RNA polymerases must transit through protein roadblocks to produce full-length transcripts. Building on preliminary work by Finzi lab alumni Yan Yan and Wenxuan Xu, graduate student Jin Qian recently used magnetic tweezers to discover that RNA polymerases can backtrack and ram into longer lived protein roadblocks to transit through them during transcription. He was helped in some of the measurements by Emory undergrauate and honors student, Allison Cartee. This work was recently published in Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47531-x