Faculty Directory
Julius Lucks

Education

Miller Fellow Postdoctoral Associate, University of California, Berkeley, CA

Ph.D., Chemical Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

M.S., Chemical Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

M.Phil., Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

B.S., Chemistry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC


Biography

Julius B. Lucks is Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Co-Director of the Center for Synthetic Biology at Northwestern University. Lucks received his PhD in chemical physics from Harvard University as a Hertz Fellow, and transitioned to synthetic biology as a Miller Fellow at UC Berkeley. He is a leader in RNA research and synthetic biology, focusing on developing technologies that tackle global challenges, most recently in the area of global water insecurity. Professor Lucks has been recognized with a number of awards including a DARPA Young Faculty Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, an ONR Young Investigator Award, an NIH New Innovator Award, an NSF CAREER award, the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award, a Camille-Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award, a finalist for the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, named to the college of fellows in the American Institute of Medical and Biomedical Engineers, a Guggenheim Fellowship in biology, and most named a AAAS Fellow. He also leads the first NSF graduate training program in synthetic biology, is a founding member of the Engineering Biology Research Consortium, and co-founded the Cold Spring Harbor Synthetic Biology Summer Course. He is a co-founder of Stemloop, Inc. which aims to use cell free biosensing technology to empower people with information about the health of themselves and their environment. For more on the Lucks Lab see https://luckslab.org/, and for more on the Northwestern Center for Synthetic Biology see https://syntheticbiology.northwestern.edu/.

 

Research Interests

RNA Engineering, RNA Folding and Function, Gene Expression Control, Cell-Free Synthetic Biology, Diagnostics

The Lucks Group aims to understand and harness the ability of RNA molecules to control cellular processes for an array of applications in biomanufacturing, diagnostics and disease. Our focus is on making RNA a powerful molecular substrate for engineering gene expression by leveraging its functional versatility, our ability to control its function by designing its structure, and our ability to characterize its biochemistry and biophysics in unprecedented throughput and scale with next generation sequencing tools that we have pioneered. Specifically, we: (1) Engineer new RNA regulatory mechanisms and build RNA genetic networks to precisely program gene expression in applications that range from metabolic engineering to smart diagnostics; and (2) Develop new technologies to uncover RNA sequence/structure/function relationships that feed back into our RNA engineering. We also use our tools to understand natural RNAs that regulate fundamental cellular processes and diseases.

Our research is highly interdisciplinary and links core concepts from chemical engineering, physics, and molecular and structural biology to develop theoretical and experimental techniques for understanding and controlling cellular function with RNAs. To do this we utilize both wet lab and computational techniques. In the wet lab, we use methods spanning molecular biology and biochemistry to next generation RNA sequencing technologies to measure RNA structures in a massively parallel fashion. On the computational side we develop models of RNA genetic networks, develop new techniques for computational RNA design and develop new RNA structure prediction algorithms.

Our current research activities are structured into two thrust areas: (1) Engineering enhanced RNA genetic regulators and networks for control of cellular systems, with a growing interest in using these regulators in cell-free smart diagnostics, and (2) Uncovering the biological design principles of cellular RNA folding and function by developing and applying our SHAPE-Seq technology for measuring RNA structures with next-generation sequencing. These two areas are synergistic, with engineering projects identifying gaps in our knowledge that are filled through fundamental biology investigations.



Significant Recognition

  • 2025 Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Engineering
  • 2025 Visscher Lectureship in Genetics (w/ Professor Sera Young), Hope College
  • 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, Biology
  • 2022 Phi Lambda Upsilon Award Lecture, University of Nebraska
  • 2022 American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows For “discovering RNA folding principles related to understanding and treating disease, and engineering synthetic biology diagnostics for global health.”
  • 2020 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, Finalist Life Sciences
  • 2017 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award
  • 2016 ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award
  • 2016 Northwestern Searle Leadership Award
  • 2015 NSF CAREER Award
  • 2015 Cornell College of Engineering Mr. and Mrs. Richard F. Tucker `50 Teaching Award
  • 2013 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award
  • 2013 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator
  • 2013 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship
  • 2012 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award
  • 2012 James C. and Rebecca Q. Morgan Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow
  • 2008-2011 Miller Research Fellow, University of California, Berkeley
  • 2002-2007 John and Fannie Hertz Foundation Graduate Fellow
  • 2002 Robert Karplus Prize Fellowship in Chemical Physics, Harvard University
  • 2001 Winston Churchill Scholarship, Churchill College, Cambridge University
  • 2001 National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (Declined, Duplicate Funding)
  • 2001 Department of Defense Graduate Fellowship (Declined, Duplicate Funding)
  • 2000-2001 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, Univ. North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  • 2001 Francis P. Venable Medal, Univ. North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  • 2001 Academic Excellence in Physical Chemistry, Univ. North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  • 2000 Phi Beta Kappa, Univ. North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Selected Publications

  1. Y. Li, T. J. Lucci, M. Villarruel Dujovne, K. J. Jung, D. A. Capdevila, J. B. Lucks (2025). "A cell-free biosensor signal amplification circuit with polymerase strand recycling." Nature Chemical Biology, doi: 10.1038/s41589-024-01816-w.
  2. A. S. Karim, D. M. Brown, C. M. Archuleta, S. Grannan, L. Aristilde, Y. Goyal, J. N. Leonard, N. Mangan, A. Prindle, G. J. Rocklin, K. J. Tyo, L. Zoloth, M. C. Jewett, S. Calkins, N. Kamat. D. Tullman-Ercek, J. B. Lucks (2024). “Deconstructing synthetic biology across scales: a conceptual approach for training synthetic biologists.” Nature Communications, doi:10.1038/s41467-024-49626-x.
  3. W. Thavarajah, P. Our, D. Awuor, K. Kiprotich, R. Aggarwal, J. B. Lucks, S. L. Young (2023). The accuracy and usability of point-of-use fluoride biosensors: a field study in Nakuru County, Kenya. npj Clean Water, 6, 5, doi:10.1038/s41545-023-00221-5.
  4. K. J. Jung, K. K. Alam, Chloé M. Archuleta, J. B. Lucks (2022). “Programming cell-free biosensors with DNA strand displacement circuits” .

  6. Nature Chemical Biology, doi:10.1038/s41589-021-00962-9. 
  7. A. M. Yu, P. M. Gasper, L. Cheng, L. B. Lai, S. Kaur, V. Gopalan, A. A. Chen, J. B. Lucks (2021). "Computationally reconstructing cotranscriptional RNA folding from experimental data reveals rearrangement of non-native folding intermediates." Molecular Cell, doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2020.12.017.
  8. J. K. Jung, K. K. Alam, M. S. Verosloff, D. A. Capdevila, M. Desmau, P. R. Clauer, J. W. Lee, P. Q. Nguyen, P. A. Pasten, S. J. Matiasek, J.-F. Gaillard, D. P. Giedroc, J. J. Collins, J. B. Lucks (2020). "Cell-free biosensors for rapid detection of water contaminants." Nature Biotechnology, doi: 10.1038/s41587-020-0571-7.
  9. W. Thavarajah, A. D. Silverman, M. S. Verosloff, N. Kelley-Loughnane, M. C. Jewett, J. B. Lucks (2019). "Point-of-use detection of environmental fluoride via a cell-free riboswitch-based biosensor." ACS Synthetic Biology, doi: 10.1021/acssynbio.9b00347.
  10. E. J. Strobel, L. Chang, K. Berman, P. D. Carlson, J. B. Lucks (2019). “A ligand-gated strand displacement mechanism for ZTP riboswitch transcriptional control.” Nature Chemical Biology. doi:10.1038/s41589-019-0382-7.
  11. E. J. Strobel, A. M Yu, J. B. Lucks (2018). "High-throughput determination of RNA structures." Nature Reviews Genetics, doi: 10.1038/s41576-018-0034-x.
  12. K. E. Watters, E. J. Strobel, A. M Yu, J. T. Lis, J. B. Lucks (2016). “Cotranscriptional Folding of a Riboswitch at Nucleotide Resolution”, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, doi: 10.1038/nsmb.3316..

Boards, Advisory Committees, and Selected Service

Co-chair, Gordon Research Conference on RNA Nanotechnology, 2029

Scientific Advisory Board, Institute for RNA-based Infection Research, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Würzburg, Germany, 2025 - Present

Advisory Committee, NSF Directorate for Biological Science (BIO), 2024-2025 (Disestablished by
Executive Order)

Advisory Board, Engineering Biology Interdisciplinary Research Center, Cambridge University, 2024-
Present

Member, National Academies Committee Towards Sequencing and Mapping RNA Modifications, 2022-2024

Advisory Board, MSCA European Doctoral Network SYNSENS, 2022-Present

Editorial Board, GEN Biotechnology, 2021-Present

Co-organizer, Synthetic Biology: Engineering, Evolution and Design (SEED) Conference, 2019

Founding Council Member, Engineering Biology Research Consortium, 2017-2020

Member, Board of Directors, Engineering Biology Research Consortium, 2015-2017

Editorial Affiliate, bioRxiv, 2014-Present

US Chair, EU/US Biotechnology Task Force Synthetic Biology Working Group, 2014-2016

Member, Leadership Task Force, Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC), 2014-2016

Editorial Board, Nucleic Acids Research, 2015-2021

Editorial Board, ACS Synthetic Biology, 2011-Present

Co-organizer, Synthetic Biology 5.0: The Fifth International Meeting on Synthetic Biology, 2011

Co-Leader, Parts Thrust, Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC), 2010-2011