Clay Wright
rclaywright.bsky.social
Clay Wright
@rclaywright.bsky.social
Synthetic biology in plants and fungi. Ag biotech, sustainability, bioeconomy. Plant hormones, lab automation, protein engineering. Crafting biology with the Biowright lab at Virginia Tech: https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/wrightlab
Reposted by Clay Wright
We're hiring! Need a microscopy wizard to help build the world’s first synthetic plant chromosome! Bring your lights, lasers, & lens-craft to characterise new artificial chromosomes. Join our ARIA-funded project at UWA in Perth & ‪@plants4space.bsky.social‬. Apply: bit.ly/3GKSRSA
July 16, 2025 at 2:29 AM
Reposted by Clay Wright
Some of my postdoc work has been "exposed" today in @theplantjournal.bsky.social! 😁🎉🔬 We developed ExPOSE - a method to perform expansion microscopy in plant protoplast systems. Here's a quick🧵of the details: @meter76.bsky.social @lily-oconnor.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
ExPOSE: a comprehensive toolkit to perform expansion microscopy in plant protoplast systems
This method provides a robust approach for performing expansion microscopy in plant protoplasts for imaging single-cell and subcellular compartments at greatly enhanced resolution.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
March 7, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by Clay Wright
Another assault on US competitiveness at a time when biomedicine is roaring with innovation, an own-goal in a high-stakes international tournament. Of course the real losers are American people needing medicines and cures.

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...
NIH cuts billions of dollars in biomedical funding, effective immediately
The move halts a large slice of money for most universities and research institutions virtually overnight, imperiling vital research in everything from cancer to heart disease.
www.washingtonpost.com
February 8, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Reposted by Clay Wright
'Before there was arXiv, there was Joanne Cohn (...) She started an informal exchange of string theory manuscripts that eventually became the arXiv preprint server, which has since revolutionized the way scientists share ideas and announce findings.'

pubs.aip.org/physicstoday...
Joanne Cohn and the email list that led to arXiv
A strong sense of community led an early-career string theorist to share preprints in a scientifically competitive environment.
pubs.aip.org
December 25, 2024 at 10:38 PM
Reposted by Clay Wright
Last update of our databases for the year.

Download them here:

493 early-career funding opportunities: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

313 postdoc fellowships: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

189 PhD fellowships: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...
December 14, 2024 at 6:28 PM
Reposted by Clay Wright
Excited to share our recent study is out at the Journal of Cell Biology! @jcellbiol.bsky.social, LisH domains are short but powerful domains in priming transcription by corepressors: doi.org/10.1083/jcb..... Very proud of our NemLab team!!
A function of TPL/TBL1-type corepressors is to nucleate the assembly of the preinitiation complex
Corepressors in the TPL/TBL1-type family prime genes for rapid activation by facilitating assembly of the transcription preinitation complex, including TFI
doi.org
December 10, 2024 at 10:16 PM
Reposted by Clay Wright
We're looking for a predoc in molecular evolution. Basic computational skills desired. Minimum 1 year. Send me DM.

Wanna know what a predoc is? Check👇 medium.com/age-of-aware...
Do a predoc, young people
What’s the rush in starting a PhD? Why don’t you instead do a predoc before committing to doctoral studies.
medium.com
December 9, 2024 at 10:48 AM
Reposted by Clay Wright
On to Part 2 of the Synthetic Biology (SynBio) starter pack.

Part 1: bsky.app/starter-pack...
Part 2: bsky.app/starter-pack...

Reply or DM to add/nominate.
November 23, 2024 at 4:31 PM
Reposted by Clay Wright
A really nice application of pre-trained PLMs and supervised modeling for efficient directed evolution - a few different protein types too!

preprint version as well: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Rapid in silico directed evolution by a protein language model with EVOLVEpro
Directed protein evolution is central to biomedical applications but faces challenges like experimental complexity, inefficient multi-property optimization, and local maxima traps. While in silico met...
www.science.org
November 22, 2024 at 5:34 PM