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 👀 🧫 🧬

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...

Excited to share our new preprint led by Fred and me in collaboration with the archaeal community! We found that the molecular foundation of histone-based chromatin has pre-eukaryotic roots in Asgard archaea. (1/4) #ArchaeaSky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I am thrilled to share our paper out in @cp-cell.bsky.social : "Systematic Discovery of Pathogen Effector Functions across Human Pathogens and Pathways." (1/4) www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

🆕 publication! How do cells build their molecular machines? Tsimafei Navalayeu (Ameres lab) in @embojournal.org maps the stepwise assembly of the RNA exosome in mammalian cells, revealing the quality control mechanisms that ensure this essential complex is built correctly ➡️ tinyurl.com/84c2298e

Online Now: Longitudinal monitoring of cytoplasmic RBP-RNA interactions and transcriptome in living cells by engineered protein nanocages Online now:

The labs of Julius Brennecke and Clemens Plaschka reveal a molecular decision point that determines whether RNA molecules are exported for use or targeted for destruction. Now published in Nature: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

a small attempt to capture this enormous loss and what Greg meant and means to so many. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

📣 POSTDOC position available in the Feschotte Lab at Cornell to work on #TRANSPOSONS! More details below. Pls send informal application or inquiry ASAP by DM or email to cf458_at_cornell.edu. Pls spread the word 🙏 #TEsky www.thefeschottelabatcornell.com

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... 🧵👇

Ida Jentoft won a Birnstiel Award for her outstanding doctoral research in 2023. Do you know an exceptional PhD student? The Birnstiel Award has an open call! 📅 Nominate by 30 June: https://www.imp.ac.at/achievements/birnstiel-award

Wrote a short piece on Transposable Elements as catalysts of evolutionary innovation for a forthcoming special issue of @naturerevgenet.bsky.social on, duh, Evolutionary Innovation! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to share a preprint which is currently under revision! Together with the amazing @ymzhan.bsky.social in @patrick-cramer.maxplanck.de lab, we describe that the +1 nucleosome actively regulates the transition from transcription initiation to elongation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/

#RIP Pierre Chambon (1931-2026) 1963 PARP 1970 RNA Pol II 1975 Nucleosome 1977 Split genes 1980 Promoter 1983 enhancer 1986 Nuclear receptor

If you want to know what 3′UTRs with long conserved sequence stretches do, check out our BioRxiv preprint doi.org/10.64898/202.... They form functional intermolecular 3′UTR-3′UTR interactions that enable co-folding of proteins to rapidly induce transcriptional programs.

🔬 Science came to life at the Long Night of Research 2026! With over 950 visitors at the @vbcscitraining.bsky.social, the Max Perutz Labs sparked curiosity with five interactive stations and more than 30 Perutz scientists on site. It was a night full of discovery and excitement ✨ (c) Zsolt Marton

In this interview, @juliabatki.bsky.social, FMI’s newest group leader, reflects on the early curiosity that drew her to science, why FMI is the right home for her lab, how studying cell clearance could help us understand disease, and her love of improv. www.fmi.ch/news-events/...

Devastating to learn of Greg Hannon's passing, who made several seminal discoveries in the field of RNA. What a loss. www.cruk.cam.ac.uk/news/in-memo...

🔬 Passionate about RNA biology? Join the lab of @sebastianfalk.bsky.social for your Master's project to explore the function of proteins and protein complexes using cutting-edge biochemical, structural, and cell biology approaches ➡️ tinyurl.com/3k7upan4

ICYMI: New online! How classical genetics uncovered key determinants of TE silencing

Germ cells have their own versions of core transcription factors and fertility depends on them. We're hiring a PhD student to figure out how! 📢 Fly genetics + proteomics + genomics. Fully funded. Aarhus University 🇩🇰 Deadline May 1 👇 Please share with anyone who might be interested!

New #preprint 😍‼️ led by 2 incredible postdocs @ninizhani.bsky.social & Ranj Papareddy: transforming #UFMylation from a local ribosome rescue pathway to systems level regulator of mRNA splicing www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... A short 🧵

New preprint from our lab! An H3.3 knockout does two things at once: it removes H3.3 from chromatin and destabilizes DAXX. We disentangle those functions and find that DAXX-mediated H3.3 deposition can be uncoupled from ERV silencing. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Which transcription factors control transposable element expression during zygotic genome activation? Gain-of-function screen by @metorrespadilla.bsky.social and coworkers identifies TBP as direct regulator of mouse endogenous retrovirus-like elements link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Online Now: LENG8 mediates RNA nuclear retention and degradation in eukaryotes Online now:

We are looking for a new group leader to join the IGH (Montpellier, France). I can’t wait to meet my future colleague! Apply :-) More infos here: igh.cnrs.fr/join-igh-as-...

There has never been a better time to study functional and mechanistic biology at the organismal (!) level than now in the age of AlphaFold and CRISPR.

See the new paper by Mylène Damilot et al in Science Advances, where the authors use a novel affinity purification method to obtain the SAGA complex for cryo-EM, and reveal the splicing like module of SAGA at high resolution. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aec8104,

From IMBA postdoc to group leader at the Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB)! Read the interview to learn how Ulrich Hohmann, former IMBA postdoc in the labs of Clemens Plaschka at the IMP and Julius Brennecke at IMBA, is handling this career step: www.imp.ac.at/news/article...

Securing two group leader positions at the same institute is no small feat.  From IMP postdocs to group leaders: Laura Lorenzo-Orts and Ulrich Hohmann started their labs at IMB Mainz this year:

Our work on the E3 ligase mechanism of target-directed microRNA degradation is now published! Amazing collaboration with Brenda Schulman’s lab led by @jakobfarnung.bsky.social and @elenaslo.bsky.social, with special thanks to @wyppeter.bsky.social, Lianne Blodgett, and Daniel Lin! tinyurl.com/Z8TDMD

The registration site is fixed and will remain open until end of March. We look forward to seeing you at “RNA-guided genome protection” in June!

I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be starting my lab as a SNSF starting grant professor at the Center for Integrative Genomics in Lausanne! I'm looking for PhD students who are fascinated about the neuronal basis of behaviour across species @fbm-unil.bsky.social

Join us at the EMBO Workshop “RNA-guided genome protection” 🇨🇭 June 16–20. Transposon silencing • stem cell biology • RNA-guided immunity. Keynotes: Déborah Bourc’his + Ian MacRae. Register now + submit your abstract! meetings.embo.org/event/26-gen...

Find our latest Perspective article in Nature Genetics on "The role of KRAB zinc-finger proteins in expanding the domestication potential of transposable elements" at www.nature.com/articles/s41..., with implications for the future of research on the cause of human disease.

Diving into evolutionary biology! What is the origin of the most abundant class of insect transcription factors, ZAD-ZnFs? We suggest that they evolved from ancestral insulator-binding proteins that control 3D genome topology. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Today in @science.org: We are pleased to present our last work entitled: "Concurrent L1 retrotransposition events promote reciprocal translocations in human tumorigenesis" by Zumalave et al. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our most recent work on the “function and evolution” of #nuclear-speckles is now online at Cell @cp-cell.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.ce... Read the thread👇 for the highlights of our findings.

We are hiring! Join the Jachowicz lab as a postdoctoral researcher. The project focuses on understanding the dynamics of ncRNAs using high-resolution and single-molecule microscopy approaches. Link below 👇

Fellowship application dealdine for students from low income countries 🌐will be in 1️⃣ week. Dont miss out on this opportunity ! Hands on Summer School. Cut&Run, Cut@Tag, ChIP, ATACseq and analyse your own data ! ➡️Unique opportunity ! 15 exiting days ➕ Daily high profile lectures. 👉 bit.ly/4oGDR8f

The giant viruses surprised us at almost every turn of this project, but ultimately led us down a very rewarding path. Happy to share this work is now available online 🧪

Our paper is now out in Nature: “Ancient co-option of LTR retrotransposons as yeast centromeres” www.nature.com/articles/s41... A short thread on how retrotransposons helped give rise to yeast point centromeres. 1/14

How does the piRNA pathway solve the self vs. non-self problem? 🧬 Since piRNAs come from single-stranded RNA, how does the cell choose the right ones? For years, "piRNA clusters" were seen as THE privileged source. But are they really special and earmarked for biogenesis? (1/19)

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

Does the noncoding genome actually carry more genetic information than coding seqs? Motivated by this question we mutated every bp in the 10kb MYC locus. Results are even more exciting: Decoding the MYC locus reveals a druggable ultraconserved RNA element www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

It is finally out! If you are interested in TE-derived CREs, and newly described, but evolutionary old KZFP-TE mechanistic modalities, read it at www.cell.com/cell-reports.... Thankful to everyone who took part in this work, namely @orpsf.bsky.social and other @trono-lab.bsky.social members. 🫀🧬✨

Now out in Nature! We visualize infection of the RNA virus RSV in real-time with single-vRNP resolution to understand how RSV establishes viral factories, biomolecular condensates that act as sites of viral replication. A huge collaborative effort led by Dhanushika Ratnayake! rdcu.be/e1bBW

We’re excited to share our latest preprint on the mechanism of excised linear intron stabilization in yeast! This work was led by PhD student @glennli.bsky.social and was a wonderful collaboration with @maxewilkinson.bsky.social. Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... (1/4)

Check out our preprint where we describe, characterize and trace the origin of a novel human-specific isoform of TAF8, a scaffold subunit in TFIID. We were surprised to discover that TAF8 recently underwent genetic changes generating a truncated isoform with altered properties in humans!