Hi, I’m Ben!
I am an Associate Research Scholar and former EMBO Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton University where I work with Prof. Tom Muir on how cancer seizes control of gene regulation.
In 2021, I received my PhD in Chemical Biology, advised by Prof. Daniel Summerer, for developing proteins that recognize rare DNA modifications in the human genome.
ORCID · Google Scholar · GitHub · LinkedIn
Publications
Original Research
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Evolved Readers of 5‐Carboxylcytosine CpG Dyads Reveal a High Versatility of the Methyl‐CpG‐Binding Domain for Recognition of Noncanonical Epigenetic Marks.Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2024, 63(17), e202318837. doi:10.1002/anie.202318837 DOI PMID:38284298 PMID
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Epigenetic CpG duplex marks probed by an evolved DNA reader via a well-tempered conformational plasticity.Nucleic Acids Res. 2023, 51(12), 6495–6506. doi:10.1093/nar/gkad134 DOI PMID:36919612 PMID PMC10325892 PMC
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A translational repression reporter assay for the analysis of RNA-binding protein consensus sites.RNA Biol. 2023, 20(1), 85–94. doi:10.1080/15476286.2023.2192553 DOI PMID:36946649 PMID PMC10038052 PMC
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Imaging-Based In Situ Analysis of 5‑Methylcytosine at Low Repetitive Single Gene Loci with Transcription-Activator-Like Effector Probes.ACS Chem. Biol. 2023, 18(2), 230–236. doi:10.1021/acschembio.2c00857 DOI PMID:36693632 PMID PMC9942090 PMC
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A high-throughput effector screen identifies a novel small molecule scaffold for inhibition of ten-eleven translocation dioxygenase 2†.RSC Med. Chem. 2022, 13(12), 1540–1548. doi:10.1039/d2md00186a DOI PMID:36545435 PMID PMC9749932 PMC
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Evolved DNA Duplex Readers for Strand-Asymmetrically Modified 5‑Hydroxymethylcytosine/5-Methylcytosine CpG Dyads.Impact: First affinity probes enabling selective enrichment of strand-asymmetric epigenetic DNA marks from genomic DNA
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Engineered TALE Repeats for Enhanced Imaging‐Based Analysis of Cellular 5‐Methylcytosine.
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Light‐Activation of DNA‐Methyltransferases.Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2021, 60(24), 13507–13512. doi:10.1002/anie.202103945 DOI PMID:33826797 PMID PMC8251764 PMC
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Light-Activatable TET-Dioxygenases Reveal Dynamics of 5‑Methylcytosine Oxidation and Transcriptome Reorganization.JACS 2020, 142(16), 7289–7294. doi:10.1021/jacs.0c01193 DOI PMID:32286069 PMIDImpact: First temporal control of TET dioxygenase activity in mammalian cells enabling time-resolved monitoring of methylation dynamics and transcriptome reorganization
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CRISPR-Cas12a–assisted PCR tagging of mammalian genes.J. Cell Biol. 2020, 219(6), e201910210. doi:10.1083/jcb.201910210 DOI PMID:32406907 PMID PMC7265327 PMCImpact: Extended our CASTLING approach to mammalian cells with up to 60% tagging efficiency; now widely adopted for endogenous protein tagging studies
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Designer Receptors for Nucleotide‐Resolution Analysis of Genomic 5‐Methylcytosine by Cellular Imaging.Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2020, 59(23), 8927–8931. doi:10.1002/anie.202001935 DOI PMID:32167219 PMID PMC7318601 PMCImpact: First nucleotide-resolution imaging of 5mC in single cells; enabled direct correlation between epigenetic marks and transcription factor recruitment
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Complete Profiling of Methyl-CpG-Binding Domains for Combinations of Cytosine Modifications at CpG Dinucleotides Reveals Differential Read-out in Normal and Rett-Associated States.Impact: First comprehensive profiling of the human MBD protein family revealing differential recognition of oxidized CpG marks by Rett syndrome-associated MeCP2 mutations
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Pooled clone collections by multiplexed CRISPR-Cas12a-assisted gene tagging in yeast.Nat. Commun. 2019, 10(1), 2960. doi:10.1038/s41467-019-10816-7 DOI PMID:31273196 PMID PMC6609715 PMCImpact: Enabled rapid construction of multiplexed yeast libraries with >90% tagging efficiency; method adapted for mammalian gene tagging (Fueller et al. 2020, J Cell Biol) and cited in advanced Cas12a engineering studies
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Programmable Protein–DNA Cross-Linking for the Direct Capture and Quantification of 5‑Formylcytosine.JACS 2019, 141(24), 9453–9457. doi:10.1021/jacs.9b01432 DOI PMID:31180648 PMID
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Overcoming conservation in TALE–DNA interactions: a minimal repeat scaffold enables selective recognition of an oxidized 5-methylcytosine.
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Genome-wide C-SWAT library for high-throughput yeast genome tagging.Nat. Methods 2018, 15(8), 598–600. doi:10.1038/s41592-018-0045-8 DOI PMID:29988096 PMID
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Monomeric and Dimeric 68Ga-Labeled Bombesin Analogues for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Imaging of Tumors Expressing Gastrin-Releasing Peptide Receptors (GRPrs).J. Med. Chem. 2018, 61(5), 2062–2074. doi:10.1021/acs.jmedchem.7b01856 DOI PMID:29432691 PMID
Reviews, Book Chapters, Monographs
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Deciphering strand-asymmetrically modified CpG dyads in the DNA double-helix.
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DNA Modifications, Methods and Protocols.Methods in Molecular Biology 2021, 2198, 381–399. doi:10.1007/978-1-0716-0876-0_29 DOI PMID:32822046 PMID
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Programmable tools for targeted analysis of epigenetic DNA modifications.Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol. 2021, 63, 1–10. doi:10.1016/j.cbpa.2021.01.002 DOI PMID:33588304 PMID
* denotes equal contribution
ORCID: 0000-0002-4915-5949