Le Tour de RNA was an awesome success! Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate Sam, RNA, and NMR!

Thanks for visiting and sharing your amazing science with us! I'll always have a place in my heart for U2-U6, even if we mostly talked about DNA

Site-specific, multi-kilobase insertions and over-writes in mammalian cells, without DSBs, HDR, recombinases, integrases, transposases, or active cell cycling? Using fully or predominantly single-stranded DNA donors? 1/15

Excited that our paper on enzymatic bromination of peptides is now online at ACS Chemical Biology! Led by Haley Bridge, we showed that the flavin-dependent halogenase RebH and its variants can be used for late-stage chemoenzymatic diversification of bioactive peptides: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

1/11 In our story out today in @nature.com , we showcase the molecular mechanisms that enable Cas9 to bind and cleave negatively supercoiled ((-)SC) off-targets! 🧬🧵 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #CRISPR #Cas9 #DNATopology #AFM #CryoEM #SingleMolecule #Biophysics

Check out our the structure of a DNA-guided Cas12a. It uses the DNA hairpin to mimic structural cues to recognize a target RNA. Gnarly. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Out now! In collaboration with Leifu Chang, we uncover the molecular and structural underpinnings of CRISPR-Cas12f-like RNA-guided transcription systems! Links to the published articles: tinyurl.com/55kpavet tinyurl.com/sk6djwx3 Previous thread for the preprint: bsky.app/profile/did:...

Early registration for the CRISPR 2026 meeting is extended until March 15, 2026. The Abstract deadline is March 31, 2026. Registration is required before submitting an abstract. web.cvent.com/event/ac20b6...

Save the date! The CRISPR 2026 meeting will be held June 10 - 12 at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Abstract submissions will be opened on February 1st. Spread the word.

For ~century, we’ve asked: why do proliferating cells ferment glucose even when O2 is around? I’m thrilled to share our latest work @natmetabolism.nature.com, led by @thebiokimist.bsky.social. By leveraging conditional essentiality in HPLM, we propose a provocative new answer to this classic Q. 🧵

New preprint! We found that the flavin-dependent halogenase RebH catalyzes sequence-tolerant Trp bromination in peptides 🧪https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.17.694899v1

Big news! Our team developed Neuro-PERC, a non-viral CRISPR delivery platform for genome editing of the brain. In our new preprint - bit.ly/NeuroPERC_pre - we report efficient editing in multiple models & species, including field-first results in large animals (pigs) 🧵👇

How do cells adapt morphology to function? In a 🔥 preprint by @zjmaggiexu.bsky.social , with @dudinlab.bsky.social and @amyweeks.bsky.social , we identify a self-organizing single-cell morphology circuit that optimizes the feeding trap structure of the suctorian P. collini. 🧵 tinyurl.com/4k8nv926

Ever wondered why some bacteria have multiple CRISPR-Cas systems? Our new study led by Leah Smith shows how type I CRISPR systems can promote the acquisition and retention of new spacers into a co-occuring type III system. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New preprint: we developed a method that uses phosphoproteome-derived peptide libraries (PhosPropels) for deep specificity profiling of phosphatases and phospholyases www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

First preprint from the Nemudryi Lab! 🍾 In this work, we link antiviral immunity in bacteria and humans by showing that homologs of human Schlafen nucleases protect bacteria from phages. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Was my pleasure to chair the #crispr2025 meeting earlier this year in my hometown in NZ @crisprmeeting.bsky.social

Interested in phage defenses that natively block lytic phage used in therapies? Or do you want to figure out if a phage has a modified genome? Meet the END-nucleases, an enzyme family that can broadly restrict phages with many diverse modifications. From talented post-doc Wearn-Xin Yee!

I am super excited to share our work uncovering the structure and mechanism of an ATPase-associated reverse transcriptase (RT) involved in prokaryotic antiviral defense, now available as a preprint on bioRxiv!🧬🦠🔬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵👇

Hello BlueSky! Inaugural post here from the Sternberg Lab. We're excited to share our latest work, in which we teamed up with the @WiedenheftLab to study how DRT9 reverse transcriptases provide antiviral immunity. Here’s what we found: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

My contribution to the Science Homecoming project--I wrote to The Item in Clinton, MA about the impacts that cuts to science funding will have on our health, our economy, and the opportunities available to young people in Clinton www.clintonitem.com/writes-cuts-... @sciencehomecoming.bsky.social

Finally, in these tough times for science I want to emphasize how this work was supported at every level by NIH: through grants to my lab (DP2); to my students (BTP T32; CBI T32); and from Rohith’s experience as an NIH Postbac in the Tjandra lab. Grateful for the support that made this possible.

Excited to share a new preprint! Wireless devices use FM modulation to transmit multiplexed noise-resistant data. Led by @born2raisecell.bsky.social, we create a biochemical analogue of this paradigm using genetically encoded oscillators (GEOs) for single-cell FM streaming tinyurl.com/nbs8rw42 🧵

CRISPR-Cas supervises diverse anti-phage defense systems https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.27.630466v1

Finishing the year with a paper submission always feels good! 🛡 🦠 (1/5) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Happy holidays everyone! ⭐️🎄

Is it “winner-takes all” when the simplest living things compete? Check out my fresh publication on phage coexistence in Science and a thread below🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

If you were on the fence about coming to CRISPR 2025 let us add that Christchurch airport is well connected internationally and from there you can explore many grand sights in the South Island, NZ. Register now and book a conference trip to NZ hashtag#CRISPR2025 lnkd.in/gaSkt-Ng

Happy Holidays from the Weeks lab! This year's ornament is a working ferris wheel 🎡☃️

Meet one of our speakers: Elizabeth Kellogg is an assistant professor in the department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell. There's still time to register and get to hear Elizabeth speak at CRISPR 2025 in Ōtautahi, Christchurch, NZ. lnkd.in/gds9sURN

First paper of our lab today @natureportfolio.bsky.social by Nussi! We provide a real-time movie on how #transcription and #translation cooperate using #single-molecule FM: we find long-range #ribosome/ RNAP communication mediated by #RNA looping! @embl.org #RNAbiology #RNASky t.co/a24Xxcxdo0

It’s a wrap! The final version of our paper is out 🎉 where we characterize the multifaceted response of the transcript-activated type III CRISPR-Cas immunity. Here’s a skytorial (bluetorial?) by my awesome co-lead @akshilton.bsky.social #RNA #RNAsky #WomenInSTEM

Rumour is there are cheaps flights from North America to NZ at the moment 👀✈️- get in quick and book your flights now for CRISPR 2025. Registrations are still open and we would love to see you. The airport is just a short trip to the city! crispr2025.org/registration

This week in @science.org Molecular basis of #mRNA delivery to the bacterial #ribosome www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I have registered to attend #CRISPR 2025. If you are going, I look forward to meeting there www.crispr2025.org

Very excited to share the first story from my postdoc where we uncover the structural basis for slow Cas9 turnover! We use kinetics-guided cryo-EM to capture 25 conformational states of SpCas9 from a single dataset - including the first look at Cas9 releasing product. biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Awesome new work from Sam Butcher's lab--including a 1 angstrom structure of a new pUG RNA! Self-assembly and condensation of intermolecular poly(UG) RNA quadruplexes academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Awesome talk by @amyweeks.bsky.social whose lab is engineering so many cool proteomics tools for studying proteolysis and other PTMs

Our Arabidizzle ubiquitinome paper is published! Awesome collaboration w @diorkelley.bsky.social lab lead by Gaoyuan Song - key contributions from so many others (@dormichicken.bsky.social @nmclark2.bsky.social) @theplantcell.bsky.social #proteomics #PlantScience academic.oup.com/plcell/advan...

Hi again Bluesky! You still have a few days to register for the #CRISPR2025 conference at the discounted early bird price! While you're at it, book your plane tickets to New Zealand! We bought ours today and got a great price!

Raphael Rodriguez and I wrote this historical perspective on Next Generation Sequencing by synthesis, because we were both postdocs in Shankar’s lab during the time it was being developed at Solexa…. 1/n🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy Friday! New preprint to discuss, led by @ekaplan.bsky.social, entitled "Activity-based selection for enhanced base editor mutational scanning" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... A thread...

Where are my bacterial (and archaea!) #RNAsky peeps? Mark your calendars for Sept 1-4 next year for the Microbial RNA meeting in Strasbourg. It’s my absolute favorite conference, so an ideal place to be an invited speaker for the first time :) Hope to see lots of folks there! microbialrnameeting.com

To fill up my empty feed, my first post on #bluesky. Earlier this year we showed how the DdmDE system from pandemic Vibrio cholerae defends against invading plasmids. A great collaboration between the labs of Martin Jinek (UZH) and @mblokesch.bsky.social (EPFL). www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Celebrating Bluesky getting video by 1) pledging to never going on the hell website again; and 2) trying to post a cool video of cells taken by students in the lab every day. Today's #dailycoolcells courtesy of Chih-Chia "Eden" Chang!

The language of bacterial defences expands: a Nature N&V article about our most recent work, from Doug Wasserman and Philip Kranzusch www.nature.com/articles/d41...

We had a joint Sashital/Underbakke lab party to celebrate Yukti and Tania's new positions on a beautiful fall day! Also, I'm new to this app and don't know how to tag people yet!