May 2026 - The Antunes Lab was well represented at the 2026 BDI Research Expo. Swapna, Naomi, Jesseca and Shoyeb all presented their research! Jesseca also received Best Poster Presentation award! Congrats, Jesseca! Austen Willard, who is returning to the lab this Summer, was also in attendance to check out the
latest research in BDI.
May 2026 - The Antunes Labcongratulates Gabrielle on her graduation from UNT! She starts her graduate studies at North Carolina State
University in the Fall! Best wishes from everyone in the lab, Gabrielle!
March 2026 - Congratulations to Jesseca! She successfully completed her PhD qualifying exams and is now a PhD candidate!
March 2026 - Dr. Antunes was invited by his former undergraduate student, Kiran Daulla, to give a seminar at North Carolina State University as part of the Genetics and Genomics Academy (GGA) seminar series.
November 2025 - Dr. Antunes traveled to Athens, GA, to give a seminar at the University of Georgia's Department
of Plant Biology.
October 2025 - Both Swapna and Jesseca had the opportunity to present the most recent results of their research projects
at the 2025 UNT Research Day on October 2nd. The event was well attended by the UNT research community!
Swapna presented the results of her summer research during the Fall 2025 BDI Seminar Series. Her summer stipend was provided by a BDI Summer Research Assistantship. Congratulations, Swapna!
Jesseca presented a poster describing her work at ASPB's Plant Biology 2025 conference in Milwaukee, WI on July 26-30, 2025. The title of her poster was Investigating the Regulatory Role of miRNA-encoded peptides in Plant Nutrient Homeostasis. Jesseca received Travel Awards from UNT's BioDiscovery Institute, College of Science
and the Toulouse Graduate School. Congratulations, Jesseca!
On May 14, 2025, Swapna presented a poster showcasing her lab rotation work at the BioDiscovery Institute
- Advanced Environmental Research Institute (BDI-AERI) joint EXPO 2025, held at the
University of North Texas, Denton, TX. The title of her poster was: Modulating the phenylpropanoid pathway for enhanced specialized metabolite production
in plants.
The Antunes Lab is happy to welcome our newest graduate student, Swapna Bodampati. After completing 3 lab rotations as part of the admission process for the Biochemistry
& Molecular Biology PhD Program, Swapna decided to join the Antunes Lab in the Summer
of 2025. Swapna obtained her Master's degree in Chemistry from East Texas A&M University
(formerly Texas A&M University - Commerce) before coming to UNT. Welcome to the team,
Swapna!
Dr. Antunes gave an oral presentation at the Future of Agriculture for Sustainability Keystone Symposium held in Keystone, CO on January 20-23, 2025. The title of his talk was Rewiring Plant Metabolism with Information Processing Circuits.
Congratulations to Jordan LaChance for successfully defending her Master's thesis on October 28, 2024! The title of her
work is "COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BIOMASS, PHYSIOLOGY, AND METABOLOME IN HIGH AND LOW OIL-PRODUCING
VARIETIES OF Physaria fendleri, A PROMISING HYDROXY-FATTY ACID RICH OILSEED CROP".
Savio Ferreira's work on developing metabolite sensors and genetically encoded Boolean logic operators
to rewire specialized metabolism in plants is now published in New Phytologist. Here's the link to the publication: https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19823
Congratulations to Savio Ferreira for being selected by the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) Equity, Diversity
& Inclusion Committee to receive a Recognition Travel Award to attend the Plant Biology 2024 Meeting (PB 2024) in Honolulu, HI, on June 22-26, 2024!
Antunes Lab lunch in April 2024.
The lab's newest research is available as a pre-print in bioRxiv. Check it out here: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.01.05.574427Ferreira, S.S. & Antunes, M.S. (2024) Genetically encoded Boolean logic operators to sense and integrate phenylpropanoid
metabolite levels in plants.
Check out our most recent paper in Plant Physiology describing the development of genetically encoded Boolean AND logic gates that are
capable of integrating a biotic and an abiotic stress in Arabidopsis plants. Access
the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiad254
Ruhbani Jarral presented a poster describing her work on "CRISPR/Cas9-induced mutation of the microRNA171b
gene in Arabidopsis thaliana" at the UNT Scholars Day on April 4, 2023. This annual event is organized by The
Honors College at UNT.
Our invited Mini Review titled "A Logical Way to Reprogram Plants" on genetically encoded Boolean logic gates to reprogram plant function is now published
online in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications! This Mini Review is part of the journal's Special Issue on Synthetic Plant and Microbial Biology. Read it here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrc.2023.02.080
Congratulations to Charles Anderson for successfully defending his Master's thesis on October 31, 2022! The title of
his thesis is: "Developing a generalizable two-input genetic AND logic gate in Arabidopsis thaliana for multi-signal processing"
Check out our newest publication in ACS Synthetic Biology!Amack, S.C.; Ferreira, S.S.; Antunes, M.S. (2023) Tuning the Transcriptional Activity of the CaMV 35S Promoter in Plants by
Single-Nucleotide Changes in the TATA Box. ACS Synthetic Biology 12(1): 178-185. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.2c00457
Antunes Lab alum Stephanie Amack was just accepted into the Biomedical Informatics Masters Program at the UT Health
School of Bioinformatics. Congratulations Stephanie!
University of North Texas 
