Dr Chris Morris and I have a new paper in Nucleic Acids Research. This paper has been a long time in the making & was affected by COVID so we are proud to have it published! @shozebhaider.bsky.social @effrosynialexandr.bsky.social @chriswaudby.bsky.social academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Congratulations to Yaxuan for passing your upgrade viva - many thanks to @cjserpell.bsky.social and Chris Morris for examining

In my sadness that Irregular Choice is going out of business I'm making more effort to wear my collection - today are black flats with Queen and Corgi #irregularchoice

DNA docs and Halloween vibes today ✨️

Green tomato or mitochondrion?

DNA dress on today!

In memoriam...

Primatologist Jane Goodall's recent passing left an incredible legacy that transformed our understanding of chimpanzee behavior and intelligence. New insights show that great apes use medicinal plants to treat wounds like humans. cen.acs.org/pharmaceutic... #chemsky 🧪

A study found that at cellular concentrations of magnesium, the Cas9 enzyme often nicks only one strand—and this small cut is enough to defend against phages. cen.acs.org/biological-c... #chemsky 🧪

From finding a "universal language" in science, to comedy, conferences and following her passion, Prof Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu @ucllifesciences.bsky.social tells BBC World Service about her fascinating path to becoming a pioneer of pharmaceutical nanoscience and champion for race equality

Gain insights into regulatory affairs by learning from professionals who work in this field. Hear about their career journeys, their roles, & the skills needed to work in this sector – plus you’ll have the chance to ask questions. Attendance is free for RSC members: https://rsc.li/3IAEnWv #ChemSky

Thanks to @jesspanch.bsky.social at Trends in Chemistry for handling this review article on DNA-peptide self-assembly which is just out. This outlook is going to frame some more papers you'll see coming out my lab over the next year or so. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Meeting Tutees from Drug Discovery and Development today!

It's #ChemNobel season again! Surely this year should go to the most important chemical breakthrough of our lifetimes: DNA synthesis/Marvin Caruthers 🧬 Phosphoramidite DNA synthesis is the bedrock of modern biology and enabled the development of therapies for untreatable diseases #chemsky 🧪

Twenty years today I started my PhD - tempus fugit

Congratulations to Dilek to getting a position as a Lecturer! It's not goodbye - just a pivot from Postdoc to collaborator ❤️

The fabulous Naked Scientists have just produced a podcast episode about colour in art, a topic about which I was of course delighted to speak to them. www.thenakedscientists.com/podcasts/nak...

It gets earlier every year... Next Wednesday, join me and an expert panel to discuss who might win the 2025 #ChemNobel. Free to attend. Date: Wednesday, October 1, 2025 Time: 2–3 PM ET Register here: lnkd.in/eD8cdWRS

Early career researchers or PhD students, could £500 develop your career? Our Researcher Development and Travel Grant can help you organise a scientific meeting and more. Apply by 20 October: https://rsc.li/4gB2D7s #ChemSky

Reading comments on a post and someone spelled Acetone *Assitone* and now I only want to spell it this way #chemsky

Matching in a different way today #Docs #leopardprint

More matching the platform yesterday #Docs #snag

Congratulations to all the recent promotions in the school of Pharmacy

Happy World Pharmacist Day folks

Excellent example of the great nucleic acids research at UCL. 75% slowing of clinical progression of Huntington's disease using gene-silencing technology. Great science with massive impact on patients from Prof Sarah Tabrizi and team 👏 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Anyone wondering what academics do on their day off - this one is baking birthday cakes and singing Disney songs at full volume vm.tiktok.com/ZNdprkH1p/

RSC Professional Standards Board today, got the go-ahead for an exciting project 😀 Obligatory photo outside Burlington House with Toby Underwood before raiding Fortnums @rsc.org

Matching the train platform today 🤣

You cannot knock-out metals, you cannot knock-in metals, you cannot sequence metals - that is why they are difficult to study - Raphaël Rodriguez explains the challenges of understanding the role of metals in biology

Sylvain Ladame was a postdoc at the same time I was doing my PhD - his work on nucleic-acids based diagnostics is exceptional and I'm looking forward to seeing development of these for clinical impact 👌

Given Dongsheng Liu's work is the basis of a lot of what I do, it was a great pleasure to be in the same session as him at the Balasubramanian Alumni Symposium - I often use his figures on i-motif nanomachines in my intro slides (though no need today!)

Fantastic talk about the shape of DNA from Zoë Waller at Shankarfest in Cambridge Chemistry - along with some embarrassing photos... 🫣 @drzoewaller.bsky.social

Marco Di Antonio - his fantastic science is always challenging dogma, but first a bit about Italy ❤️ 🤌🤌🤌 @diantoniogroup.bsky.social

Chun Kit Kwok - who was recently promoted to Professor (congrats Kit! ❤️) - gives a showcase of his independent work on RNA G-quadruplexes today at the Balasubramanian reunion

Shankarfest continues with Mike Booth talking about his work on magnetically actived nucleic acids. This work, recently published in Nature Chemistry, was actually highlighted in the Times this week (Fancy! - Well done Mike ❤️) @drmikebooth.bsky.social

Shankarfest kicks off with Yamuna Krishnan talking about exploring the insides of the insides of our insides ❤️ @krishnanyamuna.bsky.social

Shankarfest is on!

Been out of office for a bit...

We’ve developed the first-ever method to control nucleic acid activity and gene-expressing synthetic cells with a deeply tissue penetrating alternating magnetic field 🧬 🧪 🧲!!! Published in *Nature Chemistry* Led by Ellen Parkes @syncelleu.bsky.social #chemsky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Love this - at Birmingham

Starting off our NAF 2025 meeting with an introduction of the RSC Nucleic Acids Group's new chair, Marco Di Antonio! An exciting new era for our group begins! 🧬 @diantoniogroup.bsky.social

Happy Nucleic Acids Forum! Packed out at Burlington House today, as always. Great to see the new leadership team of the Nucleic Acids Group in action ❤️ @rscnucleicacids.bsky.social @rsc.org @diantoniogroup.bsky.social @yiliangding.bsky.social @drmikebooth.bsky.social

Proud to share our work where we resolved a longstanding question regarding the existence of a human telomerase dimer and provided insights into its function. Led by 3 amazing lab members in collaboration with @yiliangding.bsky.social and @rdaslab.bsky.social. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Whilst I hark on about how cool Guanine is for self-assembly I see this... Self-sorting molecular assembly by Smith and co-workers - super cool ability to generate "nanowoven fabrics" Love chemistry ❤️ #chemsky

Shozeb Haider explains his love for Guanine at the Biochemical Society AlterNAT meeting. What's your favourite nucleobase? @shozebhaider.bsky.social @rsc.org @biochemsoc.bsky.social #chemsky

Dilek Guneri explains how DNA G-quadruplex structures appear to act like an on/off switch, whereas i-motif DNA structures act as a control dial in insulin gene expression at the Biochemical Society AlterNAT meeting @biochemsoc.bsky.social @rsc.org @ucllifesciences.bsky.social

Yiliang explains deep learning of nucleic acid structures - using an analogy of *babies* and *Shakespeare* at AlterNAT, hosted at RSC Burlington House @biochemsoc.bsky.social @rsc.org @yiliangding.bsky.social

It's a happy Monday when you realise a compound you discovered during your PhD is now commercially available! TAP1 (forever etched into my mind) can disrupt G-quadruplex DNA structures and is now available from MedChemExpress #chemsky