July 23, 2025 

Our undergrads presented their work at the Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium at Notre Dame.  

Matt Politte presented his work on building the world's first RNA-based sensor for mercury. Matt's fluorescent sensors detects mercury as less than 1 part per billion and lights up only in the presence of mercury. 

Jackson Schelzig and Casey Hoffman presented their work on discovering a new class of RNA enzymes that catalyze ligation with prebiotically relevant 'phosphorimidazolide' RNA substrates. These new enzymes ligate RNA substrates without external templates, and enable sequential ligations up to 3 substrate additions, indicating the processive nature of these artificially-evolved enzymes. One of these enzymes work without Mg2+ ! 

July 10, 2025 

The first research article from the lab is online! Annyesha created the most sensitive lead sensor using the RNA Mango aptamer, where the sensor glows green when it detects lead, and only lead. Read the story here.

July 9, 2025 

Thanks to ⁦Notre Dame Global for sponsoring Saurja's Sci-Art collaboration with Argha Manna over summer. Read the story here.

July 4, 2025 

Happy 4th of July from DasGupta Lab! We’re lighting up the sky with RNA fireworks and G-quartet fireflies.

June 13, 2025 

Summer is here at the DasGuptaLab. The RNA is chilling, but the RNA Biochemists are hard at work!

June 6, 2025 

Two graphic novels: 'Drawing the RNA World' and 'Cradles of Life' were launched at the Argha and Saurja's exhibition - 'A Pilgrimmage to Life's Beginning'. These are abridged versions of the book chapters in our graphoc novel of the origins of life, tentaively titled - 'How was Life born?'

June 6, 2025 

Argha and Saurja's first collaborative science-art exhibition - 'A Pilgrimmage to Life's Beginning' was launched at Notre Dame's Jordan Hall of Science. The exhibition explored different facets of origins of life research using two graphic novels: 'Drawing the RNA World' and 'Cradles of Life'. 

June 5-6, 2025 

Saurja hosted a Science Comics Workshop led by ND Global Guest Artist Argha Manna, where ~20 participants from 6 different departments/graduate programs, including 6 members of the DasGupta Lab, reimagined how to 'talk' science through art.

June 5, 2025 

The Lab Summer Dinner. We said bye to ⁦Notre Dame Global Guest Artist and our collaborator ⁦Argha Manna, who came all the way from India to spend a month on campus..

June 3, 2025 

Saurja joined Argha Manna (IIT Gandhinagar, ND Global Guest Artist) and Dan Goods (Visual Strategist at NASA JPL) for a panel at Caltech on the role of Art and Design in Science Communication.

May 31, 2025 

Annyesha presented her poster on the directed evolution of ligase ribozymes at her first RNA Society Meeting, which garnered lots of interest and intrigue. 

May 31, 2025 

Argha and Saurja's poster on the RNA World was possibly the first comics poster in the 30 years of the Annual RNA Society Meeting . This poster explored how thoughts related to RNA's roles in the origin of life evolved across decades and led to our current understanding of the RNA World.

May 20, 2025 

Saurja gave a public lecture at the international Pint of Science festival titled - 'How to create life from scratch'. 

May 16, 2025 

Saurja joined Argha Manna, who is the Artist-In-Residence at IIT Gandhinagar, India and the Notre Dame Global Guest Artist for 2025, and Theoretical Particle Physicist, Dr. Seth Koren for CHATS - "Culture, Humanities, and the Arts Through Science" Panel discussion at Culture Cafe in Merriman's Playhouse in Downtown South Bend. This edition of CHATS, called 'Illustrating the Origins of Life', dealt with scientific investigations into the origins of life and how Saurja and Argha are collaborating on a comic book to understand this monumental event. 

May 16, 2025 

Congrats to Postdoc Annyesha Biswas for receiving the Scientific Society of Astrobiology Travel Award to present her research on new ligase ribozymes at RNA 2025 in San Diego.

May 8, 2025 

The lab welcomes the summer with RNA-themed art. One molecule to rule them all!

April 15, 2025 

Congrats to undergrads Matt Politte for receiving the Baten Family Summer Support Award from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.  This award will support Matt's research on developing the first RNA-based fluorescent sensors for mercury.

April 2, 2025 

The lab welcomes the stormy weather with artistic fervor (the clouds look so happy and have names!)

March 31, 2025 

Congrats to undergrads Matt, Casey, and Jackson for receiving the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) from the College of Science. Matt will continue his work on developing RNA-based sensors for mercury detection and Casey and Jackson will characterize RNA enzymes that join RNA pieces together without external templates. Exciting times!

March 20, 2025 

Saurja gave a seminar talk at the Department of Medicinal and Biological Chemistry, University of Toledo. He shared the lab's research into the evolution of novel ribozyme-catalyzed RNA ligation reactions

February 26, 2025 

Dr. Annyesha Biswas was awarded the prestigious RNA Society Presentation Fellowship to present her research on the discovery of new ribozyme-catalyzed RNA ligation reactions at the 30th Annual Meeting of the RNA Society.

February 19, 2025 

Our postdoc extraordinaire, Dr. Annyesha Biswas was spotlighted by Notre Dame Science. Read what she has to say about her research here.

February 14, 2025 

Our postdoc, Dr. Annyesha Biswas won the Bioengineering and Life Sciences Supplemental Professional Development Award. Read mote about the award here.

February 14, 2025 

Love is a 4-letter word here in our lab. The letters are A, U, G, and C. Happy Valentine's Day!

January 14, 2025 

The lab got its second award from Notre Dame Global ! With the South Asia Research Development Grant, we will collaborate with Computational Biophysicist Anand Srivastava (Indian Institute of Science, India) to investigate how interactions between RNA and lipids could have led to the origin of cellular life.

January 03, 2025 

Saurja was the inaugural speaker at the Curiosity Collaboratory Lecture Series hosted by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar. He spoke about how human thought about life's origins has evolved across millennia and how scientists today are trying to crack the problem of the origins of life.

January 01, 2025 

Wishing you a Happy New Year from the DasGupta Lab. We are excited about what 2025 will bring.

We also welcome Natalie Kotlin as the second PhD student of lab. All the best, Natalie - we are cheering for you.

December 27, 2024 

Saurja was an invited speaker at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, one of the oldest research institutes in India. He shared the lab's research toward reconstructing RNA-based life and recent discoveries of novel ligase ribozyme reactivities.

December 25, 2024 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the DasGupta Lab.

December 13, 2024 

Another feather in the cap for our postdoc extraordinaire, Dr. Annyesha Biswas! Annyesha was selected to present her research on discovering new ligase ribozymes at the College of Science and Engineering Research Horizons Symposium at Notre Dame. She gave a fantastic talk and won the best poster award to boot!

December 6-7, 2024 

Saurja attended the second 'Organs and Origins' Conference titled: "In the Beginning: Life, the Universe, and Everything"

Saurja was awarded a faculty fellowship funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Read more about the conference here. 

November 19, 2024 

Saurja was an invited speaker at the Michiana Science Cafe (at Chicory Cafe in Downtown South Bend) organized by the Science Policy Initiative. Saurja spoke about how scientists are trying to solve the mysteries of the origin of life and how humans have grappled with this question since the very beginning. 

November 28, 2024 

A very happy Thanksgiving from the DasGupta Lab! Thanks to Taylor for the artwork

October 31, 2024 

The lab celebrates our first Lab-o-Ween! Thanks to our resident artist Taylor for starting this wonderful artistic tradition. 

October 28, 2024 

We welcome Casey Hoffman as an undergraduate researcher in the lab. Casey will join Jackson on the characterization of newly-discovered ligase ribozymes. 

October 26, 2024 

Saurja and Annyesha represented the DasGupta lab at the Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference (MECC).

Saurja presented a talk and Annyesha presented a poster.

October 28, 2024 

Fisrt year graduate student Brandon Matos (Organic) starts his rotation in the lab. All the best, Brandon!

October 24, 2024 

Saurja was a guest speaker at Notre Dame's Biophysics Graduate Retreat. He shared the lab's research on recreating RNA-based biochemistry and recent discoveries of novel ligase ribozyme reactivities.

October 11, 2024 

Taylor passed her Oral Candidacy Exam. 

She has swiftly entered her 'Ph.D. Candidate' Era.  

Onwards and Upwards!

October 5, 2024 

Saurja was a panelist in a Science Writing Panel at STEMPeers-Chicago. Saurja represented Club SciWri, a popular science publication. Please reach out to Saurja if you want to know more about the DasGupta Lab's science communication initiatives.

September 25, 2024 

Taylor was a guest speaker at her alma mater - Davenport University, where she shared her love for scientific research and the various academic opportunities available after graduating from college with the students of the Biological Laboratory Science (BLS) program.  

Keep inspiring the next generation, Taylor! Read the full story here.

September 19, 2024 

Congrats to Annyesha on winning Third Place at Notre Dame's Post Doc Lightning Talk Competition! 

Her presentation was entitled: 'Get the Lead Out – Seeing Lead with RNA Sensors'.  Thanks to Annyesha for getting the lab our very first award.

September 14, 2024 

Our lab's research on the Origins of Life was spotlighted in 'Scientia' - Notre Dame's Undergraduate Journal of Scientific Research. Read the story on Page 19 of the Spring edition of Scientia here.

September 13, 2024 

New paper! This paper demonstrates that an RNA enzyme that catalyzes RNA ligation with prebiotically relevant RNA substrates can evolve an entirely new structure to catalyze RNA ligation with RNA substrates activated with the biological triphosphate group. This transition foreshadows the emergence of protein-based enzymes that make RNA using triphosphate building blocks (NTPs). Read the paper here. 

September 12, 2024 

The lab got its first award! With support from the Notre Dame Global Asia Artist Partnership Program, we will work with graphic artist Argha Manna (IIT Gandhinagar, India) to create a first-of-it's kind comic book on the Origins of Life. 

September 2, 2024 

The lab welcomes first-year graduate students Naomi Ross (Biophysics) and Natalie Kotlin (Organic Chemistry) as the first rotation students of this academic year. We also welcome Biochemistry major, Jackson Schelzig as an undergraduate researcher in the lab. Jackson will work on the characterization of newly-discovered ligase ribozymes. 

All the best!

August 26, 2024 

The lab's first review article is published in WIREs RNA!

"Synthetic antibodies for accelerated RNA crystallography." See here.

July 9, 2024 

We had our first group meeting, where postdoc Annyesha presented her PhD research and recent results in our lab. 

We hope this is the start of something great!

June 10-14, 2024 

Taylor attended AbGradCon (the largest Astrobiology conference for students) at Cornell. She presented a poster on her work on the importance of bifunctional RNA enzymes on primordial enzyme evolution.

The first of many for Taylor!

June 7, 2024 

We had our Lab Warming party. 

Great job, Taylor, for putting everything together!

June, 2024 

High schoolers Areej Arif, Ishita Aswasthi, and Jenny Yang join the lab for a month-long summer internship. They will be developing heavy-metal sensors using RNA aptamers

May 13-14, 2024 

Saurja was an invited speaker at the University of Notre Dame Annual Biochemistry/IBMS retreat. 

His talk was entitled "How to create life...from scratch"

April 26, 2024 

The lab welcomes undergraduate students Matthew Politte (Organic Chemistry major) and Andrew Baranko (Biochemistry major). 

Matt and Drew will develop RNA aptamer-based biosensors.

April 5-6, 2024 

Taylor and Saurja attended the inaugural 'Organs and Origins' Conference titled: "What is an Organ?"  

Taylor and Saurja were awarded fellowships funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Read more about the conference here. 

March 19, 2024 

Our collaborative paper was published in PNAS Nexus. 

In this paper, we explored environments that would have been conducive to the emergence of cellular life on the Earth. We showed that natural soda lake water could provide a suitable environment for three processes likely important for the origin of cellular life: nonenzymatic RNA polymerization, ribozyme activity, and encapsulation by prebiotic membranes. Read the paper here. 

March 18, 2024 

Taylor Opolka joins the lab as its first graduate student. 

Taylor joined us from Davenport University, where she was a star basketball player. 

She will investigate the molecular principles underlying RNA evolution. Welcome to the RNA World, Taylor!

December 8, 2023 

Saurja was an invited speaker at the Molecular Biophysics Unit (MBU) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). He spoke about his efforts to create RNA-based life in the lab.

December 2, 2023 

The DasGupta Laboratory Charter is ready. 

Take a look here.

November 3, 2023 

Saurja is profiled by Notre Dame Science. 

Read the interview here.

September 14, 2023 

Saurja spoke at the 1st NYC RNA Symposium at The Rockefeller University. 

The title of his talk was: "Primordial RNA assembly: Chemistry, Catalysis, and Compartmentalization."

August 3, 2023 

New paper out in ACS Central Science ! 

Read the paper here. 

We establish molecular crowding as a general mechanism to allow RNA enzymes to function at low concentrations of Mg ions.

Read a companion review on 'molecular crowding and RNA catalysis' here.

August 2, 2023 

Saurja spoke at Origins 2023. 

The title of his talk was: "Primordial RNA assembly: Chemistry, Catalysis, and Compartmentalization."

June 30, 2023 

New paper out in Chemistry - A European Journal ! 

Read the paper here. 

We establish the first instance of RNA-catalyzed RNA assembly within prebiotically relevant fatty acid protocells.

June 29, 2023 

Zoe Weiss, Saurja's undergraduate mentee at Harvard, shares her research experience in Science. It is one of the top personal essays published in Science this year. See here. Read her story here. Read Harvard's profile of Zoe here. Read Zoe and Saurja's paper here. 

Zoe is currently a post-baccalaureate researcher in Dr. Francis Collins' lab at NIH.