AUGUST 2026
Our paper on the mechanical caging of DNA has been published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. In this work, we leveraged the torsional work generated by a light-driven synthetic molecular motor to impose conformational constraints on single-stranded DNA, resulting in the reversible deactivation of DNA function—a strategy we term “mechanical caging.” Congratulations to everyone involved, and special thanks to Prof. Darrin York’s group for the beautiful computational studies that helped us gain a deeper mechanistic understanding of the system!
JULY 2026
We welcome Bree Zavala to the group as a visiting high school student supported by the ACS Project SEED program!
JUNE 2026
We welcome Brayan Portillo from Mercer County Community College! Brayan will be conducting honors research with us this summer.
We went on a group hike at Hemlock Falls and took a new group photo. It was a lot of fun!
MAY 2026
Jon successfully defended his honors research thesis and graduated as an Honors College Scholar with Distinction. Congratulations, Jon! We wish you all the best in your future endeavors!
APRIL 2026
Cole gave a wonderful presentation at Mercer on his honors research in our group!
FEBRUARY 2026
We welcome Cole Maxwell from Mercer County Community College! Cole will be conducting his honors research with us this semester.
JANUARY 2026
Congratulations to Yuchen for receiving the Van Dyke Award and to Shaozheng for receiving the Reid Award. Well deserved!
DECEMBER 2025
We welcome Ian Kish as he officially joins the group as a PhD student.
NOVEMBER 2025
Jada has successfully passed the CARL exam. Congratulations to her!
Our paper on polymer self-deconstruction has been published in Nature Chemistry. In this work, we were inspired by the sophisticated self-degradation mechanisms of biomacromolecules and successfully applied a similar principle to enhance the sustainability of synthetic polymers: using conformationally preorganized neighboring groups to facilitate self-deconstruction with full control over the polymer deconstruction rate. Congratulations to everyone involved, especially Prof. Lu Wang for the beautiful computational studies that helped us gain a deeper mechanistic understanding! Click here to read a highlight of the work by Rutgers News.
OCTOBER 2025
We welcome two first-year students to the group as rotation students: Frank Furtado and Ian Kish.
SEPTEMBER 2025
We welcome two first-year students to the group as rotation students: Daniel Hirsch and Paul Radice.
Our paper on nucleic-acid–inspired polymers has been published in the European Polymer Journal. In this Perspective Article, we summarize recent progress in synthetic polymer systems inspired by nucleic acids, with the goal of providing a unified view of several traditionally siloed domains. Congratulations to Yuchen for leading this work!
AUGUST 2025
Foysal and Tino have completed their summer research with us. It was a pleasure having them in the lab, and we are proud of the impressive poster presentation they delivered at the ACS Project SEED Symposium. Wishing you both all the best in your future endeavors!
JULY 2025
Veby has completed her summer research with us on the DNA aptamer project. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors, Veby!
JUNE 2025
We welcome Foysal Sorwar and Constantino Matos to the group as visiting high school students supported by the ACS Project SEED Program!
MAY 2025
Congratulations to Shaozheng for passing his IFRP exam and officially becoming a doctoral candidate!
We welcome Veby Youssef to the group as a summer undergraduate researcher from RISE (Research Intensive Summer Experience) at Rutgers Program. Veby is visiting us from Presbyterian College, and will spend two months with us. We look forward to working with you, Veby!
APRIL 2025
Congratulations to Zeynep for passing her IFRP exam and officially becoming a doctoral candidate! Keep up the great work, Zeynep!
The first publication from the Gu Lab is officially out in Nature Communications! In this work, we achieved controlled and orthogonal transport of large cargo into protein condensates via affinity interactions. Congratulations to everyone who contributed to the project! Special thanks to the Schuster Lab and the Dignon Lab in the CBE Department for a wonderful collaboration.
Yuwei, Jon, Jada, Yuchen, and Zeynep participated in Rutgers Day by performing a series of chemistry demonstrations that showcased the magic of molecules all around us. It was a lot of fun sharing our passion for chemistry with the local community!
MARCH 2025
We are excited to welcome Yuwei’s PhD advisor, Prof. Jeremiah Johnson from MIT, to our department for a Robert A. Moss Lecture!
JANUARY 2025
Yuwei hosted Prof. Jia Niu from Boston College as a speaker in the CCB Colloquium. Thank you for visiting us and delivering a wonderful talk, Jia!
DECEMBER 2024
Zeynep has successfully passed the CARL exam. Congratulations to her!
We welcome Jada Sampson as she officially joins the group as a PhD student. We are also excited to have Shaozheng stay on as a PhD student after completing his master’s studies with us. We can’t wait to see the amazing things you both will accomplish in the group!
NOVEMBER 2024
Subhajit and Shaozheng have successfully passed the CARL exam. Congratulations to both of them!
Yuwei received the ACS Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Award. We thank the ACS PRF for supporting our work on the biomimetic degradation of petroleum-derived thermosets.
OCTOBER 2024
We welcome first-year student Qiming Wu to the group as a rotation student!
SEPTEMBER 2024
We welcome first-year student Jada Sampson to the group as a rotation student!
Zeynep attended Rutgers-Princeton Biomolecular Condensates Day and gave an excellent poster prensentation on her project.
AUGUST 2024
Yuwei attended the ACS Fall Meeting and gave an invited talk on the biomimetic polymer degradation project. It was great to see old friends and meet new ones in Denver!
We took our first group photo in front of the CCB Building!
JULY 2024
Cameron completed her summer research with us on the DNA–motor project. It was a pleasure having her in the lab, and we are proud of the impressive poster and presentation she delivered at the RISE Symposium. Wishing you all the best in your future endeavors, Cameron!
JUNE 2024
We welcome Cameron McGovern to the group as a summer undergraduate researcher from RISE (Research Intensive Summer Experience) at Rutgers Program. Cameron is visiting us from The College of New Jersey, and will spend two months with us. We look forward to working with you, Cameron!
MAY 2024
We have our new Labconco lyophilizer installed—this marks the last major piece of equipment for the group. The lab is now fully set up!
APRIL 2024
Congratulations to Yuchen for passing her in-field research proposal exam and officially becoming a doctoral candidate! Keep up the great work, Yuchen!
MARCH 2024
We have installed a digitally-controlled low-temperature reaction bath. There is no need to use dry ice baths for low-temperature reactions anymore!
FEBRUARY 2024
We welcome two Rutgers undergraduate students to the group: Yuhan Hu and Jonathan Mendes. We look forward to exploring the beauty of chemistry with you, Yuhan and Jon!
JANUARY 2024
We welcome two first-year graduate students who have officially joined the group as PhD students. Welcome aboard, Subhajit and Zeynep! We can’t wait to see the amazing things you will do in the group!
DECEMBER 2023
We concluded 2023 with our last group meeting of the year. Thanks to everyone’s efforts throughout 2023, the Gu Lab has been well set up and is running smoothly. We hope that 2024 will be a fruitful year and cannot wait to share some of the interesting chemistry we have been working on soon!
NOVEMBER 2023
Yuchen has successfully passed her CARL (Critical Analysis of Research Literature) Exam. Congratulations to her on achieving the first milestone in her PhD studies. We are all very proud of you, Yuchen!
OCTOBER 2023
We welcome two first-year students to the group as rotation students: Jinying Wang and Sheng Zhu.
SEPTEMBER 2023
We welcome three first-year students to the group as rotation students: Subhajit Nandi, Zeynep Yaslan, Boyuan Huang.
Ruihao has completed his summer research with us. Although he was only here for two months, Ruihao taught us a great deal of interesting chemistry. We wish you the best of luck back at Tsinghua, Ruihao!
AUGUST 2023
We welcome Ruihao Zhou to the group as a visiting undergraduate researcher. Ruihao is visiting us from Tsinghua University and will spend two months with us developing bio-inspired solutions for polymer degradation. We look forward to having you in the group, Ruihao!
Dr. Jinxing Li joined the group as a postdoctoral researcher. Jinxing conducted his PhD studies with Prof. Mingjun Huang at South China University of Technology, focusing on liquid-crystalline polymers. He will be exploring bio-inspired polymer design in our group. Welcome aboard, Jinxing!
JULY 2023
Thong completed his summer research with us on a synthesis project. We had a great time with Thong and are very proud of the impressive poster and presentation he gave at the RISE Symposium. Best of luck with your future endeavors, Thong!
JUNE 2023
We welcome Thong Pham to the group as a summer undergraduate researcher from RISE (Research Intensive Summer Experience) at Rutgers Program. Thong is visiting us from the University of Maryland, College Park, and will spend two months with us. We look forward to working with you, Thong!
We have our MBRAUN Glovebox installed. It is so big that we had to take off one of our floor-to-ceiling windows to let it in!
MAY 2023
We have our Shimadzu Semi-Preparative HPLC and K&A DNA Synthesizer installed. Time to make some oligos!
APRIL 2023
We installed our first Schlenk line in the lab. Check out the picture below of Yuwei setting up the inaugural reaction of the group (the reaction worked, of course)!
MARCH 2023
We have our GPC-MALS and CombiFlash Flash Chromatography installed. Time to start making some molecules!
FEBRUARY 2023
First-year graduate student Yuchen Ma officially joined the group. Welcome on board, Yuchen!
We welcome Master’s student Shaozheng Yin to the group as he begins his master’s research with us.
JANUARY 2023
We welcome first-year graduate student Yuchen Ma to the group as a rotation student!
The Gu Lab is officially open on the third floor of the CCB building on the Busch Campus. We are grateful for the generous support and warm welcome from CCB Department at Rutgers and excited about starting an adventurous journey in macromolecular science (broadly defined). We welcome interested students and researchers to join us!
