Thrilled to share this #lipidtime mechanism story in @jcb.org where, led by Shiying Huang and in collaboration with Tamas Balla’s lab, we uncover plasticity in phospholipid metabolism to preserve plasma membrane identity and integrity in the face of disease-relevant perturbations!

We held lab meeting at McDonalds today…they have air conditioning, and lipids

It's been a wonderful 4 years and I couldn't have done this without you James! Onwards and upwards!

What a week! My first Points of View was published @natmethods.nature.com Happy to start the series in 🏳️‍🌈 month with "On Color scales and the birth of Viridis" - looks good, allows naming of regions, AND is perceptually uniform 🎁 rdcu.be/fnPhk www.nature.com/articles/s41... #dataviz

WORK: our Bionanoscience department at TU Delft is looking to hire an Assistant Professor in Biophysics of Living Systems. Apply! Deadline 30 July careers.tudelft.nl/job/Delft-As... RT=nice

😎 to have this out! --> stay tuned, this is a series about 📊#dataviz for #science 🧪

Just start writing. My new post: substack.com/home/post/p-...

Some things never change…I put this sign up 15 years ago when I borrowed a few glass vessels from @hymanlab.bsky.social as a postdoc… as of today it’s still there 😅 Did I return the bottles? We may never know! But there’s some bonus unpublished data printed on the back!

Thrilled to be joining the ZMBH, where my lab will continue to explore the evolution and engineering of living membranes. Farewell @bcube-tud.bsky.social...I couldn't imagine a better place to have started my lab! I'm perpetually grateful to my lab group for making this such a successful adventure!!

Congratulations 🍾 to @anh-nhn.bsky.social on her successful PhD defense today: Deciphering the role of lipidome complexity using Mesoplasma florum!! Time to celebrate 🎉 @bcube-tud.bsky.social

Congratulations 🎉🎊 to Dr. Sandra Rizk for defending her PhD thesis today: Functional Characterization of Isoprenoid Lipids in Methylobacterium extorquens PA1!!! @bcube-tud.bsky.social

The fact we can see this machine factory frozen in time (and space), happily making molecular machines, effectively at an atomic level is just jaw dropping. Every time I see these images I am blown away by it. Great work by Xiaohan and what a way for Christoph Müller to retire from @embl.org

And now I’ve found a catchy new slogan for the lab…MEMBRANES: MORE THAN YOU THINK inpreparation.substack.com/p/biophysica...

The ZMBH welcomes Dr. James Sáenz @jamessaenz.bsky.social as new Professor in Molecular Biology. James previously led a research group at B CUBE - Center for Molecular Bioengineering of Dresden University of Technology.

Geoscience teachers, interested in playing my GeoTimeline Game? You can now buy your own copy, these little timescale cards come in a cute mint tin! www.thegamecrafter.com/games/geotim...

“Academic science is not only about productivity, it is also about deep understanding, exploring creative solutions and training critical thinkers to be the next generation of researchers.” www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🍾 🎉 Congratulations to Dr. Isaac Justice for defending his PhD thesis, in which he demonstrated that two lipid species are sufficient (but not optimal) for life! @bcube-tud.bsky.social

Evolutionary strategies of late-stage diversification in bacterial biosynthetic gene clusters portlandpress.com/essaysbioche... Nice review by @pthiel.bsky.social and Aleksandra Nivina

Wow. 3’UTRs are pretty amazing.

What membrane properties do cells maintain through regulation of lipid metabolism? In a new paper, we identify intrinsic curvature stress as one such parameter and show how different (eukaryotic) cell types employ different lipids to do that www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Take a look at the fresh post-Easter paper about lipid regulation of NS5A, a key protein of the hepatitis C virus. We were happy to contribute to the all-star team by Anna, Rebecca, James et al, spearheaded by Christoph Welsch. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I'm thrilled to be starting as Professor for Molecular Biology at Heidelberg University in April. Looking forward to this adventure!

Its official, from April civil servant for "the Ländle" - Congratulations @jamessaenz.bsky.social on becoming professor @uniheidelberg.bsky.social - and I am happy to be back in town. @mpi-cbg.de @bcube-tud.bsky.social @tudresden.bsky.social

It’s incredibly hard to study lipids in biological membranes on the nanoscale. You need near-perfect information on both membrane ultrastructure and lipid density. Lipid-CLEM, now out in @natcellbio.nature.com brought to you by @mathilda95.bsky.social changes that: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Humanity is notorious for leaving problems for the next generations, but animals reveal the biology: C. elegans develop germline tumors if THEIR GRAND GRANDPARENTS’ cells fail to clear garbage from their body cavity… What the hell, you ask? Read our new preprint! 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

#czechcellence on tap

Agreed!! A very exciting direction in structural biology

Videos of the 2026 @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social Award Lectures are now online, including the Agnes Pockel Award Lecture by @veatchlab.bsky.social! It's here: www.biophysics.org/video-librar...

Check out our new preprint! We show that tension drives mixing of phase separated membranes!

Thank you so much for this perspective, Elise...it's exciting to see lipids getting a little time in the spotlight!! 🤩 #lipidtime @elisecutts.bsky.social

Thank you so much Anirban, I'm humbled! It was a real joy to chair this session on the evolution of membrane phenotypes...it was an incredible lineup from ancient protosterol "fossils" to unified laws of membrane elasticity. I've pasted the key papers from the session below! 🧵 #BPS2026

Wonderful to meet @ayushpanda2002.bsky.social in person at #BPS2026 in San Francisco! Former master’s student in Dresden, now starting his PhD in biophysics at Michigan…excited to see where his research takes him! 🦠🔬

Good morning San Francisco, and #BPS2026 … looking forward to the Membrane Structure and Function subsection meeting today!

😍 - also a great outcome of a meeting at #TCTEAC #WoodstockOfBio

Lipid geeks rise up!

"James' brain seemed to have had a little short-circuit when I asked him what kind of scientist he is." YES that our beloved #lipidlove @jamessaenz.bsky.social . Great interview and even better a fun old picture of him. I have a lot more, just in case 😂

Lipids are kind of the ignored middle children of origins of life research. It's time they got a bit of attention, too! This week's post is a Q&A with geoscientist-turned-??? (interdisciplinary folks know the struggle) @jamessaenz.bsky.social about why there's no cutting the fat from origins. 🧪

Scientists have seen Asgard archaea crawling for the first time. When it comes to the origin of eukaryotes, this is like seeing a feathered dinosaur in the wild. (Video courtesy of Philipp Ralder)

New paper from my team detailing a greatly expanded genomic database of Asgard archaea revealing of high energy metabolism those related to eukaryotes! Led by @katyappler.bsky.social lots of help from @jameslingford.bsky.social @valdeanda.bsky.social @kassipan.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Ooooh. Cool new paper on origins of life. A simple 45-nucleotide RNA molecule that can perfectly copy itself. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Junior RNA Scientists, tomorrow Feb 11th at 10AM ET is the first RNA Collaborative Seminar Series of 2026 hosted by the University of Rochester Center for RNA & the Bay Area RNA Club! Join us to hear about emerging RNA research. Sign up for zoom registration here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Lipids challenge ligands to control receptors The behaviour of a receptor protein can be influenced by the presence of certain lipids in the membrane it is embedded in. 🔗 buff.ly/G1Zl6cZ

I present the most interesting graph ever made. HUMAN ON BICYCLE beats every other living thing. www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-hu...

Thrilled to share our latest study, led by @reikatei.bsky.social, in @natchembio.nature.com! We began by asking a simple question—how do cells know if they have too much of a lipid in a particular membrane, and how do they respond to rectify this imbalance? www.nature.com/articles/s41... More info 👇

New paper out! Here's a puzzle: phototrophy, the ability to use light for energy, is one of life's great innovations. It evolved early and transformed the biosphere. But it evolved 2x. Why not just once, why not more? Our work suggests the answer is priority effects. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

reading about organisms that aren’t your specialty is like margins of the quorbus eplungulate, ploobular processes bent posteriorly towards the foobulum define term “eplungulate” - lacking plungae. synonym: thubulous

How do lipids shape life? I explore this question in my recent talk for the Build-a-Cell 🦠 seminar series. Thanks to @kateadamala.bsky.social for hosting! Watch it here: youtu.be/JnF7hPCiSbI?...

Science update from my postdoc Peiyuan Chai - his work “glycoRNA complexed with heparan sulfate regulates VEGF-A signaling” is now published @nature.com uncovering a new layer or glycoRNA-regulation of growth factor mediated control physiological processes rdcu.be/e1bBX

Excited to share a new story that transformed how we think about membrane domains in the ER! rdcu.be/eR7Cn ER exit sites mediated by the COPII adaptor sec24D selectively recruit lipid raft-preferencing proteins for rapid ER export Wondering what’s so new and exciting? Skytorial below! 1/9