Some pics of our awesome PhD candidate, @sophswartz.bsky.social, presenting at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory conference!

Stoked to welcome Jack Demaray to the lab! Jack is a rising second-year graduate student in the Center for Computational Biology (CCB) program

A big congratulations to our research assistant, Angela Voelker, for committing to Montana State University for graduate school!

So glad to have been a part of the Immune System of Bacteria conference along with many other great scientists 🦠
@institutpasteur.bsky.social

Our lab had a wonderful time talking science, enjoying nature, and making new friends at the Banfield lab retreat last weekend. Thanks to Jill and @banfieldlab.bsky.social for the invitation and for organizing an amazing event!

Welcome to our newest postdoc, Madeline Hayes! She is joining us from UW Madison's Microbiology Doctoral Training Program @glbioenergy.bsky.social @chucksbiscuit.bsky.social @uwmadisonmdtp.bsky.social

Part 2: The Cress lab undergrads who are all wonderful additions to our team 🦠

Part 1: The Cress lab undergrads who are all wonderful additions to our team 🦠

Our lab in action 🧫 🧬 🦠

Meet the ever-growing Cress lab!

Dr. Jaymin Patel presenting his work at the CRISPR 2025 Conference 🦠
@jayman1466.bsky.social

A fun outing with the Rubin lab!
@therubinlab.bsky.social

We’re especially excited that this genome-scale approach shines a spotlight on phage genes of unknown function that are critical for infection—effectively prioritizing genes in non-model phages to be studied as a potentially untapped treasure trove for biotechnology!

We used CRISPRi-ART to determine that divergent immunity evasion systems (rII-like elements) counteract Lambda Rex, enabling superinfection by diverse phages--highlighting CRISPRi-ART's power to probe conditionally important genes in the ongoing co-evolutionary interplay between phages & bacteria.

We developed a flexible bacteriophage functional genomics pipeline using CRISPRi-ART (CRISPR interference through Antisense RNA Targeting). Applied at genome scale, it uncovered numerous phage genes of unknown function that are crucial for infection of bacteria.

Dr. Oromí-Bosch, Dr. Patel, and Dr. Cress at the CRISPR 2025 Conference!

The undergrads of the Cress lab sitting at the kids table!

The Cress and Ronda labs (@rondalab.bsky.social) are happy to announce the addition of a new, co-mentored graduate student, Pia Andrade!

The Cress lab is excited to announce the addition of two talented Postdocs, Dr. Liana Yong and Dr. Siqi Yang!