CurrentWork
Publications&Preprints
* denotes equal first-author level contribution
2020
Sewage, Salt, Silica and SARS-CoV-2 (4S): An economical kit-free method for direct capture of SARS-CoV-2 RNA from wastewater
MedRxiv Preprint
Oscar N. Whitney, Lauren Kennedy, Vinson Fan, Adrian Hinkle, Rose Kantor, Hannah Greenwald, Alex Crits-Christoph, Basem Al-Shayeb, Mira Chaplin, Anna Maurer, Robert Tjian, Kara L. Nelson.

2020
Structural coordination between active sites of a Cas6-reverse transcriptase-Cas1—Cas2 CRISPR integrase complex
BioRxiv Preprint
Joy Y. Wang, Christopher M. Hoel, Basem Al-Shayeb, Jillian F. Banfield, Stephen G. Brohawn, Jennifer A. Doudna.

2020
Genome sequencing of sewage detects regionally prevalent SARS-CoV-2 variants
MedRxiv Preprint
Alexander Crits-Christoph, Rose S. Kantor, Matthew R. Olm, Oscar N. Whitney, Basem Al-Shayeb, Yue C. Lou, Avi Flamholz, Lauren C. Kennedy, Hannah Greenwald, Adrian Hinkle, Jonathan Hetzel, Sara Spitzer, Jeffery Koble, Asako Tan, Fred Hyde, Gary Schroth, Scott Kuersten, Jillian F. Banfield, and Kara L. Nelson.

2020
Petabase-scale sequence alignment catalyses viral discovery
BioRxiv Preprint
Robert C. Edgar*, Jeff Taylor*, Tomer Altman*, Pierre Barbera*, Dmitry Meleshko*, Victor Lin*, Dan Lohr*, Gherman Novakovsky*, Basem Al-Shayeb*, Jillian F. Banfield*, AntonKorobeynikov*, Rayan Chikhi*, and Artem Babaian*.

2020
CRISPR-CasΦ from huge phages is a hypercompact genome editor
Science
Patrick Pausch*, Basem Al-Shayeb*, Ezra Bisom-Rapp, Connor A. Tsuchida, Zheng Li, Brady F. Cress, Gavin J. Knott, Steven E. Jacobsen, Jillian F. Banfield, Jennifer. A. Doudna.

Research highlighted by Nature, Nature Plants, Nature Biotechnology, and more
2020
A scoutRNA Is Required for Some Type V CRISPR-Cas Systems
Molecular Cell
Lucas B. Harrington*, Enbo Ma*, Janice S. Chen, Isaac P. Witte, Dov Gertz, David Paez-Espino, Basem Al-Shayeb, Nikos C. Krypides, David Burstein, Jillian F. Banfield, Jennifer A. Doudna
2020
Clades of Huge Phages from Across Earth's Ecosystems
Nature
Basem Al-Shayeb*, Rohan Sachdeva*, Lin-Xing Chen, Fred Ward, Patrick Munk, Audra Devoto, Cindy J. Castelle, Matthew R. Olm, Keith Bouma-Gregson, Yuki Amano, Christine He, Raphaël Méheust, Brandon Brooks, Alex Thomas, Adi Lavy, Paula Matheus-Carnevali, Christine Sun, Daniela S. A. Goltsman, Mikayla A. Borton, Allison Sharrar, Alexander L. Jaffe, Tara C. Nelson, Rose Kantor, Ray Keren, Katherine R. Lane, Ibrahim F. Farag, Shufei Lei, Kari Finstad, Ronald Amundson, Karthik Anantharaman, Jinglie Zhou, Alexander J. Probst, Mary E. Power, Susannah G. Tringe, Wen-Jun Li, Kelly Wrighton, Sue Harrison, Michael Morowitz, David A. Relman, Jennifer A. Doudna, Anne-Catherine Lehours, Lesley Warren, Jamie H. D. Cate, Joanne M. Santini, & Jillian F. Banfield.
Research recommended by f1000 Prime, coverage in 30+ news outlets (including the Atlantic, Gizmodo, arsTechnica) and 8 science blogs, reviewed in Nature Reviews Microbiology and more
2019
Structural Basis for AcrVA4 Inhibition of Specific CRISPR-Cas12a
eLife
Gavin J. Knott, Brady F. Cress, Jun-Jie Liu, Brittney W. Thornton, Rachel J. Lew, Basem Al-Shayeb, Daniel J. Rosenberg, Michal Hammel, Benjamin A Adler, Marco J Lobba, Michael Xu, Adam P Arkin, Christof Fellmann, Jennifer A Doudna

2019
Candidate Phyla Radiation Roizmanbacteria From Hot Springs Have Novel and Unexpectedly Abundant CRISPR-Cas Systems
Frontiers in Microbiology
Lin-Xing Chen, Basem Al-Shayeb, Raphaël Méheust, Wen-Jun Li, Jennifer A. Doudna, and Jillian F. Banfield

2019
Broad-spectrum enzymatic inhibition of CRISPR-Cas12a
Nature Structural and Molecular Biology
Gavin Knott, Brittney Thornton, Marco Lobba, Jun-Jie Liu, Basem Al-Shayeb, Kyle Watters, Jennifer A Doudna

2019
CasX enzymes comprise a distinct family of RNA-guided genome editors
Nature
Jun-Jie Liu, Natalia Orlova, Benjamin L Oakes, Enbo Ma, Hannah B Spinner, Katherine LM Baney, Jonathan Chuck, Dan Tan, Gavin J Knott, Lucas B Harrington, Basem Al-Shayeb, Alexander Wagner, Julian Brötzmann, Brett T Staahl, Kian L Taylor, John Desmarais, Eva Nogales, Jennifer A Doudna
2016
Bioremediation of Methylmercury Using Silica Encapsulated Escherichia coli Harboring the mer Operon
PLOS One
Aunica L. Kane, Basem Al-Shayeb, Patrick V. Holec, Srijay Rajan, Nicholas E. Le Mieux, Stephen C. Heinsch, Sona Psarska, Kelly G. Aukema, Casim A. Sarkar, Edward A. Nater, Jeffrey A. Gralnick

Abstracts&Posters
Graduate Research * denotes presenter
Conference Talks selected from abstract
CRISPR-CasΦ from huge phages is a hypercompact genome editor. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Genome Engineering: CRISPR Frontiers Conference. Virtual 2020.
Hypercompact CRISPR-Cas systems from Huge Phages. University of California, Berkeley, USA. 21st Annual Microbiology Student Symposium. April 2020 (Invited, COVID-impacted)
Clades of huge phage with CRISPR-Cas from across Earth's ecosystems. CRISPR 2019. Québec City, Canada. June 2019
Clades of huge phage from across Earth's ecosystems. 20th Annual Microbiology Student Symposium. University of California, Berkeley, USA. April 2019
Conference Lightning Talks
Fighting Fire with Fire: CRISPR-CasΦ from huge phages is a hypercompact genome editor. 2020 Genome Editing Symposium, Texas A&M University. Virtual. **First Prize Winner
Posters
Patrick Pausch*, Basem Al-Shayeb*, Jillian Banfield, Jennifer Doudna. Novel hypercompact proteins for genome editing applications. NIH Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortium. Washington DC. December 2019
Gavin Knott*, Brittney Thornton, Marco Lobba, Jun-Jie Liu, Basem Al-Shayeb, Kyle Watters, Jennifer A Doudna. Anti-CRISPR mechanisms for inhibiting CRISPR-Cas12a. CRISPR 2019. Québec City, Canada. June 2019
Basem Al-Shayeb*, Rohan Sachdeva, Lin-Xing Chen, Fred Ward, Jennifer A Doudna, Jamie HD Cate, Jillian F Banfield. Clades of huge phage from across Earth's ecosystems. 20th Annual Microbiology Student Symposium. University of California, Berkeley, USA. April 2019
Moyer EL*, Al-Shayeb B, Baer LA, Ronca AE. Unpredictable Variable Prenatal Stress Programs Expression of Genes Involved in Appetite Control and Energy Expenditure. American Society for Gravitational and Space Research, Cleveland, OH. November 2016.
Al-Shayeb B, A Fish By Any Other Name Would Taste As Sweet: Applied Ethics of Transgenic Fish Commercialization.
Critical Reflections Philosophy Conference, University of Windsor, Ontario. March 2016.
Al-Shayeb B*, Rael V, Lowman J, Hayden A, Sosa J, DeMatteo C, Baas-Thomas M, Vu A, Choi C, Quach V, Berrios D, Fogle H, Marcu O,
Rask J, Smith J. GeneLab Resource Expansion And Tools: a Design for Collection, Analysis, and Presentation of Spaceflight Experimental Data. American Society for Gravitational and Space Research, Alexandria, VA. November 2015.
Al-Shayeb B*, Moyer EL, Baer LA, Ronca AE. Effects of Prenatal Stress on Appetite Control and Energy Expenditure Pathways in Adult
Male Offspring. American Society for Gravitational and Space Research, Alexandria, VA. November 2015.
NASA Ames Summer Research Symposium. Mountain View, CA. August 2015.
Silica- encapsulated Recombinant Bacteria for Heavy Metal Bioremediation. Cargill R&D Group and Project Sponsors, September 2014. BioTechnology Institute Seminar Series, December 2014. MnDrive Research Symposium, January 2015. Ecolab R&D Group and Project Sponsors, January 2015. UMN Microbiology Club, February 2015. UMN Synthetic Biology Society, February 2015.
Al-Shayeb B*, Holec PV*, Rajan S, Le Mieux NE, Heinsch SC, Sarkar CA, Gralnick JA. MNtallica: Cleaning Up Heavy Metal! International
Genetically Engineered Machines Giant Jamboree. Boston, MA. October 2014.
Al-Shayeb B*, Kane AL, Gralnick JA. Silica- encapsulated Recombinant Escherichia coli for Mercury Bioremediation. Minnesota
Undergraduate Research Symposium. Minneapolis, MN. August 2014.
Al-Shayeb B*, Tarnowski J*, Heinsch, SC*, Schmidt-Dannert C, Gralnick JA. PichiParts: A Toolkit Approach for Engineering Pichia pastoris. International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition. Toronto, ON, CA. September 2013.
Al-Shayeb B*, Hudson HM, Baker KB, Vitek JL. Quantitative Analysis of Gait Changes Associated with Parkinson’s Disease and
Dopamine Replacement Therapy. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Research Symposium. St Paul, MN. May 2013