Bruce Hay Lab

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Welcome to the Bruce Hay Lab website!

Our lab is interested in modifying genomes, from individual cells to whole organisms to whole populations. Some specific examples include modifying mitochondrial quality in animals and plants, one-off contraceptive shots for animals, and the development of various gene drives for the modification or removal or pest species.
For more information about specific projects, please visit our projects page.

news

May 19, 2026 Congratulations to Emma, who has received the Caltech Park S. Nobel Prize for Excellence in Biology and Bioengineering Award for outstanding achievements within the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering.
May 18, 2026 Congratulations to Emma, who has received the Caltech Mari Peterson Ligocki '81 Memorial Award for collegial spirit.
May 15, 2026 Emma Olinger, our undergraduate researcher, will join Professor Carla Concepcion-Crisol at Columbia University as a lab technician in the fall.
Apr 29, 2026 Congratulations to Tom, who has received a CES grant to study the evolution of toxin-antidote systems
Apr 22, 2026 Congratulations to Tom, who has received a NSERC CGRS-D award to study gene drive and competition between conjugative plasmids
Apr 3, 2026 "The LAST Mile: Evaluating Genetic Biocontrol as a Supplemental Tool for Eradicating Invasive Rodents on Islands" has just been published in Evolutionary Applications.
Jun 25, 2025 Congratulations to Tom, who has received a CES grant to study evolutionary pressures exerted on bacterial conjugative plasmids
Jun 15, 2025 John Marken, our postdoctoral scholar, will join the Department of Biology at the University of Copenhagen this fall.
Jun 6, 2025 Congratulations to John, who has received an EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship to study the dynamics of horizontal gene transfer in environmental microbial communities.
Apr 15, 2025 Bruce has published a new paper, “Applications and status of gene drive in plants”. Read the pdf here!
Apr 8, 2025 Michelle Johnson receives an NSF fellowship, and joins the Graduate Research Fellowship Program
Apr 3, 2025 Ella Wood, our lab manager, will join the University of Chicago’s geophysical sciences graduate program in the fall.
Mar 31, 2025 Michelle Johnson, our computational research technician, will join the genome sciences graduate program at the University of Washington this fall.
Jan 28, 2025 Congratulations to Tom, who has received an RSI Explorer grant to study competitive interactions between conjugative plasmids
Dec 12, 2024 Congratulations to Tom, who has received a CEMI grant to study gene drive between conjugative plasmids