Abe’s project mapping a (nearly) complete fitness landscape for a ribozyme (i.e., estimating the activity of every possible sequence) was published in JACS!

I’ll admit it, Abe’s fitness landscape took on a life of its own - between the prebiotically plausible substrate (thanks to Ziwei and Robert!), the new kinetic sequencing method, k-Seq (shout-out to Jerry and Uli), the replicate selection (what can I say, these students have what it takes), and the chemo (he made it :) ), completing this project was a milestone for the lab. Special thanks to Evan and Celia for their important contributions to the experimental and computational analysis.

Also, note to self: use the word ‘frustration’ with great care around biophysicists!

Now it’s time to enjoy Abe’s spider diagram and gaze at the online cover art by Brian Long (which actually captures some features of the landscape).

Mapping a systematic ribozyme fitness landscape reveals a frustrated evolutionary network for self-aminoacylating RNA