Great new study from Veijo! Using cryoET, cell biology and molecular dynamics simulations to show how seipin switches from a closed to an open conformation that defines the ER–lipid droplet connection and drives lipid droplet growth.

The tutorial I am going through is quite excellent and was featured at the 2026 Michigan workshop. You can find it here: subtomo.readthedocs.io/hiv/setup/

I had such a fun time teaching at the U Michigan Cryo-ET Course this week! I taught quantitative ultrastructure analysis and we made cool figures like these! My course materials are at baradlab.com/michigan_tutorial for anyone to try. Workflow include mesh refinement and thickness measurement!

In other lab news, Ed was promoted to Professor of Virology & Proteomics. Huge thanks to the team for all their work and support! And to the various mentors and supporters who have helped along the way. We have lots more exciting science coming in the near future!

Honoured to receive the first Sir Dave Stuart Early Career Award today. Dave was my PhD external examiner, making this award, recognising his contributions to structural biology, especially meaningful to me. Thank you to Instruct-ERIC and Thermo Fisher Scientific for championing ECRs.

We're happy to announce our new preprint! 🐸 easymode: general pretrained networks for cellular cryo-ET. Segment ~20 cellular features – ribosomes, microtubules, mitochondria, nuclei & more – with zero model training. 🔗 doi.org/10.64898/202... 🧵👇

Led by Hannah Ochner, @tbharat-lab.bsky.social’s group have developed correlated #cryoEM & mass spectrometry imaging, capable of sub-cellular chemical mapping. With @kiranrpatil.bsky.social’s group, they have imaged the cellular uptake of forever chemicals. mrclmb.ac.uk/news-events/... #LMBResearch

New preprint. In S. sanguinis, a C5a peptidase-like protease (ScpH) polymerizes along eDNA, turning it into a catalytic biofilm scaffold. Great work from @robinanger.bsky.social in our lab, with Pelicic lab @lcbofficiel.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The architecture of carriers formed by AP3:ARF1 for lysosomal membrane protein transport: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/.... Work from @jggkaufman.bsky.social, in collaboration with @dgershlick.bsky.social and David Owen. @mpibiochem.bsky.social @thecimr.bsky.social

📢 Cryo Lift-Out commissioning call now open (eBIC) 🗓 Apply by 05 Aug 2026 for experimental access Oct 2026 – Apr 2027 ⚙️ Aquilos CryoFIB @diamondlightsource.bsky.social 🎥 Join our webinar for more info + ask questions 👇 🗓 22 May | 11:00 BST 🔗 bit.ly/cryo-Lift-Out 🔐 498563 #CryoEM #CryoET #CryoFIB

France confines more than 1,700 people to cruise ship over suspected norovirus death

Amazing work from Charlotte Lewis - our latest preprint describes structure guided development of an antiviral peptide, targeting VP2 portal assembly - a strategy that may have broad application to treat or prevent calicivirus disease. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Job navigation in table view, searchable tags, 3D mesh optimized for masks, and many more features! 👉👉👉 github.com/hanjinliu/hi... Let's make our RELION directory a better place.

We're super excited to share MissAlignment: a new ML-based approach to reference-free tilt series alignment, spearheaded by @martenchaillet.bsky.social. We think it's going to make your cryo-ET life a lot better. Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Code: github.com/warpem/miss-... 🧶 Thread:

If you wanna try our new Autogrid High-Pressure Freezing Planchettes ❄️ - you can use the provided drawings & CAD files to produce them in-house 🛠️ - you can now also contact www.wohlwend-hpf.ch to order yours with a shiny gold-coating ✨ The preprint for instructions ➡️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Industrious beeings of spring

Preprint 🧵! I’m really excited to introduce BIGSMALL, an interleaved multi-magnification cryo-ET scheme bridging molecular and cellular scales in a single acquisition! BIGSMALL = 𝐁road 𝐈nformation 𝐆athering 𝐒trategy by 𝐌ultiscale 𝐀cquisition of lame𝐋𝐋a www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... (1/6)

Interleaved multi-magnification cryo-electron tomography bridges cellular and structural biology https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.21.719848v1

Heart-nosed bat alphacoronaviruses use human CEACAM6 to enter cells www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cetacean coronavirus spikes highlight S glycoprotein structural plasticity pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41950284/ #cryoem

Van Gogh Starry night is hypnotising... but this hits on a different level...

The low-density lipoprotein receptor LDLR mediates cellular entry of nonenveloped hepatitis A virus pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41894341/ #cryoem

This video was a complete joy to make. Here's a short preview, but next time you're looking to sit down for 45 minutes of math and art, take a look at the full version on YouTube: youtu.be/ldxFjLJ3rVY

🚨 Preprint alert! We solved the structure of human NSUN2 bound to Asp tRNA, revealing how it installs m⁵C and recognizes RNAs #CryoEM #RNABiology A collab between Casañal & Gullerova labs, with @miclass.bsky.social and me working side by side as co-first authors 🔗 doi.org/10.64898/202... (0/7🧵)

Stoic 🦾 from our shared student @daniil-litvinov.bsky.social predicts protein complex stoichiometry. A fun collab with @ninjani.bsky.social @torstenschwede.bsky.social - this #AI adventure beyond our core #CryoET methods was made possible by the @biozentrum.unibas.ch PhD Fellowship Program! 🧪 🧶🧬

Did you see this post think “Oh damn! I have this really cool story but not enough time to submit!”. Well we heard you! And extended the deadline to 30.03.2026! Send your abstracts in for a chance to present in Autumn!

If you have computational and physics chops go work with @bforsb.bsky.social . You will mot be disappointed!

I've written a review on what I think is an extremely exciting direction in cryo-EM: Cryo-EM of endogenous membrane proteins in their native lipid bilayer Open access in Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics: doi.org/10.1017/S003...

Remember that everyone you meet is fighting their own battle, sometimes with amino acids

Abstract submission closes this Friday. If you have a story to tell and have just seen this do apply! @dbhella.bsky.social and myself look forward to your abstracts!

The deadline for applying to the open postdoc position in our lab is coming up! Reach out if you have questions about the project, our lab and ISTA!

2/5 When you have ALS, you experiment. Supplements, drugs, hope. See alsuntangled.com for why that's so common. So I built ALSTracker. It won't give you certainty. But it replaces gut feeling with something more solid: Bayesian statistics. alstracker.mpi-dortmund.mpg.dee

Tired of drawing cilia or centrioles for slides and papers? I feel you. Check out CiliaBuilder for ChimeraX → cxtoolshed.rbvi.ucsf.edu/apps/chimera... Build custom 3D cilia & centriole models (tips + primary cilia included).

New preprint by @alok-bharadwaj.bsky.social explaining the workings of SURFER, a simple tool to segment membrane, micelle or nanodisc densities in cryoEM maps. Try it via the @chimerax.ucsf.edu ToolShed: cxtoolshed.rbvi.ucsf.edu/apps/chimera... Despite LocScale in the name, it works on any map.

I cannot see how @microsoft.com can classify its tools as productivity tools. Teams is by far the worst thing on the planet and I DO NOT underestand how organisations including Universities and Governments have bought into this system whole-heartedly!

Trimbody with rigid AI-designed scaffolds enables atomic-resolution cryo-EM structure determination of small proteins pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41735342/ #cryoem

Just installed and twiddled a few knobs, but I am already impressed with `himena relion`. Amazing job @liu-hanjin.bsky.social! Would be great if this could be made into a default interface for relion.

Funded PhD studentship (UK students only) available on clinical proteomics, application deadline 22nd March for Oct 2026 start! This project seeks to understand treatment responses to exacerbations experienced by people with CF using proteomics. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Since last year, I've been making a RELION GUI that supports viewing, navigating and running jobs in a way completely compatible with the original RELION pipeline. Now it's working nicely for both SPA and tomography! Please try it out - github.com/hanjinliu/hi...

Fantastic effort!

Integrase anchors viral RNA to the HIV-1 capsid interior pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41708858/ #cryoem

Researchers have uncovered an unexpected second function of one of HIV’s key proteins. This discovery could pave the way for new types of treatments. www.crick.ac.uk/news/2026-02...

priviliged to be witnessing these amazing cellular vistas! makes you wonder about all the unknownwhat biology is being captured here!

Do you find yourself looking at 100s of tomograms and keeping an excel sheet description of what is in them? I certainly do! So, I asked Claude to put together this (buggy) little webapp called TomCat, which you can freely download from here (github.com/shahpnmlab/t...)

I had Claude make this as a mini-game for Relay's disconnect screen (like Chrome's dinosaur), but then pivoted to stand-alone. In this game, you have to find Euler angles matching the target projection, i.e. cosplay RELION. It can be pretty hard. Works on mobile too! warpem.github.io/euler-hunt/

How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller? Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase. 1/n

I am excited to share our latest preprint - An evolutionarily divergent herpesvirus with a giant tail. Featuring symmetry breaking and genome annotation from structure using ModelAngelo. doi.org/10.64898/202...

Open Postdoc position in our lab! #actin #Huntingtin #cryoET #cellbio If you enjoy working at the interface of cell biology, structural biology, and quantitative imaging, this could be an excellent fit. ista.ac.at/en/job/postd... Please share and feel free to reach out if there are questions!

Mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti spread viruses that cause major global diseases. We decided to have a closer look at a family of mosquito carbohydrate-binding proteins involved in infecting these vector species. We found some unexpected things 😁 Preprint out now 🦟🦟🦟 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...