New online: Cytoplasmic lattices store developmentally poised degradative and cytoskeletal complexes in mammalian eggs

Les nouvelles règles envisagées pour l'ANR sont plus qu'inquiétantes. Elles porteraient un immense coup d'arrêt à la recherche fondamentale en France, surchargeraient les jeunes chercheurs, et n'attendraient sans doute même pas leur objectif (apparent) de réduction du nombre de candidatures

Domain swap is a staple in protein engineering. But instead of trial & error, can we predict an ideal crossover w/ comp modeling? Happy to share a wonderful collaboration w/ Jürgen @lassak-lab.bsky.social at my alma mater LMU Munich to convert a protein ligase to an aaRS for β amino acids t.ly/lNpVw

Si les nouvelles règles de l'éligibilité de l'ANR sont bien réelles, alors je ne comprends pas quelle est la logique sous jacente. Au vu de la pyramide des ages, forcer une collaboration avec chercheurs(ses) <10 ans post thèse va de facto exclure 80% des candidats.

Have just seen the news about updated, stricter ANR grant rules in France @agencerecherche.bsky.social . One argument is to better support teams with 'potential towards Europe', meaning European grants. I'm not sure how much sense it makes as a policy. 1/n

RNA can build. A short RNA self-assembles into a 60-subunit icosahedral cage like a viral capsid, but made entirely of RNA. The striking preprint also reveals a 57-nt RNA filament at ~2.7 Å. Congratulations, Lin Huang and colleagues! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

new out in Nature www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We are hiring! Join the fantastic Structural Biology, Biochemistry and Biophysics team at Nature Communications. More information here: springernature.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/SpringerNatu...

Our new preprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social, led by @katsuminami.bsky.social‬ et al.! 🎉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Machine learning-assisted Repli-Histo labeling and single-nucleosome imaging reveal distinct transcription-dependent chromatin constraints across euchromatin and heterochromatin.

Okay the lab is now really living preprints to accelerate Science. It takes so long to publish a story in journals. So the only option to talk openly about our work are preprints. We currently have 6 preprints - check them out! More coming, one currently uploading and another one ready soon.

Effects of residue substitutions on the cellular abundance of proteins

www.cell.com/molecular-ce... I'm happy to see our work published! If you are interested in transposons, transcriptional regulation and Pol III come and check it out 👀 🧫 🧬

Membrane protein solubilization and structure determination using de novo–designed proteins | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🧬 Our new paper is out in @natsmb.nature.com! ATRX is one of the most mutated genes in cancer, and linked to the rare ATR-X syndrome. We ran genome-scale CRISPR screens to map how it protects the genome, and found it is doing two separate jobs... 🧵 (1/4) nature.com/articles/s41594-026-01827-2

Honoured and delighted to be elected as an EMBO Member. Many thanks to my group and to everyone who has supported me throughout the years. I am deeply grateful for this recognition.

Fantastic collaboration with @albrechtlab.bsky.social ! Lysosomes as hubs to regulate cellular lipidome. #lysosomes #lipids

I have spent a long time resisting the use of AI in my everyday task, let alone in the process of scientific production (text, figures, ideas) which is anyway the bit of this weird profession that I enjoy the most. In the ensuing mini-rant, echoing Aydan’s thoughts, I want to highlight few things…

"Mélanie était une personne formidable, fédératrice, empathique…"

I gave a workshop on AlphaFold & related programs @ the University of Utah. Part 1 covers protein structure prediction before/after AlphaFold & deep learning neural networks. Part 2 covers the math behind the scores. Part 3 covers PyMOL & the webservers. youtube.com/@rolanddunbr...

ICYMI: New online: Structural basis of asymmetric transcription through a composite nucleosome formed by a hexasome and an octasome

Gina Simon, Doris Hellerschmied @hellerschmiedlab.bsky.social and colleagues @unidue-zmb.bsky.social dissect stress-induced proteome remodelling at the Golgi–endosome interface. Highlight: journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/... Article: journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

RIP Mary-Dell Chilton, without her no genetic plant transformation using Agrobacterium. Stable incorporation of plasmid DNA into higher plant cells: the molecular basis of crown gall tumorigenesis: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Paris, the capital of France, has recorded more days above 40°C this week than during the 147-year period spanning from 1872 to 2019. Historic is an understatement.

Online Now: Oligomer disassembly activates an HEPN-containing bacterial defense system Online now:

I'm old enough to remember QED's authors said it's just providing an author with internal feedback, and emphatically isn't trying to mimic human review. Now it's compared to human review or journal selectivity and used to rank (other people's) work. The authors seem to ignore the black box aspect1/3

📍 Protective positioning system: #Yeast uses nuclear pore protein Nup60 to sequester SUMO protease Ulp1, preventing premature synaptonemal complex breakdown. Engineered tethering rescues defective mutants= location-based enzyme control 🧬 #YeastResearch 🧪 #SGD 🔬 www.yeastgenome.org/reference/S1...

The mutational landscape of STING-induced immunity www.nature.com/articles/s41... @nature.com

Since the 1960s, the genetic code has been used to predict protein sequences from DNA and mRNA sequences. Our @nature.com article demonstrates that these predictions miss thousands of protein sequences present in human tissues. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/

1/7 New preprint: we found that Chlamydomonas carries a giant and unexpectedly elaborate chloroplast RNA polymerase with 12 previously unknown subunits, overturning the idea that the complexity of this organellar enzyme emerged during plant terrestrialization! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Molecular basis of host ATP level modulation by actin-dependent secreted bacterial ATPase and its metaeffector rdcu.be/fpXB4

Come join the new Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Design as a group leader Cool science in a great scientific environment in wonderful and very family friendly Copenhagen There are two positions that can either be at TT assistant or associate prof level employment.ku.dk/tenure-track...

Switzerland and the UK making the most of their participation in the EU research funding initiatives with Switzerland tied with Germany for the largest number of grants in life science.

Structural and mechanistic insights into the UBR4-KCMF1-Calmodulin complex @ispt-proteinterm.bsky.social academic.oup.com/proteincell/...

Our last contribution is out. A short review asking a simple question : do the multiple Mediator complex functions reflect an expansion of its activity as a complex, or the emergence of specialized functions at the level of individual subunits? portlandpress.com/biochemsoctr...

(1/n) Very excited to share tri-lab collab (Mirny & Zechner) led by Harvey, Henrik & Jack: Q: How do enhancers & promoters interact in space (contact vs. action-at-a-distance) and time (stable vs. transient)? A: Transient E-P contact (~25-42 nm lasting ~10-20 sec): www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our PhD Aanchal Mishra @origichals.bsky.social will defend this December. We'll be sad to see her go - she's been heart & soul of the team in many ways. Soon a highly recomm. *postdoc candidate* with good skills in protein biochem., crystal growth, ITC, advanced AlphaFold, passionate about science.

Independent of sequence, disordered regions promote the stable chromatin occupancy required for pioneer-factor activity www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Now published! We investigated how polyadenylated RNAs are targeted for decay in the human nucleus. www.nature.com/articles/s41... (1/5)

How do cells distinguish functional genetic messages from molecular noise? Researchers in Clemens Plaschka's lab at IMP, together with Julius Brennecke's lab at IMBA and collaborators at Aarhus University, reveal a new principle of gene regulation: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10650-0

Meet AbpX, a biomatrix protein from the hyperthermophile Pyrodictium abyssi. It forms Ca²⁺-triggered fibrils via donor strand complementation. Using cryo-EM + X-ray, we built a full lattice model and place AbpX in a new TasA superfamily clade. A very nice collaborative project! tinyurl.com/mryzcz4n

We are looking for a postdoctoral candidate with experience in display techniques to co-write a fellowship application around a research program currently being developed within the team. #postdoc #phagedisplay #antibodyengineering #proteinengineering #MSCA #ARCFellowship #CNRS

New Preprint alert! Excited to share our latest work on the #MAPKinases from stellar PhD student Jill von Velsen. First structures of the MAP2K MEK1 activating its substrate MAPK between 2.9 and 3.6A - amazing resolutions for such a small and mobile complex! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I learned so much from watching past editions of @ccpem.bsky.social Spring Symposium, so I agreed to my talk being recorded even though this is stepping well out of my comfort zone (public speaking isn't my strongest skill). Anyway, here is the recording: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKTf... #CCPEM

Striking improvement with the laser phase plate to boost contrast, and in exactly the range that's needed for modelling the details of protein structures. Still lots of headroom in Cryo-EM. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #biophysics

Phage receptor-binding proteins are known for their LEGO-like modularity, but we still do not fully understand their evolutionary potential and how it shapes phage host range. Our new preprint examines this systematically in Klebsiella phages. 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Thread 🧵

This, by @khinsen.net , is a very rewarding read. I've finally read it from the beginning to the end and found a lot to think about.

With Eugene Koonin, we wrote a rather comprehensive review on the origin, evolution and organization of the #virosphere. We describe all 10 viral realms and the logic behind them, and so much more. Check it out! comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/biologies/ar...

Now online! Prion-based protein self-assembly tunes mutagenesis to enable rapid adaptation

The Thermo Fisher situation keeps getting worse. We've now collected 450+ problematic images presented as verification data in TF's antibody catalog. This includes: 🖌️ Dozens more images with duplications or painting 🖨️ Hundreds of blots that all share the same background (behold slideshow below)

Excited to share the first pre-print from our lab!! Check it out here! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We found that many RNA-binding proteins canonically understood to regulate RNA processing can also function like transcription factors and cofactors to directly regulate transcription.