Julius Lucks
American chemical and biological engineer
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Julius B. Lucks is an American chemical and biological engineer and the Margery Claire Carlson Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University.[1] He is known for his research in synthetic biology, particularly in the areas of RNA engineering and the development of low-cost, cell-free biosensors for environmental monitoring.[2] A Guggenheim Fellow and AAAS Fellow,[3] his work integrates biophysics and artificial intelligence to predict molecular folding.[4]
University of Cambridge (MPhil)
Harvard University (PhD)
Sloan Research Fellowship (2013)
AAAS Fellow (2025)
Julius B. Lucks | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (BS) University of Cambridge (MPhil) Harvard University (PhD) |
| Known for | SHAPE-Seq, Cell-free biosensors, RNA folding design |
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (2023) Sloan Research Fellowship (2013) AAAS Fellow (2025) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Synthetic biology, Chemical engineering, RNA |
| Doctoral advisor | David Robert Nelson |
| Website | luckslab |
Education
Lucks attended the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.[1] He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.S. in Chemistry as a Goldwater Scholar.[5] As a Churchill Scholar, he obtained an M.Phil. in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge.[6]
He completed his graduate studies at Harvard University, earning an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics under David Robert Nelson.[7] His doctoral research focused on viral genome organization using theoretical physics.
Career
Lucks was a Miller Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley in the laboratory of Adam P. Arkin, where he co-developed SHAPE-Seq, a method for high-throughput RNA structure probing.[8]
In 2011, he joined Cornell University as an Assistant Professor. In 2016, he moved to Northwestern University, where he serves as Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Synthetic Biology.[9] In 2019, he co-founded Stemloop, Inc. to commercialize biosensing technologies developed at Northwestern.[10]
Research
The Lucks Group focuses on two primary areas:
- RNA Design and AI: Using deep learning and experimental pipelines to predict and design RNA folding processes.[11]
- Biosensing Technologies: Engineering cell-free systems for point-of-use diagnostics. These sensors have been field-tested for monitoring water quality in Chicago and Kenya.[2]
Awards and honors
- Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (2025)[3]
- Guggenheim Fellowship (2023)[4]
- Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2022)[12]
- Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2017)
- NSF CAREER Award (2015)
- NIH New Innovator Award (2013)
- Sloan Research Fellowship (2013)