As RNA biologists, we work on understanding the factory of RNA replication within the cytosol built within the first few hours of SARS-CoV-2 infection: the double membrane vesicle (DMV). Standing on the shoulders of five decades of coronavirologists, we seek to understand its regulation and biogenesis.
uvm
uvm
immuno
immuno
foundry
foundry
The Majumdar Lab combines B cell immunology with a RNA biology in new and potentially interesting ways. Read about our projects below:
mrna vaccines & Therapeutics
mrna vaccines & Therapeutics
The past three years have opened up new frontiers in vaccine biology and delivery of mRNA/lipid nanoparticle therapeutics.
1. We seek to understand the immunological basis of the antibody immune response to current generation mRNA vaccines.
2. We develop new vaccines in mouse models in hopes of building a next generation mRNA vaccine. Here, we utilize traditional serological approaches, yeast display and deep mutational scanning, and live animal imaging.
3. We use microfluidic tools, and develop new microfluidic tools, to encapsulate RNA into lipid nanoparticles. We study these mRNA/LNPs with biophysical tools for nanocharacterization.
SARS-CoV-2 & RNA BIOLOGY
SARS-CoV-2 & RNA BIOLOGY
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B Cell RNA Biology
B Cell RNA Biology
RNA plays a role in how B cells maintain identity, proceed through development, and function as the cells making exquisite antibodies for the immune system. How these processes work still remails a huge open question -- we look at these questions as RNA biologists, B cell biologists, vaccinologists and biotechnologists.
We are in the
headlines!
We are in the
headlines!
headlines!
We are always looking for talented students!
Dev’s guide to finding a lab as an undergrad at UVM: PDF
Dowell W, Dearborn J, Languon S, Miller Z, Kirch T, Paige S, Garvin O, Kjendal L, Harby, E, Zuchowski AB, Clark E, Lescieur-Garcia C, Vix J, Schumer A, Mistri SK, Snoke DB, Doiron AL, Freeman K, Toth MK, Poynter ME, Boyson JE, Majumdar D. “Distinct Inflammatory Programs Underlie the Intramuscular LNP Response” ACS Nano, 2024. Link
Mistri SK, Hilton, BM, Horrigon KJ, Andretta ES, Savard R, Dienz O, Hampel KJ, Gerrard DL, Rose JT, Sidiropoulos N, Majumdar D, Boyson JE, “SLAM/SAP signaling regulates discrete γδ T cell developmental checkpoints and shapes the innate-like γδ TCR repertoire.” eLife (2024) Link
Schumer A, Bonney EA, Harby E, Majumdar D. “Neonatal SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination Efficacy Is Influenced by Maternal Antibodies.” Am J. Reproductive Immunology, 2024. Link
Piffard SH, Henning, GW, Sackheim AM, Howard AJ, Lambert A, Majumdar D, Nelson MT, Freeman K, “Distinct Patterns of Endothelial Cell Activation Produced by Extracellular Histones and Bacterial Lipopolysaccharide.” Shock, 2024. Link
Villalba N, Sackheim AM, Lawson MA, Haines L, Chen YL, Sonkusare SK, Ma YT, Li J, Majumdar D, Bouchard BA, Bouson JE, Poynter ME, Nelson MT, Freeman K. “The Polyanionic Drug Suramin Neutralizes Histones and Prevents Endotheliopathy.” Journal of Immunology, 2023. Link
Bouchard BA, Colovos C, Lawson MA, Osborn ZT, Mould JK, Janssen WJ, Cohen MJ, Majumdar D, Freeman K. “Increased histone-DNA complexes and endothelial-dependent thrombin generation in severe COVID-19.” Vascular Pharmacology, 2022. Link
Majumdar DS, Frankiw L, Burns C, Baltimore D. (2020) Programmed Delayed Splicing: A Mechanism for Timed Inflammatory Gene Expression, Biorxiv 10.1101/443796 Link
Banerjee, A.K., Blanco, M.R., Bruce, E.A., Honson, D.D., Chen, L.M., Chow, A., Bhat, P., Ollikainen, N., Quinodoz, S.A., Loney, C., Thai, J., Miller, Z.D., Lin, A.E., Schmidt, M.M., Stewart, D.G., Goldfarb, D., De Lorenzo, G., Rihn, S.J., Voorhees, R.M., Botten, J.W., Majumdar, D.*, Guttman, M.* (2020) “SARS-CoV-2 Disrupts Splicing, Translation, and Protein Trafficking to Suppress Host Defenses.” Cell, 2020 Nov 25;183(5):1325-1339.e21. (*Co-corresponding authors) Link
Frankiw L*, Majumdar DS*, Burns C, Vlach L, Moradian A, Sweredoski MJ, Baltimore D. (2019) Bud13 Promotes a Type I Interferon Response By Countering Intron Retention in Irf7. Molecular Cell, 73 (4). pp. 803-814. ISSN 1097-2765. *These authors contributed equally Link
Kaplan M, Yoo BK, Tang J, Karam TE, Liao B, Majumdar D, Baltimore D, Jensen GJ, Zewail AH. Photon‐Induced Near‐Field Electron Microscopy of Eukaryotic Cells. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2017 Sep 11;56(38):11498-11501. Link
Ramakrishnan P, Yui MA, Tomalka JA, Majumdar D, Parameswaran R, Baltimore D. Deficiency of Nuclear Factor-kappaB c-Rel Accelerates the Development of Autoimmune Diabetes in Non-Obese Diabetic Mice. Diabetes. 2016 Aug;65(8):2367-79 Link
Mehta A, Mann M, Zhao JL, Marinov GK, Majumdar D, Garcia-Flores Y, Du X, Erikci E, Chowdhury K, Baltimore D. (2015). The microRNA-212/132 cluster regulates B cell development by targeting Sox4. J Exp Med. 2015 Sep 21;212(10):1679-92 Link
Kim S, Streets AM, Lin RR, Quake SR, Weiss, S*, Majumdar DS*. High-throughput single-molecule optofluidic analysis. Nat Methods. 2011 Mar:8(3):242-5. (*co-corresponding) Link
Majumdar DS, Smirnova I, Kasho V, Nir E, Kong X, Weiss S, Kaback HR. Single-molecule FRET reveals sugar-induced conformational dynamics in LacY. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Jul 31;104(31):12640-5. Link
Knauer DJ, Majumdar D, Fong PC, Knauer MF. SERPIN regulation of factor XIa. The novel observation that protease nexin 1 in the presence of heparin is a more potent inhibitor of factor Xia than C1 inhibitor. J Biol Chem. 2000 Dec 1;275(48):37340-6. Link
People in the lab
People in the lab
Favorite Paper: Genome-Wide Expression Profiling of Single Cells
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: Porches
Favorite Beverage: Topo Chico Lime
Favorite Quote: "You miss 100% of the shots you never take." -Wayne Gretzky" -Michael Scott
Jacob Dearborn
Jacob Dearborn
graduate student
Jake is exploring novel mRNA vaccination modalities with scRNAseq.
Favorite Paper:
A Hyper-IgM Syndrome Mutation in Activation-Induced Cytidine Deaminase Disrupts G-Quadruplex Binding and Genome-wide Chromatin Localization
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: Painting Camel's Hump Bob Ross Style
Favorite Beverage: Coffee
Favorite Quote: "Amateurs talk strategy. Experts talk logistics" --Omar Bradley
Will Dowell
Will Dowell
graduate student
Will is studying adjuvancy in muscle tissue for mRNA vaccines.
Favorite Paper:
A Hyper-IgM Syndrome Mutation in Activation-Induced Cytidine Deaminase Disrupts G-Quadruplex Binding and Genome-wide Chromatin Localization
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: Hiking
Favorite Beverage: Tea
Favorite Quote: "You miss 100% of the shots you never take." --Wayne Gretzky --Michael Scott --Jacob Dearborn
Tylar Kirch
Tylar Kirch
graduate student
Tylar is kicking B cells and taking names.
Sylvester Languon
Sylvester Languon
graduate student
Sylvester studies coronavirus viral proteins responsible for DMV formation and RNA replication and the host proteins that regulate them.
Favorite Paper: Excision of an intact intron as a novel lariat structure during pre-mRNA splicing in vitro
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: I don't have time outside of lab to do all of my actual hobbies to have aspirational ones.
So in a way, my aspirational hobby is to imagine having time to do all of my actual hobbies.
Favorite Beverage: Tea
Favorite Quote: "what is a 'Vermont Aspirational Hobby'?"
zachary miller
zachary miller
graduate student
Zach is learning about the hits of the 70s and 80s.
Dev Majumdar
Dev Majumdar
Principal investigator
Dev grew up in LA and spent summers working on amyloid proteins under Mary Knauer at UCI. Dev received his BS at MIT, where he did research in structural biology and protein design in Amy Keating’s lab. He pursued his PhD in molecular biophysics in Shimon Weiss’ lab at UCLA, studying conformational dynamics of membrane proteins, using single molecule FRET, building microscopes, and working on new microfluidic/optofluidic modalities. As a postdoc at Caltech in David Baltimore’s lab, he studied the regulation of mRNA splicing in immune cells, followed by a year in Mitch Guttman’s lab developing tools for RNA biology.
Favorite Paper: Structural basis for potent antibody neutralization of SARS-CoV-2
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: Trail running
Favorite Beverage: Coffee
Favorite underrated/unknown part of campus: The music hall on Redstone campus
Lily Kjendal
Lily Kjendal
Technician
Lily is an MMG sophomore working at the boundary between computational and experimental biology.
Jade Cleary
Jade Cleary
Lab Manager
Jade runs CRISPR screens and develops reporter lines (with Freeman lab) to figure out how trauma might be redefining the immune response.
If I wasn't doing biology, I'd: Probably be Doing chemistry/ chemical engineering in undergrad
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: Snowboarding and Fishing
Favorite Beverage: Ice Water
Favorite underrated/unknown part of campus: Campus rec lounge near indoor turf in gutterson fieldhouse.
Chase Whelihan
Chase Whelihan
undergraduate student
Chase is designing new polymerases using a combination of evolution and computational biology.
If I wasn't doing biology, I'd: TBD
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: TBD
Favorite Beverage: TBD
Favorite underrated/unknown part of campus: TBD
Charlotte Ranks
Charlotte Ranks
undergraduate student
Charlotte is a new undergraduate in the lab working on vaccine adjuvancy.
Favorite Paper: XX
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: XX
Favorite Beverage: XX
Favorite underrated/unknown part of campus: XX
Jackson Montour
Jackson Montour
UNDERGRADUATE
Jackson is a BME Senior who is applying machine learning to the problem of immune repertoires.
If I wasn't doing biology, I'd: TBD
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: TBD
Favorite Beverage: TBD
Favorite underrated/unknown part of campus: TBD
Truman Lovett
Truman Lovett
undergraduate student
Truman is looking at how mRNA splicing is differentially regulated in different immune cells.
Alums
Alums
iAN bAILEY
iAN bAILEY
undergraduate student
Ian became a master of transfection, infection, and turning cells green on the path toward understanding SARS-CoV-2 DMVs from 2021-2022. Ian is now pursuing a PhD at the University of Montana.
If the speed limit is 65mph, I drive: 60mph
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: Art is really my biggest hobby
Favorite Beverage: Diet Pepsi
Favorite Quote: "Just keep swimming." -Dory
Emily Clark
Emily Clark
undergraduate student
Emily developed a golden gate cloning system for synthetic biology projects involving T7 RNA polymerase.
Emily is currently a scribe at Mass General Hospital.
Favorite Paper: Physics-based modeling and data representation of pedestrian pairwise interactions
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: Whittling
Favorite Beverage: Mulled Apple Cider
Favorite Quote: "Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.” -Carl Sagan
Adam Zuchowski
Adam Zuchowski
undergraduate student
Adam was a BME who spent four years in the lab developing a mRNA/LNPs vaccine modality (2020-2024).
He is currently a graduate student at Cornell.
Favorite Paper: TBD
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: TBD
Favorite Beverage: TBD
Favorite Quote: TBD
Amy Schumer
Amy Schumer
M.D., Ob/GYN Fellow
Amy is looking at responses to vaccination using SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines and maternofetal transfer.
Amy is currently practicing in New Mexico.
Favorite Paper: TBD
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: TBD
Favorite Beverage: TBD
Favorite Quote: TBD
Dan Mitchell
Dan Mitchell
Med Student
Dan is working to deliver prophylactic pro-endothelial factors by mRNA delivery to patients to prevent vascular damage.
Summer 2022
Favorite paper: Psilocybin and meditation produce positive psychological changes
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: Homesteading
Favorite Beverage: Burlington Beer Co. Petal Prophecy
Favorite Quote: "When you understand, you cannot help but love." -Thich Nhat Hanh
Jesse Vix
Jesse Vix
Lab Manager
Jesse runs, manages, nanopore sequences, CRISPR screens, transduces, implements, and a whole bunch of other verbs (with Freeman lab).
Ben Will
Ben Will
undergraduate student
Ben was the first member of the lab, an HCOL student who has mastered mammalian and yeast display systems to study epitopes of mRNA vaccines. Ben pursued a Fullbright in Heidelberg, Germany. Ben’s currently a medical student at Dartmouth.
If I wasn't doing biology, I'd: be a photographer
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: Maple sugaring
Favorite Beverage: Kombucha
Favorite underrated/unknown part of campus: the golf course for meteor sighting
Olivia Garvin
Olivia Garvin
undergraduate student
Olivia is working on high throughput techniques to determine epitopes of vaccination.
Olivia’s currently working at the Tsibris Lab in Brigham and Women’s in Boston.
Favorite Paper: TBD
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: TBD
Favorite Beverage: TBD
Favorite Quote: TBD
Ethan Harby
Ethan Harby
undergraduate student
Ethan was a senior working on mRNA vaccines 2022-2023.
Samantha Staples
Samantha Staples
undergraduate student
Samantha made designed and made mRNA vaccines in the lab in 2022.
She’s currently pursuing a MA at UNM.
If I wasn't doing biology, I'd probably be hiking all the mountains of New England.
Aspirational Vermont Hobby: Horseback Riding
Favorite Beverage: Iced Tea
Favorite Quote: "Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings." -Dali
Alyza Johnson
Alyza Johnson
undergraduate student
Alyza is working on mRNA vaccination projects.
2023
Claire dougherty
Claire dougherty
undergraduate student
Claire was a mouse vaccinator extraordinaire in 2021-2022,