Effective laser phase plates should be transformational for cryo-EM and this proof of principle study shows a pulsed system successfully intergrated in a SEM. A powerful step towards functional systems in a cryo-TEM

Pulsed #lasers integrated with #cryoEM: @fitzpatricklab.bsky.social postdoc Daniel Du aims to boost contrast in #cryoET zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/making-world-s-best-microscopes-biology-better zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/science-life-daniel-du elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/109793v1

Neuroscientists are always looking for new tools that can bring the brain into sharper focus. For postdoc Daniel Du, that means shooting lasers at state-of-the-art microscopes to take better snapshots of the building blocks of the brain: zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/science-life...

How do you make one of the best microscopes in biology even better? Postdoc Daniel Du of the Fitzpatrick lab zapped electrons with a laser. The new research in @elife.bsky.social with Cornell’s Maxson lab promises improved snapshots of the brain: zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/making-world...

🚀 CryoSPARC v5.0 BETA is here! We’re excited to deploy another major #CryoSPARC release to help enable and accelerate #cryoEM data analysis. v5 has a redesigned underlying software system and many new features - highlights in thread! Full changelog: cryosparc.com/updates/v5.0.0

Frozen Bryant Park fountain in snowy NYC!

A combined approach using light microscopy and ion beam milling enhances the precision of cryoET sample preparation, enabling more accurate targeting of small, rare structures within cells. doi.org/hbkb94

Reversible lipid-mediated pH-gating of connexin-46/50 by cryo-EM pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41526355/ #cryoem

Amyloid-mediated RNA uptake by sperm for embryonic delivery https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.10.693493v1

Excited to share our latest research, out today in Cell (@cellpress.bsky.social) Using cryo-EM and cell-based studies, we reveal how large nutrient sensing protein complexes form at the lysosomal membrane to turn off mTORC1 and halt anabolic signalling. Read the paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

Another member of the Fitzpatrick/Shapiro quad @zuckermanbrain.bsky.social embarks on setting up his lab! If you wish to use #cryoEM #cryoET to study how viruses enter & evade the immune system, & design antibody-based vaccines, check out the Roark lab: isb.med.upenn.edu/research/cryoem-and-cryoet

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

Thrilled to see our review article "The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins" highlighted on the cover of Nature Reviews Neuroscience 🤩. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @msarscentre.bsky.social 🧠✨🧬🌊🪼🧽

A quick tutorial on the DAQ structure validation score for protein models derived from cryo-EM. DAQ evaluates amino acid–level accuracy in your model. Consider including a DAQ validation report in your next publication! www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRAT...

I’m very happy (and grateful!) to share that I’m featured in a Nature Cancer Viewpoint about starting my lab at CNIO. In the Lab (www.rcglab.com) we’re combining AI, protein design and structural biology to study protein structures and design novel protein therapeutics for cancer. 🔬

🔬 Just out in @NatureComms! Using cryo-CLEM and cryo-ET, we reveal the unique ultrastructure of dopaminergic varicosities in the striatum. Amazing collaboration with @davip-bdx.bsky.social and Etienne Herzog @iins-bordeaux.bsky.social Congratulations to Paul and Robin for this fantastic work! 🎉

December Update of DAQ-Score DB! Quality evaluations of protein models from cryo-EM. Now includes evaluation of 258,956 protein chains. Check at daqdb.kiharalab.org It's very easy to compute DAQ for your protein model. Add the validation result in your publication: em.kiharalab.org/algorithm/da...

Holy cow the Zhou lab at UCLA is cooking with Isonet 2 - www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Averaging-free direct visualization of ribosome translational state! #teamtomo #cryoet

😍 Zhou Lab on fire!!! 🔥🔥🔥 #cryoet #teamtomo

Love the caption of Fig. 3 in this impressive preprint: "A Goodsell-esque 3D orthogonal rendering of an IsoNet2-processed FIB-milled tomogram of C. reinhardtii" doi.org/10.64898/202... Since I am no expert, what does the cryoET community think of IsoNet? @cellarchlab.com doi.org/10.1038/s414...

IsoNet2 determines cellular structures at submolecular resolution without averaging www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.09.693325v1 #cryoem

Many thanks to @cellpress.bsky.social for highlighting our #cryoEM research: cell.com/structure/fu...

I wrote a bit about practical considerations for using #cryo-ET labels and some things to work on if we want to find any protein in any cell. authors.elsevier.com/a/1mA6h,LqAr...

Delighted to have contributed to this paper and amazing resource. In-silico protein-protein interaction screening has huge promise for generating novel hypotheses and building models into low-res #cryo-EM and #teamtomo maps.

Seeing is believing-Plasmodium falciparum translation in action pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41202797/ #cryoem

Excited to share our latest @nature.com: How does naloxone (Narcan) stop an opioid overdose? We determined the first GDP-bound μ-opioid receptor–G protein structures and found naloxone traps a novel "latent” state, preventing GDP release and G protein activation.💊🧪 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Please RT. Post-doc opportunity alert! 💥 closing 10th December.. Come join our team (www.thelowlab.org) at Imperial, London, working on the structure and mechanism of bacterial secretion systems. For more details and to apply please see www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

Learn how our hunt for the native structure of top antimalarial target PfATP4🧂led to the discovery of PfABP, an unknown essential binding partner, out now! @natcomms.nature.com 👉 rdcu.be/eLRlH 🦠🔬❄️ A team effort led by @mehsehret.bsky.social & Anurag Shukla @akhilvaidya.bsky.social! #cryoEM #malaria

1/10 Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from? Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral RTs, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A beautiful piece of work from @ruixuan3.bsky.social and @supgokul.bsky.social presenting a light-based slicing method using a photosensitive hydrogel to image large biological samples layer by layer, preserving fine structure for full 3D reconstructions.

As ever, beautiful #cryoEM work from the lab of Hong Zhou with field-defining insights using #cryoET: “Kiss-shrink-run” unifies mechanisms for synaptic vesicle exocytosis and hyperfast recycling | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

If you're curious about how cells quickly eliminate misfolded proteins produced under proteotoxic stress or mitotic substrate during cell cycle progression, check out our latest article in Nature Communications: doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Check out our preprint! With new molecular mechanisms, 140 subtomogram averages, and ~600 annotated cells under different conditions, we @embl.org were able to describe bacterial populations with in-cell #cryoET. And there’s a surprise at the end 🕵️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #teamtomo

Lipid imaging on the cover of @nature.com! Great times for lipid cell biology indeed. And a fantastic recognition of all the hard work by the team, especially Juan M. Iglesias-Artola and Kristin Böhlig (who made the cover). Link to article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ballistic Microscopy (BaM) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.07.681030v1 #cryoem

High-resolution #CryoET provides ‘compelling’ evidence for the true 3D architecture of glutamatergic synapses: a complex ‘synaptoplasm’ rather than the textbook postsynaptic density. buff.ly/hOYKjHH

How does hunger spur us to consume? @columbiauniversity.bsky.social scientists have found a brain area that drives mice to consume sweets, fats, salt & food. This finding may inform novel treatments for both overeating and undereating: zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/brain-dial-c...

Progress in the development of an ultrafast pulsed ponderomotive phase plate for cryo-electron tomography pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40896196/ #cryoem

Brooklyn at sunset

Our latest paper on the development of an #ultrafast #laser #PhasePlate for #cryoET @fitzpatricklab.bsky.social @zuckermanbrain.bsky.social doi.org/10.1063/4.0000770

Exciting to see our protein binder design pipeline BindCraft published in its final form in @Nature ! This has been an amazing collaborative effort with Lennart, Christian, @sokrypton.org, Bruno and many other amazing lab members and collaborators. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Contrast by electron microscopy in thick biological specimens pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40857101/ #cryoem

Optimal tilt-increment for cryo-ET www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.20.671201v1 #cryoem

Fourier-based multiple-slice reconstruction in cryo-electron tomography pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40834650/ #cryoem

ICYMI: New online: Integrated structural biology of the native malarial translation machinery and its inhibition by an antimalarial drug

New "Mindscapes" exhibit @zuckermanbrain.bsky.social‬ featuring #cryoEM structures of #TMEM106B fibrils (doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.02.026) and the ligand-bound human sweet receptor (doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.04.021) from the Fitzpatrick (www.fitzpatrick-lab.org) and Zuker (www.zukerlab.com) labs

Our #CryoET story on how a top antimalarial drug candidate perturbs the native malarial translation machinery is out @natsmb.nature.com🥳 rdcu.be/eBbrH A massive team effort led by @leonieanton.bsky.social Meseret Haile & Wenjing Cheng in collaboration with Jerzy Dziekan & the Alan Cowman! #TeamTomo

Flexibility can be frustrating when processing a #cryoEM dataset. If your target has a wobbly domain, check out our new case study on FaNaC1 for continuous heterogeneity tips in #CryoSPARC! guide.cryosparc.com/processing-d...

New post! Our summer edition of What's new in biology: The first gonorrhea vaccination program, contact lenses that see infrared light, the protein behind sweet tastes, baby cured with gene therapy, gene-editing breakthroughs & new cholesterol drugs. Written by me and @nikomccarty.bsky.social