Department Chair, Professor
Email: lzscheifele@loyola.edu
Phone: 410-617-2316
Fax: 410-617-2057
Office
Dorothy Day 051
Department of Biology
Loyola University Maryland
4501 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210-2699
Biography
I’m a molecular biologist interested in how the structure of genomes influences the way they work. Most of my research has focused on yeast as a model system, and as part of the Synthetic Yeast Project, my students and I have been part of an international collaboration to build chromosomes from scratch, including the smallest (synI) and the largest (synIV). By changing repetitive DNA content, chromosome structure, and 3D organization, we can explore how these affect the way cells grow, divide, and maintain their genomes. Undergraduate students have been integral collaborators in these projects, and I have also served as the lead researcher for the Build-a-Genome Network, a group dedicated to training undergraduate faculty in synthetic genomics concepts.
- Annaluru, Narayana, et al. "Total synthesis of a functional designer eukaryotic chromosome." Science 344.6179 (2014): 55-58.
- Zhang, Weimin, et al. "Manipulating the 3D organization of the largest synthetic yeast chromosome." Molecular Cell 83.23 (2023): 4424-4437.
- Build A Genome Network
Alongside my laboratory research, I am deeply committed to teaching and expanding access to science. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I worked with colleagues to create COVID-360, a set of online teaching resources to help instructors incorporate scientific information about the virus and pandemic into their teaching. I’ve also explored how the relatively new phenomenon of preprint articles can be a powerful tool for teaching data analysis and peer review, giving students a window into the process of science and its communication.
- Del Gaizo Moore, Victoria, et al. "COVID-360: a collaborative effort to develop a multidisciplinary set of online resources for engaging teaching on the COVID-19 pandemic." Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education 22.1 (2021): 10-1128.
- Scheifele, Lisa Z., Nikolaos Tsotakos, and Michael J. Wolyniak. "Preprint articles as a tool for teaching data analysis and scientific communication." Plos one 16.12 (2021): e0261622.
Outside the university, I serve as the Executive Director of the Baltimore Underground Science Space (BUGSS), a nonprofit community lab. Through BUGSS, I get to work with students, artists, entrepreneurs, and lifelong learners who all bring their own perspectives to science. I have studied these broader connections between science, society, and imagination, to learn about the unique interactions that occur in these community spaces and how they can invite people to experience human-DNA interactions in a more personal and creative way.
- Walker, Justice T., et al. "Community laboratories in the United States: BioMakerspaces for life science learning." Public understanding of science 32.4 (2023): 442-458.
- Hamidi, Foad, et al. "“Turning the Invisible Visible”: Transdisciplinary Bioart Explorations in Human-DNA Interaction." Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2021.
Area of Specialization
- Cell and Molecular Biology, Synthetic Biology, Genomics