Dr. Lauer received her B.S. in Biology from Rider University, where she took a class on mesozoic ruling reptiles (dinosaurs!) that ignited her passion for research. Quickly realizing she didn’t have a talent for fieldwork, she chose to study the budding yeast instead and completed her Ph.D. in Biology at New York University in 2019. Afterwards, she continued teaching at NYU while performing postdoctoral research in the field of synthetic biology at NYU Langone. Dr. Lauer’s research focuses on spontaneous and programmed genome rearrangements, where she uses cutting-edge techniques like CRISPR to perform genetic engineering. Under her guidance, STAC students have initiated projects to study biofuel production and the extracellular matrix of cancer cells. Dr. Lauer hopes to bring experimental evolution (her favorite research technique) to STAC in the near future.
Highlighted Publications
Lauer S, Luo J, Lazar-Stefanita L, Zhang W, McCulloch LH, Fanfani V, Lobzaev E, Haase MAB, Easo N, Zhao Y, Yu F, Cai J; Build-A-Genome Class; Bader JS, Stracquadanio G, Boeke JD. Context-dependent neocentromere activity in synthetic yeast chromosome VIII. Cell Genom. 2023 Nov 9;3(11):100437.doi: 10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100437. PMID: 38020969; PMCID: PMC10667555.
Zhao Y, Coelho C, Lauer S, Majewski M, Laurent JM, Brosh R, Boeke JD. CREEPY: CRISPR-mediated editing of synthetic episomes in yeast. Nucleic Acids Res. 2023 Jul 21;51(13):e72.doi: 10.1093/nar/gkad491. PMID: 37326023; PMCID: PMC10359617.
Lauer S, Gresham D. An evolving view of copy number variants. Curr Genet. 2019 Dec;65(6):1287-1295.doi: 10.1007/s00294-019-00980-0. Epub 2019 May 10. PMID: 31076843.
Lauer S, Avecilla G, Spealman P, Sethia G, Brandt N, et al. (2018) Single-cell copy number variant detection reveals the dynamics and diversity of adaptation. PLOS Biology 16(12): e3000069. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000069
Other Publications
Zhao Y, Coelho C, Hughes AL, Lazar-Stefanita L, Yang S, Brooks AN, Walker RSK, Zhang W, Lauer S, Hernandez C, Cai J, Mitchell LA, Agmon N, Shen Y, Sall J, Fanfani V, Jalan A, Rivera J, Liang FX, Bader JS, Stracquadanio G, Steinmetz LM, Cai Y, Boeke JD. Debugging and consolidating multiple synthetic chromosomes reveals combinatorial genetic interactions. Cell. 2023 Nov 22;186(24):5220-5236.e16.doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.09.025. Epub 2023 Nov 8. PMID: 37944511.
Zhang W, Lazar-Stefanita L, Yamashita H, Shen MJ, Mitchell LA, Kurasawa H, Lobzaev E, Fanfani V, Haase MAB, Sun X, Jiang Q, Goldberg GW, Ichikawa DM, Lauer SL, McCulloch LH, Easo N, Lin SJ, Camellato BR, Zhu Y, Cai J, Xu Z, Zhao Y, Sacasa M; Build-A-Genome Class; Noyes MB, Bader JS, Deutsch S, Stracquadanio G, Aizawa Y, Dai J, Boeke JD. Manipulating the 3D organization of the largest synthetic yeast chromosome. Mol Cell. 2023 Dec 7;83(23):4424-4437.e5.doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2023.10.015. Epub 2023 Nov 8. PMID: 37944526.
Blount BA, Lu X, Driessen MRM, Jovicevic D, Sanchez MI, Ciurkot K, Zhao Y, Lauer S, McKiernan RM, Gowers GF, Sweeney F, Fanfani V, Lobzaev E, Palacios-Flores K, Walker RSK, Hesketh A, Cai J, Oliver SG, Cai Y, Stracquadanio G, Mitchell LA, Bader JS, Boeke JD, Ellis T. Synthetic yeast chromosome XI design provides a testbed for the study of extrachromosomal circular DNA dynamics. Cell Genom. 2023 Nov 9;3(11):100418.doi: 10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100418. PMID: 38020971; PMCID: PMC10667340.
Luo J, Vale-Silva LA, Raghavan AR, Mercy G, Heldrich J, Sun X, Li MK, Zhang W, Agmon N, Yang K, Cai J, Stracquadanio G, Thierry A, Zhao Y, Coelho C, McCulloch LH, Lauer S; Build-A-Genome Class; Kaback DB, Bader JS, Mitchell LA, Mozziconacci J, Koszul R, Hochwagen A, Boeke JD. Synthetic chromosome fusion: Effects on mitotic and meiotic genome structure and function. Cell Genom. 2023 Nov 9;3(11):100439.doi: 10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100439. PMID: 38020967; PMCID: PMC10667551.
General Biology, Biochemistry, and Genetics