Zhang lab @ MIT & Broad

Biological Discovery & Engineering

Image credit to Allison Colorado (2024)

We explore and study biological diversity to understand nature and discover systems and processes that may be harnessed through bioengineering for the improvement of human well-being.

Recent Highlights

TIGR-Tas: A family of modular RNA-guided DNA-targeting systems

February 27, 2025

Faure, Saito, Wilkinson et al. discover a new family of RNA-guided systems, called TIGR-Tas. Tas proteins use a unique tandem guide to recognize target DNA. Read more in Science.

Evolution-guided protein design of IscB for persistent epigenome editing in vivo

May 7, 2025

Kannan, Altae-Tran, Zhu, et al. combined evolution- and structure-guided engineering to generate NovaIscB, a compact OMEGA editor and adapt it for gene repression. Read more in Nature Biotechnology.

Reprogrammable RNA-targeting CRISPR systems evolved from RNA toxin-antitoxins

February 18, 2025

Zilberzwige-Tal, Altae-Tran, et al. trace the evolutionary origins of Cas13 to AbiF, a toxin with a non-coding RNA anti-toxin. Read more in Cell.