Aaron Leconte received an R15 award from the National Institutes of Health. The grant supports his research group’s ongoing work characterizing and engineering firefly luciferase as a tool for imaging cells. The award provides $503,298 of support over three years to support student salaries, instrumentation, and materials.
R15 Award (National Institutes of Health), “High-throughput engineering and characterization of brighter luciferases”, Principal Investigator, $503,298 (2025-2028)
Link: https://reporter.nih.gov/search/l-SFCiE4SEWfQo_fF1qDqg/project-details/11116660
Aaron Leconte published “Enzymatic synthesis of mixed XNA polymers containing 2′ fluoro and 2′ azide modifications” in ACS Omega. This article is part of a special issue in ACS Omega highlighting research done at primarily undergraduate institutions. In this work, the authors show new, robust methods for making new chemical classes of biotechnologically useful versions of modified DNA using enzymes developed in the Leconte lab. Three undergraduate students, Hailey Kang (CMC ’24), Ananya Venkatesh (SCR ’21), and Serena Liu (SCR ’24), were co-authors on the manuscript and made significant contributions to this work.
*indicates equal contribution; underline indicates Claremont Colleges undergraduate
H.E. Kang*, A. Venkatesh*, S.C. Liu, and A.M. Leconte (2025). Enzymatic synthesis of mixed XNA polymers containing 2’-fluoro and 2’-azide modifications, ACS Omega.
Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsomega.5c07370