1/ 🎄 We got our Christmas present today: "Two distinct chromatin modules regulate proinflammatory gene expression" is now published @natcellbio.nature.com doi.org/10.1038/s415.... Our study introduces a scATAC-seq-based framework for genome-wide analysis of gene regulation features.

Exciting times ahead, indeed. Looking forward to 2026 and new inspiring and productive encounters, in Germany and Uk! !!!

I just published: ERC-Plus: jackpot science or missed chance to fix academia? My reflections on ERC-Plus, Europe’s newest ultra-competitive research grant and what it tells us about the academic culture we’re building. medium.com/p/erc-plus-j...

Extrusive and cohesive cohesin cooperate to repair double-strand breaks in DNA @science.org @albertomarin.bsky.social @gerlichlab.bsky.social @imbavienna.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Here is a copy of last year's Twitter thread explaining our preprint - jump to (21) for the new stuff 👀 Synergy between cis-regulatory elements can render cohesin dispensable for distal enhancer function now revised and journal accepted at www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵👇

I am happy to share that my postdoctoral work in the @gerlichlab.bsky.social at @imbavienna.bsky.social is finally out 🎉! Our study reveals how cohesin guides focused and accurate homology search. Read more 👉 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Follow along for key insights and updates! 🧵

New paper out! How can we force HIV genomes out of their capsid shells and what can we learn about HIV biology doing so? Hint: capsid inhibitors actively re-route nuclear HIV complexes, and expose genomes via intriguing structural effects! open access: link.springer.com/article/10.1... read below

Great new collaboration with @thmllr.bsky.social and Hans-Georg Kräusslich from @ciid-heidelberg.bsky.social came out on December 1st #HIV day - nuclear speckles & HIV capsid & antivirals gallore!!!

Lab life and Christmas cookies can match when the students get creative

Our Spatial Genome Organisation 2025 attendees! Fantastic presentations, discussions & collaborations have taken place over the past 2 days, with plenty more to come. Its been a pleasure working with Karim, Irene & Matthias, looking forward to what the future holds for this brilliant series. #SGO25

🌮✨ Two conferences, one epic poster session - and yes, there’s an open bar! 🍸 We’re mixing research, tacos, and good vibes here in Mexico for #SGO25 & #ecDNA25🇲🇽

@science.org ATP-dependent remodeling of #chromatin #condensates reveals distinct #mesoscale outcomes | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Sometimes I think about how from 1935-1975ish, Bell Labs produced an insane amount of revolutionary science and technology, including 11 Nobel Prizes, the transistor, UNIX, C, the laser, the solar cell, information theory, etc. The secret? Provide scientists with ample, steady, no-strings funding.

🚀We’re hiring! Join our international team at @ciid-heidelberg.bsky.social and @uniheidelberg.bsky.social as a PhD Student or Postdoctoral Researcher to lead cutting edge research projects at the virus-host interface Postdoc: tinyurl.com/d5sdhbnp PhD: tinyurl.com/bdz5e5u6

JUST IN: Jane Goodall, primatologist who transformed our understanding of the lives of apes, has died, according to an announcement from the Jane Goodall Institute.

In 1668, Francesco Redi challenged the idea of spontaneous generation by proving that maggots came from fly eggs, not from rotting meat. His experiment laid the foundation for modern microbiology and disproved centuries of misconceptions about life’s origins. #ScienceHistory

Nucleosome phasing by chromatin remodelers regulates macrophage lineage fidelity by preserving nucleosome arrays flanking PU.1-bound sites to prevent lineage-inappropriate transcription by C/EBPβ @cp-immunity.bsky.social www.cell.com/immunity/ful...

about the $100K H1B fee, here's some interesting details: "If an employee is in the U.S., he or she will not be subject if (i) applying to extend or amend H-1B status, or (ii) applying to change from another visa category into H-1B status from within the U.S."

www.nature.com/articles/d41... Do you think this is a matter of progress or concern?

1/ One of the questions I get asked about my book is what new they'll discover about #epigenetics. I hope there will be a lot to learn, but maybe one of the most intriguing stories will be about the contribution of John Pugh. www.amazon.com/Epigenetics-...

@kazu_maeshima from the Genome Dynamics Laboratory at the National Institute of Genetics (@NIG_idenken) will present groundbreaking research on chromatin organization and behavior in live cells revealed by super-resolution imaging. nyulangone.zoom.us/webinar/regi... #chromatin2025

Speaker Spotlight: Don’t miss @Anders_S_Hansen from MIT as he unpacks the secrets of distal gene regulation in space and time! Learn how enhancers find and activate their target genes—revealing new insights into the selectivity and dynamics of gene control. Reserve your seat:

“Antiscience has gone beyond U.S. borders to Europe, Australia, and Africa. Defeating it will require unprecedented commitment and international cooperation, not only between scientific organizations, but also their host governments.” 🧪 #Disinformation #AntiScience time.com/7317436/scie...

Liquid-liquid phase separation of HP1? Not in our mouse fibroblasts… This paper by the Fabian Erdel group offers a fresh perspective on how this can be reconciled with seemingly conflicting reports: The phase separation propensity of HP1 decreases from yeast → fly → mouse. doi.org/10.1038/s414...

🧬DZIF researchers have discovered that #HIV does not randomly integrate into the genome: the virus follows R-loops as signposts, with the enzyme Aquarius enabling the process. These findings open new avenues for potentially curative treatments. @marinalusic.bsky.social @natmicrobiol.nature.com

www.dzif.de/en/how-hiv-e... @dzif.bsky.social @dfg.de @natmicrobiol.nature.com #HIV #HIVScience #HIVCure #Nucleus #Nucleararchitecture #Splicing #R-loops #Genomeorganization

Lipid Nanoparticles with Aptamers Enable Targeted mRNA Delivery to CD4⁺ T Cells @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I love his comment on productive careers being unpredictable - and how he was never consciously directing himself anywhere, he was just following his nose www.science.org/content/arti...

🎵WHY DO ENHANCER! SUDDENLY APPEAR! EVERY TIME! THEY ARE NEAR!?! JUST LIKE ME! THEY LONG TO BE! CLOSE TO POLII! 🎵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"I think each virus is its own set of surprises." - David Baltimore. RIP.

David Baltimore passed away yesterday, “a Nobel Prize-winning biologist whose work…profoundly shaped modern molecular biology &immunology. His discoveries…altered our understanding of viruses &immune responses, laying the foundation for advancements in gene therapy, cancer research, &vaccine devt”🧪🛟

Sad to hear about the passing of David Baltimore www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/s...

Researchers implanted CRISPR-edited pancreas cells into a person with type-1 diabetes. The cells produced insulin for months There was no need for immune-dampening drugs, due to gene edits that allowed the cells to evade detection by the recipient’s immune system. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Out now! 🍫🦠A defined microbial community reproduces attributes of fine flavour #chocolate fermentation By Gabriel Castrillo, David Salt & co #microsky #microbiomesky 🧪 Read it here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Mind-blowing. "To our knowledge, females needing to clone members of another species have not previously been observed"

Final call to register and submit abstracts for the @faseborg.bsky.social conference on the Mechanobiology of the Cell Nucleus (#MBNSRC) to be considered for platform presentations. The conference takes place in Melbourne, FL, Oct. 26-30, 2025. See more info at: events.faseb.org/event/Mechan...

Our new preprint 🧬🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... BRD4-NUT forms liquid-like condensates that locally constrain nucleosomes via BRD4-mediated crosslinking— physical control of #chromatin by #LLPS transcription condensates. @semeigazin.bsky.social @katsuminami.bsky.social @masaashimazoe.bsky.social

Is euchromatin really “open”? Our new study @bioRxiv suggests otherwise. Using super-resolution imaging @shiori-iida.bsky.social‬ @masaashimazoe.bsky.social reveals: Euchromatin forms condensed domains in live cells. Cohesin constrains them and prevents domain mixing. www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

#NewResearch R-loops formed by RNA hybridization to DNA template strand during transcription influence HIV-1 integration into the CD4+ T cell genome. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #MicroSky @ciid-heidelberg.bsky.social @marinalusic.bsky.social

Our work "Aquarius helicase facilitates HIV-1 integration into R-loop enriched genomic regions" is out @natmicrobiol.nature.com, showing HIV-1 integration into R-loop genomic regions upon their resolution by cellular splicing helicase Aquarius (AQR) of the Intron Binding Complex (IBC)🧵.

Aquarius helicase facilitates HIV-1 integration into R-loop enriched genomic regions @natmicrobiol.nature.com @marinalusic.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our work "Aquarius helicase facilitates HIV-1 integration into R-loop enriched genomic regions" is out @natmicrobiol.nature.com, showing HIV-1 integration into R-loop genomic regions upon their resolution by cellular splicing helicase Aquarius (AQR) of the Intron Binding Complex (IBC)🧵.

Very happy to have contributed to this exiting story on nuclear softening caused by metabolic switch caused by oncometabolite 2-HG causing whitening of the brown adipocytes Trifunovic lab CECAD Cologne softeninghttps://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-025-01332-8?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Check out this exciting meeting and register! Fantastic line-up of speakers on cell biology of the nucleus and a great venue 🔥

Our preprint is out! Q4ddPCR is a 4-target ddPCR assay for high-resolution HIV reservoir profiling validated on proviral sequences and across multiple cohorts. It supports HIV cure trials where precision matters. Thanks to Rachel Scheck, Brad Jones & all co-authors. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

With boost to NIH budget, Senate panel rejects Trump’s plan to slash agency | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Many proteins bind RNA, yet we still don’t know what RNAs most bind because methods map one RBP at a time. In @cp-cell.bsky.social, with the Jovanovic lab, we describe SPIDR – a method for mapping the RNA binding sites of dozens of RBPs in a single experiment. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

SPIDR enables multiplexed mapping of RNA-protein interactions and uncovers a mechanism for selective translational suppression upon cell stress @cellcellpress.bsky.social @mitchguttman.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

How do enhancer-gene contacts relate to transcription activation? In mouse embryonic stem cells, a combo of STED, oligoFISH & RNA FISH shows that 3% of Dppa3 alleles transcribe. For these, enhancers and promoters come closer (panel E). Stumberger ... Leonhardt & Harz www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...