Cultivating wisdom through evolutionary and ecological engineering

Erika DeBenedictis

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Publication

Heritable immunization of mice against Lyme disease enables ecological disease prevention

Buchthal, J., Chory, E.J., Hill, Z. et al. Heritable immunization of mice against Lyme disease enables ecological disease prevention. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71757-6

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Non-invasive ovulation tracking enables genetic engineering in wild rodents

Buchthal, Joanna et al. "Non-invasive ovulation tracking enables genetic engineering in wild rodents." Cell Reports Methods, Volume 6, Issue 2, 101311

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LLMs Outperform Experts on Challenging Biology Benchmarks

Justen, L. (2025). Llms outperform experts on challenging biology benchmarks (No. arXiv:2505.06108). arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2505.06108

Publication

PyLabRobot: An open-source, hardware-agnostic interface for liquid-handling robots and accessories

Rick P. Wierenga, Stefan M. Golas, Wilson Ho, Connor W. Coley, Kevin M. Esvelt. PyLabRobot: An open-source, hardware-agnostic interface for liquid-handling robots and accessories. Device, Volume 1, Issue 4 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.device.2023.100111.

Publication

Systematic molecular evolution enables robust biomolecule discovery

DeBenedictis, E.A., Chory, E.J., Gretton, D.W. et al. Systematic molecular evolution enables robust biomolecule discovery. Nat Methods (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-021-01348-4

Publication

Enabling high-throughput biology with flexible open-source automation

Mol Syst Biol. 2021 Mar;17(3):e9942. doi: 10.15252/msb.20209942.

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A Scalable Solution for Signaling Face Touches to Reduce the Spread of Surface-based Pathogens

Camilo Rojas, Niels Poulsen, Mileva Van Tuyl, Daniel Vargas, Zipporah Cohen, Joe Paradiso, Pattie Maes, Kevin Esvelt, and Fadel Adib. 2021. A Scalable Solution for Signaling Face Touches to Reduce the Spread of Surface-based Pathogens.. Proc. ACM IMWUT

Publication

Bidirectional contact tracing is required for reliable COVID-19 control

Bradshaw, W., Alley, E., Huggins, J., Lloyd, A., & Esvelt, K. (2020). Bidirectional contact tracing is required for reliable COVID-19 control. medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.06.20093369

Publication

Daisy-chain gene drives for the alteration of local populations

Noble, Charleston, John Min, Jason Olejarz, Joanna Buchthal, Alejandro Chavez, Andrea L. Smidler, Erika A. DeBenedictis, George M. Church, Martin A. Nowak, and Kevin M. Esvelt. “Daisy-Chain Gene Drives for the Alteration of Local Populations.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 2, 2019, 201716358. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1716358116.

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Current CRISPR gene drive systems are likely to be highly invasive in wild populations

eLife 2018;7:e33423 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.33423

Publication

Flexible open-source automation for robotic bioengineering

Emma J Chory, Dana W Gretton, Erika A DeBenedictis, Kevin M Esvelt. "Flexible open-source automation for robotic bioengineering." bioRxiv 2020.04.14.041368; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.14.041368 [This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review]