Thrilled to share our latest work @luptoncj.bsky.social @drellisdon.bsky.social @drmlhalls.bsky.social. Structure of the lysosomal KICSTOR-GATOR1-SAMTOR nutrient-sensing supercomplex. 🧪🔬#cryoEM Now online @cellpress.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

❄️ With all the snow outside, I felt like sharing a cryo tomogram: A neuronal synapse, captured by cryo-ET at the moment a neurotransmitter-filled vesicle fuses at the active zone. Fusion was triggered optogenetically and arrested by plunge freezing. More details: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In the absence of m¹G37, we directly visualize the formation of four, and even five, codon-anticodon base pairs on the ribosome, thereby capturing a long-standing hypothesis for +1 frameshifting. I’ve been behind on highlighting a few recent papers—more posts coming soon.

Structural reorganization underlying stress-induced cytoplasmicsolidification in yeast https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.22.696049v1

Latest preprint from our lab reports that the distinct pH of anterograde (less acidic) and retrograde (more acidic) lysosomal vesicles in the axon depends on assembly of the V1 and V0 domains of the vacuolar H+ ATPase, mediated by the metazoan RAVE complex www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Intrigued by a long-standing conundrum in small RNA biology—how nuclear Argonaute proteins silence transposons when they *need* target transcription for their own recruitment—we studied the piRNA pathway. And found a hidden RNA-decay axis from Piwi to the RNA exosome.

⚡️Mitochondria make ATP, the energy that powers life. But in neurons, with axons up to a meter long, how do these tiny power plants stay functional in the right places? We went looking. 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

very unusual - a tRNA regulated anion channel

In our new preprint, we show how fibril-dynamics of signaling component TIRAP supports sensitive & fast sensing of endotoxin LPS. Congrats to co-lead @arthurfelker.bsky.social. @piehlerlab.bsky.social @arnemoeller.bsky.social #TLR #cryoEM #blender doi.org/10.64898/202...

🔬 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! 🎉

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

#cryoEM 🧪⚛️ Lena’s paper on imaging thick biological sections with STEM is finally published! We started this work almost 10 years ago. After Lena passed in 2023, I spent much of my sabbatical working with Yue and Steve to wrap this up. Also learned a lot about TEM vs STEM dose efficiency

✨New preprint! 🧵1/4 Excited to share our work on AI-guided design of minimal RNA-guided nucleases. Amazing work by @petrskopintsev.bsky.social @isabelesain.bsky.social @evandeturk.bsky.social et al! Multi-lab collaboration @banfieldlab.bsky.social @jhdcate.bsky.social @jacobsenucla.bsky.social🧬 🔗👇

Our Method of the Year 2025 is...drumroll please...EM-based connectomics!! Our Editorial introduces our choice and highlights six Comments and other related content in this special issue. Please join us in celebrating EM-based connectomics! 🎉🧠🔬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

One proposed strategy to promote a youthful immune system and human healthspan is to rejuvenate our thymus gland. Can we learn from this exceptional (and peculiar looking) vertebrate that can do this? science.org/doi/10.1126/...

GTPBP1 is a GTPase implicated in neurodevelopment. Our cryo-EM maps show GTPBP1 delivering tRNA to ribosome. Due to delayed GTPase dissociation, mRNA decoding is more stringent than with bona fide delivery factor eEF1A. Congrats to Denis Susorov and collab with Pestova lab! tinyurl.com/3smdvt3v

CryoET of microbes inside an animal organ? Yes it’s possible! Check out our new preprint showing how we did it! What an amazing collaboration with amazing scientists who made this possible!

Using "in extracto cryo-EM", we visualize ribosomes in mammalian lysates, including RRL. "Hibernating" ribosomes carry an extended set of proteins that protect functional centers. These include elongation factor eEF2, LARP1 implicated in mTOR signaling, eIF5A etc. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Visualizing the translation landscape in human cells at high resolution pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41315256/ #cryoem

Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes are found in hundreds of copies in the human genome. Do sequence variations in these paralogs change the ribosome function? Yes! I am excited to share our new preprint @mbarnalab @jkpritch in collaboration with Calico: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/8

#MD blind predictions of water/ions around Tetrahymena ribozyme #RNA matched cryo-EM data better than our baselines! Congrats #CASP16 + @rachael-kretsch.bsky.social + 23 brave groups. Still a ways to go — time for #DeepLearning of water? Community paper: doi.org/10.1002/prot...

New paper alert! Scientists in Clemens Plaschka’s lab at the IMP and @juliusbrennecke.bsky.social's lab at @imbavienna.bsky.social solved a decade-old puzzle, uncovering how the information molecule mRNA travels from the cell’s nucleus to its periphery. More: bit.ly/4nHcvys

Hey #TeamTomo …would you like to try some 🍦ICECREAM!? Our @unibas.ch colleagues over at the @ivandokmanic.bsky.social lab have developed a stunningly effective tool to de-noise and de-wedge your tomograms. The contrast and details will give you brain freeze! 🍨❄️🤯 Please try, we need feedback 🧪🧶🧬🔬

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/...

Just some 3D classification 🤩 WOW. Congratulations

Very excited that my final postdoctoral work is now online in Cell @cellpress.bsky.social. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Using 16 (!) cryo-EM structures, we uncovered how the three proteins coronin, cofilin and AIP1 work together to rapidly disassemble actin filaments.

Awesome re-analysis of the Franklin / Crick / Watson story. Explains how Franklin produced (with considerable skill) the *pictures* that made the penny drop for slow-on-the-uptake Watson. Sadly, paywalled. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Wait uh, what?? 🤩

This year’s #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to three scientists for discovering how the immune system distinguishes friend from foe. https://scim.ag/3Wt5rdi

Check out our new preprint on an integrated pipeline combining in situ #cryo-ET with MALDI #MSImaging for single-cell identification and classification from previously analysed EM-grids. Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Helical Reconstruction of Amyloids in cryoSPARC? We present guidelines, limitations & future perspectives for processing amyloids in cryoSPARC @structurabio.bsky.social. Great collaboration of the Kelly Lab and @landerlab.bsky.social #cryoEM #amyloid www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Muyuan Chen has turned structural biology into an immersive experience with his new video game Meowtabolism, now available on Steam. Try the demo here: store.steampowered.com/app/4045010/... Give Muyuan feedback: steamcommunity.com/app/4045010 #ScienceGaming #StructuralBiology #CryoEM #STEMOutreach

Historically, viruses were thought to primarily use host cell's translational machinery. New work from @harvardcellbio.bsky.social faculty Amy Lee reveals that a giant DNA virus encodes its own IF4F initiation complex, suggesting an unexpected evolutionary innovation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Initial attempt at replicating in relion (parameters in next post). This is for Aca2-RNA, using a 100k subset of the 2D-classified particles (no prior 3D cleanup). A 1-class ab initio in relion, then local refinement in relion (1.8deg searches+blush) gives a nominally 3.3Å map; 3.5 Å w/out blush.

Time for a thread!🧵 How different is the molecular organization of thylakoids in “higher” plants🌱? To find out, we teamed up with @profmattjohnson.bsky.social to dive into spinach chloroplasts with #CryoET ❄️🔬. Curious? ..Read on! #TeamTomo #PlantScience 🧪 🧶🧬 🌾 elifesciences.org/articles/105... 1/🧵

Huntingtin binds and bundles F-actin! Thrilled to team up with the Humbert (Sorbonne Université) and Song (KAIST) labs on this discovery. We had a blast doing cryo-ET on this unexpected complex — and now so many new questions lie ahead! #TeamTomo #CryoET #HTT #actin doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Ever wondered how to position organelles in bacteria? Wonder no more! Happy to have contributed to this fantastic story from @cellforganized.bsky.social' lab. The avenues this opens in the synthetic biology space are enormous! Movie: Carboxysomes positioned in E. coli! Preprint: shorturl.at/D6xVg

A molecular-resolution look into the near-native architecture of the spinach chloroplast🌱. This one was a long time in the oven, but we're happy to finally share our "version of record". What long-standing debates did we settle? Check back for a short thread🧵 on Monday. #TeamTomo #PlantScience 🧪🧶🧬🔬🌾

Structural dynamics of mitochondrial ATP synthase in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii revealed by in situ CryoET https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.10.674987v1

Impressive! Congratulations!

New Title Alert: AITom- an open-source platform for AI driven cellular electron cryo-tomography analysis. Learn more here: buff.ly/LLGhjvY #SBGrid #SBGridSoftware #StructuralBiology

We found a new #ecological factor in #microbial mats: the #bacterial contractile injection system. Using #cryoET, #metagenomics, & quantitative #immunoTEM, we studied this feature directly in natural populations of bacterial #cells.

Lovely. So many US states I never heard of before, I definitely have to study an US map much better

Not my area at all, but how cool are these cryoEM structures of purely RNA-based assemblies! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Here is the correct link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Cryo-EM structures of Egl-BicD-RNA complexes reveal how diverse mRNAs are selected for subcellular localization www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.02.668268v1 #cryoem

Check out our new preprint on the discovery of a molecular switch in NAC that mediates nascent chain sorting on the ribosome and prevents mitochondrial protein mistargeting by SRP. A great collaboration with the Shan Lab @Caltech and the Qi Lab @UVA: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The National Institutes of Health’s budget, and structure, would be preserved under a Senate bill for the 2026 fiscal year.

Now out in Structure: Paper on high-resolution #cryoEM using the 100 kV Tundra cryo-TEM by Dimple Karia, Adrian Koh, @abhaykot.bsky.social, @lingboyu.bsky.social, @landerlab.bsky.social and many others. Happy to have contributed to this effort. Check it out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...