~40 junior & senior high school AP Research students from the East Meadow school district (and their incredible teachers) into our lab at Columbia University.
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5/5 Huge congratulations to all the authors for their incredible work bringing this story together! It was a fantastic collaborative effort spanning time zones and continents.
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4/5 DRT10 biochemistry and structure (with @IsraelF96135088):
1/11 New preprint from the Sternberg lab in collaboration with the Fernández lab! We are excited to share our structure-function study of DRT10, a bacterial defense-associated reverse transcriptase that synthesizes long tandem-repeat DNA.🧵
More here: biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…
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3/5 For a deeper dive into the science, check out our original preprint threads below:
DRT10 biology and evolution (with @pentamorfico and @rafapinilla92):
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.
doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.16.6…
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2/5 This work combines two complementary stories: one uncovering DRT10 biology and its link to telomerase, and the other exploring its structure and biochemical mechanism. We're excited to bring these findings together into a comprehensive picture of DRT10 function and evolution!
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1/5 Telomerase has long been linked to chromosome maintenance in eukaryotes. Now, we show that telomerase-like activity is also present in bacteria, shedding new light on its ancient origins.
Excited to share that our work on DRT10 is now out in @Nature!
nature.com/articles/s41586-0…
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2/2 We used sequencing and fluorescence reporter assays to uncover Arc’s role as a transcriptional repressor. It binds the transposon promoter and regulates gene expression, suggesting a new mechanism for transposon control!
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1/2 Here we report the activity of Arc, a 50-aa DNA-binding protein encoded within IS605-family transposons. biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…
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Link to post with preprint
New preprint from the Sternberg lab!
biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…
We used pooled oligonucleotide library mutagenesis + high-throughput sequencing to systematically dissect the molecular determinants of IStron transposition, RNA-guided DNA cleavage, and self-splicing.
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Link to paper!
academic.oup.com/nar/article…
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Just published! IStrons are a unique class of transposable elements that pack three distinct functions in one sequence. Here, we used pooled library mutagenesis and high-throughput sequencing to systematically map the sequence and structural features that govern these functions.
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Out now! In collaboration with Hiroshi Nishimasu's lab, we uncover how a dual reverse transcriptase immune system builds double-stranded DNA from both RNA and protein templates.
sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
Previous thread for the preprint:
1/9 New preprint from the Sternberg Lab in collaboration with the Nishimasu Lab! We uncover how the DRT3 antiphage immune system pairs two reverse transcriptases, one RNA-templated and one protein-templated, to build a double-stranded DNA effector. doi.org/10.64898/2026.05.04.…
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11/11 Many thanks to all authors for their collective efforts in bringing this story to life! And a special thanks to @shsternberg and @IsraelF96135088 for their mentorship and support throughout this project.
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