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

How's AI affecting science productivity? AI is giving scientists "tunnel vision": lots of papers on fewer topics, and discovery gets stuck in local minima. I think q.e.d is the cure for that (link to q.e.d below) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Beautiful wintry sunset seen from Hudson, Massachusetts!

If you are looking to integrate your latest genetic creation into the genome of your favourite bug, you might find our latest review now out in OUP Synthetic Biology useful. 🧬⚒️ Work led by Riesa Rohmat with input from Thea Irvine and Shivang Joshi. #genome #synbio doi.org/10.1093/synb...

Merry Christmas 🎄from Hamburg to Boston! 🛩️

Last letter in the post before the holidays 🎄📮 2026 is going to be a great year!

Our🥶COOLNESS paper to date is finally published! Ice cold and lithium dramatically delay forgetting (extend memory) in C. elegans. Why? read all about it! 👇 rdcu.be/eVhn2

Do viruses use RNA to rewire bacteria? Yes! In our paper in @cp-molcell.bsky.social RIL-seq reveals interkingdom RNA interactions during λ infection. Phages don’t just encode proteins, they use small RNAs to hijack bacterial replication and fine-tune infection. #RNA #Phage doi.org/10.1016/j.mo...

Organelles do NOT have a single uniform pH. And if you think they must, because “protons diffuse fast,” this paper is for you. A thread on why that assumption is wrong; and what we found instead. 🧵 1/n

A long standing goal in synthetic biology is ‘PURE makes PURE’ - effectively the start of self-replicating biology in a tube from just adding biochemicals and DNA instructions. This looks like a promising breakthrough from the Maerkl lab. 👀

🎉 Congratulations to @anh-nhn.bsky.social for submitting her PhD thesis, just in time for Christmas!! 🎄🦠

And as we discussed, #eierpunch is a well-balanced sport drink, with just enough ethanol to improve focus...

I have lost focus in recent weeks of what is important in #life. Silly me. Not anymore. 🤠🚴‍♀️💕 Thanks James for this #winter #ride punctuated by a power #eierpunch

#Mastodon, the Command Center for Large-Scale Lineage-Tracing Microscopy Datasets, is finally heading for publication (well, let's see). To #cite or not to cite shall no longer be the question 🙃, because the #preprint. Software is available in every #Fiji near you. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

And let's not forget they're also glow in the dark (thanks @chemzymes.bsky.social)

Join us (again) for another fantastic BioMalPar meeting @embl.org and also a great pre-meeting @ciid-heidelberg.bsky.social

Good company on the 🚂 train back to #Dresden with @paveltomancak.bsky.social

Had an amazing first year at Center SynGen @zmbh.uni-heidelberg.de! Building a computational group in an experimental institute sparked more collaboration than I imagined. If you love comp bio and working with amazing scientists, this role is a huge chance. Curious? Reach out! t.ly/udiwJ

Great idea, here’s our December 🦠❄️ #MicrobeContaminationArt ❄️🦠, by @varvarakramkova.bsky.social Happy Holidays from the Saenz Lab ☃️