WELCOME TO THE LECONTE GROUP HOMEPAGE
You have reached the home page of Aaron Leconte and his research group at the Keck Science Department of The Claremont Colleges. We are interested in engineering proteins to create useful tools for medicine and biotechnology. Please see below for group news and click the links above to learn more about our lab!
If you are interested in applying for positions in our lab, please click here.
April 2024: Congrats to lab alum Whitney Lieberman (CMC '20) who received the F31 fellowship from the NIH! This award supports her ongoing Ph.D. work in Cigall Kadoch's lab at Harvard.
March 2024: We have a record number of students present at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans! Reema, Hailey, Serena, Larissa, Gabby, Ysabel, Philippa, Irene, Holly, Gabrielle, and Marcell all presented their work at the meeting.
March 2024: We published "Discovery of Red-Shifting Mutations in Firefly Luciferase Using High-Throughput Biochemistry" in the journal Biochemistry! Congrats to all nine undergraduate student co-authors, but especially to Clair, Nicole, and Marcell who co-led the study. You can read the paper here!
December 2023: We have uploaded two different papers to ChemRXiv, a preprint server! This is a place where scientists can share their work either before or during the publication process. The first, "Discovery of red-shifting mutations in firefly luciferase using a high-throughput biochemical approach" is a biochemical discovery based paper, which we have also submitted to a journal for publication. The second "Practical Tips for Intentional and Inclusive Recruiting and Hiring for Academic Research Laboratories" is a paper we've been working on in the group for awhile about how to recruit students into a research lab. We are figuring out where to send it for publication, but we thought we'd make it publicly available in the mean time!
September 2023: Aaron was invited by the students in the Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Program at University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign to give a research seminar! Thanks to lab alumni Marya Ornelas and Susanna Barrett for hosting!
July 2023: Congratulations to lab alum Ellery Koelker-Wolfe (CMC '19) who was awarded a prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Fellowship! This award supports her ongoing MD at Harvard and recognizes her excellence on the basketball court, the classroom, and the research laboratory!
May 2023: We bid a fond farewell to our graduating seniors! Nicole, Celia, Abe, Juliet, Devi, and Mitra have all impacted our lab and will be missed. We are excited to see you make an impact in new places in the months and years to come!
April 2023: Congratulations to Marcell Simon who was awarded a Cottrell Postbac Award! This award means that Marcell will be joining our group as a full-time research assistant for the coming year on the luciferase project!
January 2023: Welcome to our newest labmates, Gabrielle Kroepfl (starting Spring 2023), Helen Branson, Kaitlyn Kong, Bertha Posada Villaneuva, and Kira Sekhar (starting Fall 2023)!
January 2023: We published "Biochemical analysis leads to improved orthogonal bioluminescent tools" in ChemBioChem! In this work, we leverage biochemistry and a little luck to dramatically improve Cashew and Pecan, two luciferases used in multicomponent imaging. This highly collaborative work involved three research groups (the Prescher Group at UC-Irvine and the Mills Group at Arizona State) and seven undergraduate co-authors from the Claremont Colleges! Congrats to the whole team!
December 2022: Congrats to Celia, Nicole, and Abe on defending their theses!
September 2022: Welcome to our newest lab members: Devi, Delaney, Larissa, Gabby, Philippa, Irene, and Holly! We are excited to get to work with you all this term and beyond!
July 2022: Our latest paper is published! In this work, a team of undergraduates (Trevor, Kristi, Simone, and Mikayla) developed a new approach to make XNA synthesis more accurate. Congrats to this talented team!
June 2022: Congrats to lab alum Arianna Thompson for being awarded a scholarship from PFund! PFund supports adult queer learners from the upper Midwest in their education. Arianna will use the award to support her during medical school at UCSF. Congrats!!!!
May 2022: We bid a fond farewell to our graduating seniors! Amy (Chen Group at Yale), Synaida (Vijayanand Group at La Jolla Institute of Immunology), Hana (Church Lab at Harvard), and Tiffany H (Doheny and Stein Eye Institute of UCLA) are all headed to exciting research positions after graduating (along with Trevor Christensen, who will be at the NIH). We are so excited to see what discoveries you make at your next stops!
May 2022: Many thanks to graduating senior Amy Xue (CMC '22) for leaving our lab with the parting gift of this awesome mural (in addition to some brighter luciferases)! https://twitter.com/GroupLeconte/status/1519465248792530944
May 2022: Congrats to Tiffany H who successfully defended her thesis!
April 2022: Very proud of lab alums Marya Ornelas (currently a grad student with Angad Mehta at Illinois, received NSF GRFP Award!) and Whitney Lieberman (currently a post-bac research with Jordan Meier at NIH, headed to a PhD at Harvard in Chemical Biology in the Fall, received NSF GRFP Honorable Mention!) for being recognized by the NSF for their outstanding promise as young scientists!
March 2022: Anjali, Mikayla, Hana, Trevor, and Amy will be presenting at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego. Come pay us a visit to hear about our latest results!
January 2022: We bid a fond farewell to Trevor Christensen who graduated a semester early this winter! We welcome our lab's newest members: Nicole Oberlag (CMC '23), Celia Fritsch (SCR '23), Hailey Kang (CMC '24), and Ysabel David (SCR '25)!
December 2021: Congrats to Hana, Trevor, Synaida and Amy on successfully defending their theses!
September 2021: We are excited to welcome a new group of students to the lab! Welcome Clair (SCR '23), Juliet (PIT '23), Reema (SCR '24), and Serena (SCR '24)!
August 2021: We bid a fond farewell to Anjali and Mikayla who were able to stay for the summer after graduating and do research in the lab! Anjali will be seeking veterinary assistant positions and Mikayla will start a position at the Forfar Field Station in the Bahamas. It was great having you in lab for the summer, and we are excited to see what you both do next!
May 2021: Congrats to this year's nine member graduating class! Mikayla and Anjali will be in our lab this summer, Emma (Institute for Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Children's Hospital), Simone (NIH), and Jordan (Octant Bio) will be Research Assistants, Madison (UCSF) and Edison (UCI) will start PhDs, Arianna is a medical assistant already (she graduated in the Fall), and Ananya will be a medical scribe in the Bay Area. We are all excited to see what you do next in these exciting positions!!
April 2021: We get to come back to lab in May! Congrats to Mikayla (NSF), Anjali (NIH), Hana (Keck Grant), Amy (NIH), Trevor (NSF), Synaida (NIH), Abrahan (NSF), and Tiffany P (NIH) for securing funding!
April 2021: We are hosting our first ever open house (poster above)! If you are a first or second year student in Keck, and you are interested in research, come visit us!
April 2021: The Leconte Group is (virtually) headed to ACS! Come see our talks (Pacific times): Aaron Leconte (4/12 - 10:15a-10:30a, BIOL), Ananya Venkatesh (4/13 - 1:05p-1:17p, CHED), Arianna Thompson (4/13 - 1:17p-1:29p, CHED). Pop by and say hello!
March 2021: Congratulations to lab alums Freddy Valencia (PIT '14, received a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship) and Susanna Barrett (SCR '19, received a NSF GRFP award)!
January 2021: Welcome to new lab members Hana Burgess (SCR '22) and Tiffany Hu (CMC '22). We are excited for you to join our team!
January 2021: We bid a fond farewell to Arianna Thompson (SCR '21) who has graduated! Arianna will be pursuing medical positions before applying to medical school. We hope that she will still join for group outings while we are all remote, and we thank her for all she contributed to the lab over the past few years!
December 2020: Congratulations to Ananya, Mikayla, Madison, Arianna, Simone, and Edison on completing thesis! Both the labwork and the writing represent truly excellent work that we are proud to be associated with!
July 2020: Our recent work developing simple, robust, and accurate procedures for converting modified forms of DNA back into DNA is published in Biochemistry! (link). Congratulations to Arianna, Susanna, Aurora, Ananya, Madison, and Simone for their contributions to this work!
May 2020: Congratulations to this year's graduating seniors! Kristi (SCR '20) and Whitney (CMC '20) will both be Research Assistants at the NIH, Marya (PIT '20) will be entering a Ph.D. program at University of Illinois, and Lyndsey (CMC '20) will be pursuing medical anthropology. We are so grateful for each of these students' contributions to our group (scientifically and culturally), and we are excited to see what you do during the next phase of your career!
April 2020: Congratulations to Leconte Lab alumni getting recognized: Mira Liu (CMC '18) has been awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Elliot Warner (CMC '18) has received Honorable Mention from NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and Sydney Rosenblum (SCR '17) has been awarded with ACS Medicinal Chemistry Predoctoral Fellowship. Congratulations all!
February 2020: Welcome to Abrahan Vasquez (CMC '23) who has joined the lab!
December 2019: Welcome to our newest members: Mikayla (SCR '21), Anjali (SCR '21), Amy (CMC '22), Trevor (CMC '22), and Tiffany (SCR '23)! We are excited to have you join the Leconte Group.
September 2019: Our lab has been awarded an R15 award from the NIH for our project "High-throughput Characterization and Engineering of Brighter Luciferases"! This grant provides $363,000 over the next three years for student research opportunities, a highly sophisticated camera setup, and additional funding for our collaborators in the Prescher group at UCI. Many thanks to Marya, Jordan, and our colleagues in the Prescher group who helped with writing and submitting the proposal!
September 2019: Natalie (SCR '21) has joined the lab. Welcome to our newest member!
August 2019: Jordan and Kristi will be presenting posters at the American Chemical Society meeting in San Diego. Please come visit them and learn more about their exciting recent results!
July 2019: Edison (link) and Marya (link) have both been written about by their home colleges for their work in our lab!
June 2019: Our summer research team will be attending the first ever Chemical Biology GALA (Greater Area of Los Angeles) at USC on June 21! Aaron will be presenting our group's work on polymerases.
May 2019: We bid a fond farewell to this year's graduates! Michelle will be a consultant at Deloitte, Caitlyn will be a research assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratories, Susanna will be beginning a Ph.D. program in Chemical Biology at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Charlotte will be pursuing positions in the culinary world, and Ellery will be a research assistant in the Forman Lab at City of Hope. Best of luck all; we cannot wait to see what you do next!
April 2019: Congratulations to Marya Ornelas who has received the extremely prestigious Goldwater Award! Marya is the first student in Keck in three years to win the award! She joins Susanna Barrett (Honorable Mention) and Mira Liu (Honorable Mention) as recent Leconte Lab students recognized by Goldwater. Congratulations!
March 2019: Congratulations to Arianna (NSF), Ananya (NSF), Simone (NSF), Edison (Johnson), and Lyndsey (CMC) who have all received funding to work this summer in the lab!
January 2019: Welcome to our two newest members: Lyndsey Flanagan (CMC '20) and Synaida Maiche (CMC '22)!
November 2019: Susanna is featured in an article in The Student Life (link) talking about her passion for research and teaching.
October 2018: Marya has received a travel grant to present her work at 2018 SACNAS in San Antonio, TX!
September 2018: Simone, Ananya, Arianna, and Edison have all joined the group starting this fall! Welcome all!
August 2018: Susanna, Marya, Madison, and Aaron will be presenting at this month's American Chemical Society meeting in Boston! Please drop by and say hello!
July 2018: Our group has been awarded a CAREER grant by the National Science Foundation! This grant provides $400,000 to fund our research on engineering DNA polymerases for the next five years. Special thanks to the many students who have contributed to the polymerase project over the years!
May 2018: Aaron is promoted to Associate Professor of Chemistry with tenure. Thanks to all the Leconte group student researchers (past and present) who have contributed to our research group's amazing (and tenure-worthy) record of scholarship!
May 2018: We bid a fond farewell to our graduating seniors! Lauren Clubb (CMC '18) will begin a research assistant position at the NIH. Mira Liu (CMC '18) will be starting a Ph.D. at UC-Berkeley. Elliot Warner (CMC '18) will be starting a Ph.D. at The Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, CA). Congratulations to everyone; we look forward to hearing about your discoveries in the future!
May 2018: Elliot Warner (CMC '18) has been awarded Best Thesis in Biological Sciences at Claremont McKenna College!
April 2018: Congratulations to the many Leconte Group (past and present) getting recognized! Taia Wu (SCR '15) was awarded a prestigious NSF fellowship to support her Ph.D. work in Jason Gestwicki's lab at UCSF. Susanna Barrett (SCR '19) received 2018 Goldwater Honorable Mention. Congratulations on these deserved honors!
March 2018: Congratulations to Kristi (Keck Foundation), Kinsey (Jaquith Scholarship), Whitney (Research Corporation), Emma (Research Corporation), Jordan (Research Corporation), and Madison (Dreyfus Foundation) on securing funding for summer research in the Leconte Lab!
January 2018: Welcome to Whitney (CMC '20), Emma (SCR '21), Jordan (SCR '21), and Madison (SCR '21) who are all starting work in the lab this Spring!
December 2017: Our first article describing our work engineering luciferase has been published (link)! In the article, published in Biochemistry, we discuss the use of bioinformatics to guide luciferase engineering. Congratulations to Mira and Elliot (who started the project as first-year students and are co-first authors) and Charlotte, Caitlyn, Taia, Marya, Gaby, and our collaborators in the Prescher Group at UC - Irvine.
December 2017: Congratulations to Mira, Elliot, and Lauren who have successfully defended their theses!
October 2017: Our article (and accompanying video!) describing our methodology for studying DNA polymerases has been published (link). Congratulations to Eliza who wrote the manuscript!
September 2017: Welcome to Lauren Clubb (CMC '18), Kinsey Lee (SCR '20), and Kristi Lee (SCR '20) who are all starting in the Leconte Group this Fall!
May 2017: We bid a fond farewell to Owen Chapman (POM '17), Eliza Lewis (SCR '17), Sydney Rosenblum (SCR '17), and Aurora Weiden (SCR '17) who have all graduated. Owen will be starting a Ph.D. program at UCSD in Systems Biology, Eliza will be working as a research assistant in the Baron Lab at Mt. Sinai, Sydney will be starting a Ph.D. program at University of Michigan in Chemical Biology, and Aurora will be working as a research assistant in the Brumback Lab (UT-Austin). Every one of these students contributed substantially to our research group, both to the science and the culture of the lab, and they will be seriously missed by the whole group!
May 2017: Aurora is awarded the McClintock Award at Scripps College for Best Thesis in the Sciences!
April 2017: Congratulations to lab alumnus Freddy Valencia (Pitzer '14) who was awarded a prestigious Ford Fellowship and NIH Predoctoral Award to support his Ph.D. work in Cigall Kadoch's lab!
March 2017: Sydney, Eliza, Aurora, Owen, Charlotte, and Caitlyn all will be presenting at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco. Please stop by and see our posters/talks if you are at the meeting!
March 2017: Congratulations to Mira Liu (CMC '18) who was awarded Honorable Mention for the Goldwater Scholarship.
March 2017: Congratulations to Marya (HHMI) and Susanna (Keck Foundation) who have both received funding to do research this summer in the Leconte Lab!
January 2017: Our first manuscript describing our group's polymerase engineering efforts has been accepted for publication! In the paper (link), we describe new polymerase enzymes that can synthesize biotechnologically useful forms of chemically modified DNA. Congratulations to Sydney, Aurora, Eliza, Alexie, Hannah, Susanna, and Mira, who are all coauthors on the manuscript.
January 2017: Welcome to Marya Ornelas (Pitzer '20) who will be joining the group this Spring!
December 2016: Congratulations to Sydney and Eliza who have succesfully defended their theses!
September 2016: Welcome to Susanna Barrett (Scripps '19) who will be joining the group this Fall!
May 2016: Congratulations to Hannah and Catherine who have graduated! Hannah will begin a Ph.D. program in Chemical Biology at University of Michigan; Catherine will be pursuing positions as a data analyst.
April 2016: Lots of exciting news from alumni! Freddy Valencia (PIT '14) passed his qualifying exams and is now an official Ph.D. candidate at Harvard. Emma Hadley (SCR '14) will be starting medical school at Tufts University and Hayley Schultz (CMC '15) will be starting medical school at UCSF in Fall 2016. Taia Wu (SCR '15) will be starting a Ph.D. program at UCSF in Chemical Biology in Fall 2016.
March 2016: Congratulations to Sydney (Keck Foundation), Eliza (Keck Foundation), Ellery (Rose Hills Foundation, joint student with Prof. Sazinsky), Michelle (Gates Foundation), Caitlyn (Research Corporation), Owen (HHMI, joint student with Prof. Cavalcanti) and Charlotte (Research Corporation), who have all been awarded funding to do research in the Leconte Group this summer!
March 2016: Elliot, Mira, Taia and Aaron present at the 251st American Chemical Society Meeting in San Diego.
February 2016: Aaron has received a Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation (link)! This grant funds both research on engineering luciferases and incorporating luciferase biochemistry into IBC lab.
January 2016: Aaron will be working in the Prescher Lab at UC Irvine as a visiting scientist in Spring 2016.
January 2016: We are thrilled to welcome five new members to the group: Michelle Cao (CMC '19), Caitlyn Fick (Scripps '19), Ellery Koelker-Wolfe (CMC '19), Eliza Lewis (Scripps '17), and Charlotte Morrissey (CMC '19)!
December 2015: Congratulations to Hannah, Catherine, Jackie and Alexie who have all succesfully defended their theses. We bid a fond farewell to Alexie Ogonowsky and Jackie Kroll who have both graduated and left Claremont! Alexie will be starting her M.B.A. at Notre Dame in Fall 2016; Jackie will be preparing to apply for veterinary school.
September 2015: Our group's first manuscript (Taq DNA polymerase mutants and 2' modified sugar recognition) has been accepted for publication in the journal Biochemistry. Congratulations to Hayley, Andrea, Hannah, Alexie, Sharon, Nedim, Aurora, Emma, and Sara who all contributed to this work! (click here for link)
May 2015: Congratulations to Hayley whose thesis was awarded the 2015 'Physical Sciences Prize for Best Thesis' at Claremont McKenna College!
May 2015: Congratulations to this year's graduating class: Hayley, Constanza, Sara and Taia! Hayley will be a Research Assistant at the Breast Care Center Project at UCSF; she plans on applying to medical school. Sara will be working in consulting with Cambridge Associates. Taia will be an intern at NASA over the summer before taking a research position with Carolyn Bertozzi's lab at Stanford; she plans on applying to Ph.D. programs in Chemical Biology. Constanza will be a research assistant in the Guttman Lab at Caltech.
March 2015: Congratulations to Hannah (Research Corporation), Catherine (HHMI, collaborative with Sazinsky lab), Mira (Research Corporation), Elliot (Keck Foundation), and Aurora (Keck Foundation), who have all been awarded funding to do research in the Leconte Group this summer!
December 2014: Welcome to the newest members of the group: Catherine Chiang (Scripps '16), Mira Liu (CMC '18), Sydney Rosenblum (Scripps ’17), Elliot Warner (CMC '18), Taia Wu (Scripps '15)!
September 2014: Welcome to the newest member of the group: Aurora Weiden (Scripps ’17)!
May 2014: Congratulations to the inaugural graduating class of the Leconte group: Andrea, Emma, and Freddy! Andrea has taken a research position with Prof. Larry Grill at The Vaccine Institute at Pitzer College; she plans on applying to medical school. Emma has taken a research position with Prof. Amy Lee at USC; she plans on applying to medical school. Freddy will be starting a Ph.D. in Chemical Biology at Harvard University in the Fall.
May 2014: Andrea’s senior thesis was awarded ‘Best Thesis Prize in the Sciences’ at Pitzer College!
March 2014: Congratulations to Alexie (Keck Foundation), Constanza (Bechtel Foundation), Hayley (Rose Hills Foundation), Jackie (Rose Hills Foundation), Nedim (Gates Foundation), and Sharon (Gates Foundation), who have all been awarded funding to do research in Keck this summer!
February 2014: Aaron has been awarded a Cottrell College Science Award from the Research Corporation (click here for press release)!
January 2014: Welcome to the newest members of the Leconte group: Sharon Chiang (CMC ’17) and Nedim Filipovic (CMC ’17)! They will start research this Spring and will continue in the lab this Summer as ISS scholars.
December 2013: Congratulations to Andrea, Emma, and Freddy who successfully completed their senior theses!
September 2013: Constanza Jackson (Scripps ’15) and Jackie Kroll (CMC ’15) have joined the group and will be doing research this term!
May 2013: Aaron is co-author on a manuscript published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (click here for manuscript). The paper is an experimental examination of how history and random chance influence the evolution of new protein function. Congrats to Bryan, the lead author on the project, on a thorough and thoughtful paper!
May 2013: Aaron is featured in a radio piece about lab sounds (click here for link) by one of his former students from CHEM177 (Sarah Vitak, Scripps ’13)!
March 2013: Congratulations to Andrea (Keck Foundation), Emma (Keck Foundation), Freddy (HHMI SURP, collaborative with Sazinsky lab), and Hannah (Bechtel Foundation) who have all been awarded fellowships to do research at Keck Science this summer!
March 2013: Hayley is featured in Sports Illustrated magazine (click here for link) AND completes the group’s first successful protein prep with Andrea, all in one week!
February 2013: Aaron is co-first author on a publication in Biochemistry (click here for manuscript). The paper details the application of Phage-Assisted Continuous Evolution (PACE) to the study of protein evolution. Congratulations to all of the co-authors, who contributed to a true team effort!
February 2013: Alexie, Emma, and Hannah have joined the Leconte group and will be doing research this term!
January 2013: TriLink Biotechnologies has awarded a ResearchRewards grant to the Leconte Group!
October 2012: The Leconte group welcomes its first students! Welcome Andrea, Freddy, Hayley, and Sara!
September 2012: Aaron is a co-author on a paper recently published in Nature Chemical Biology. (click here for manuscript). The paper describes the identification and characterization of a new modified nucleotide in tRNA. A hearty congratulations to Christoph Dumelin, the lead author on the work, on a job well done!
July 2012: Aaron officially moves into our labs in the Keck Science Center!