From cartoon models to quantitative structural maps: learn how cryo-electron tomography is reshaping studies of cellular organization. Danielle Grotjahn, Ph.D., shares where cryo-ET excels, its challenges, and how it fits into today’s imaging toolbox.

Are you a cell biologist who secretly thinks cellular cryo-electron tomography is just George Palade-era EM, but fancier? Join this webinar to see how modern #teamtomo has shifted from pretty pictures to quantitative, local membrane biology, and how that changes the questions we can ask.

🔬 Postdoc position – Infection Biology & Cryo-ET (Zurich) 🇨🇭 We are looking for a motivated Postdoc to join our interdisciplinary team. 📩 Interested? Check out the job advert: www.imm.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:cb17... 👉 More info on the lab: www.weiss-laboratory.com Please share with interested colleagues!

Reported in #JCellBiol, a method developed in the lab of Associate Professor Danielle Grotjahn (@nanigrotjahn.bsky.social) measures membrane thickness directly inside intact cells and identifies ATP synthase clusters in curved, unusually thick membrane regions.

#teamtomo gets another quantitative cell biology tool! We extend our Surface Morphometrics pipeline to measure membrane thickness. Alongside many biological findings, we show that our 3D measurements closely match in vitro vesicle measurements from 2D EM (collab w/Neal Waxham and Fred Heberle).

Thrilled to share our latest work--combining CATCH with whole-body HYBRiD imaging, leveraging click chemistry to visualize and identify drug-targeted cells across organ systems. Led by a brilliant team: former PhD student Ben Pang and former undergrad Verina Leung.

JCB’s Cover of the Year voting is open! I’ll just say… they are all gorgeous, but April has my heart 😍❄️🔬 #teamtomo @attychang.bsky.social

Now out in full form. Again, a big thanks to #teamtomo and @alisterburt.bsky.social for developing the infrastructure to build this on. journals.iucr.org/d/issues/202...

We will announce a #postdoc opening in January. Cryo-ET and virus replication. If you're interested you can DM or email me already now. More info will follow!

What an honor to see @attychang.bsky.social’s work featured in @jcb.org The Year in Cell Biology 2025 collection! Even more special that it coincides with my first #cellbio2025 conference 🙂 s/o to co-authors @baradlab.com @hamid13r.bsky.social @zidlab.bsky.social #teamtomo #cellbio25

Prohibitins aren’t hanging out just anywhere in the membrane — they prefer the 💁‍♀️💎✨VIP section💅🪩🥂 Lab all-star @mmedina300kv.bsky.social maps these microdomains using cryo-ET + surface morphometrics. s/o to #teamtomo #cryoET co-authors @hamid13r.bsky.social @attychang.bsky.social @baradlab.com

Exciting !

Thank you to all of our plenary speakers for sharing your incredible research with us at #ASBMB2025! @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social @ajknights7.bsky.social Michelle Haber and Randal Halfmann. We have loved having you all in Brisbane and hearing about your labs awesome work! 🦠🧬🧪🧫🔬

Happy to announce "Technical Innovations Using #SerialEM: A Community Meeting", a new format of hybrid meeting David Mastronarde and I are organizing in April 2026. For more info, a preliminary list of speakers, pre-registration etc. visit www.nexperion.net/semcm2026

What an inspiring few days at the #WEHeraeusSeminar! Great science, lively discussions, and lots of fun with the amazing community of #cryoEM, #StructuralBiology & #Microscopy. Huge thanks to everyone!

We all love colours, especially, when they can be generated automatically! Fantastic talk by Danielle Grotjahn @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social linking method development, structural biology and cell biology! #WEHeraeusSeminar #cryoEM #StructuralBiology #Microscopy @arnemoeller.bsky.social

Excited to travel to Germany 🇩🇪 for the WE-Heraeus-Seminar: Cryo‐EM on the Move: New Applications and Challenges! ❄️🔬🧊 I look forward to hearing what everyone is cooking up to make cryoEM better 📈 faster 🏃‍♀️ stronger 💪 😎 www.we-heraeus-stiftung.de/veranstaltun...

🚨 #teamtomo!🚨 Did you know there's a dedicated cryoEM/ET Mini-Symposium at the upcoming ASCB/EMBO meeting in Philly (Dec 6–10)??

Ending the week on a high note in SLC with a visit to @uofubiochem.bsky.social after an inspiring M&M 2025 meeting!

I have lots of opinions—but for your sake, I’ve limited them to segmentation in cryo-ET for this article 😉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #teamtomo

Happy to say that my Current Opinion in Structural Biology article came out today. I hope it helps to guide to you in using cryo-ET to make new biological discoveries! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New work from the lab (w/ @preronabora.bsky.social @mashiatzaman.bsky.social @mitomorph.bsky.social @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social) identifying a compound that activates OMA1-DELE1-HRI signaling to induce mitochondrial remodeling in MFN2-deficient cells. Check it out 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I spoke with Jade Hindmon, host of @kpbssandiego.bsky.social Midday Edition, about the consequences of the current administration’s cuts to science funding. Please share to help spread the word and raise awareness. www.kpbs.org/podcasts/kpb...

As we approach the week leading up to Juneteenth, it’s important to recognize the flag and symbols around the day, as well as taking the opportunity to renew the call for lineage-based reparations for not only chattel slavery, but the harms inflicted upon Black Americans post-emancipation.

It’s been a big week for the Grotjahn Lab—our very first graduate student, @mmedina300kv.bsky.social, successfully defended her PhD thesis! 🎉 So proud of everything she’s accomplished and grateful for the light she’s brought to our lab from day one ☀️⚡

Tying self-worth to academic success, only to ask years later, "who am I, really?" Grateful @frezzalab.bsky.social took the time to capture this tension so beautifully in this article.

So excited for this work to be out!! Thanks to @attychang.bsky.social, @hamid13r.bsky.social, blue sky less Daniel Fuentes, @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social and @tomo.science!!!

🚨New preprint!🚨 #teamtomo We expanded Surface Morphometrics to quantify membrane thickness from cryo-ET—revealing local variation across organelles. Led by the lab’s first grad student, @mmedina300kv.bsky.social (defending Monday! 🍾) w/ @attychang.bsky.social @hamid13r.bsky.social & @tomo.science

Feeling so honored and thrilled to see our work make it to the cover—what a milestone in my career! I can’t wait to receive the poster from JCB🤩

@jcb.org's April issue is here! rupress.org/jcb/issue/22... The cover shows a segmented model of cytoplasmic #ribosomes associated with mitochondrial membrane in a Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell. From Ya-Ting Chang, @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social and colleagues (doi.org/10.1083/jcb....)

I know print journals aren't exactly on everyone's radar these days, but we’re still geeking out that our latest study—led by the brilliant @attychang.bsky.social—landed the cover of the April issue of JCB! 🤩 @zidlab.bsky.social @tomo.science @hamid13r.bsky.social

Cytoplasmic #ribosomes on #mitochondria alter the local membrane environment for protein import, say Ya-Ting Chang, Danielle Grotjahn (@nanigrotjahn.bsky.social) @scripps.edu and colleagues: rupress.org/jcb/article/... #ProteinHomeostasis #Organelles #StructuralBiology #CryoET

Do you LOVE organelles?? Well I am THRILLED to announce that Nellie has been published in @naturemethods.bsky.social! Nellie a fully automated pipeline for organelle segmentation, tracking, and hierarchical feature extraction in 2D, 3D, timelapse, multichannel live-cell microscopy 🧵1/N

Ya-Ting Chang, @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social et al. @scripps.edu present a membrane-guided approach for identifying a subset of cytoplasmic #ribosomes oriented for protein import on the surface of #mitochondria in budding yeast using #cryoET: rupress.org/jcb/article/...

Happy to share that the final version of record for our ( @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social) #teamtomo mitochondrial cotranslation story is online at @jcb.org! We combined STA with surface morphometrics to learn how ribosomes bind to and alter mitochondrial membranes in yeast. rupress.org/jcb/article/...

For #teamtomo, context is everything. We highlight the power of #surfacemorphometrics in guiding STA and quantitatively assessing the impact of these structures on the local environment. 1st collab paper w/ @zidlab.bsky.social (hopefully many more to come!) @tomo.science @hamid13r.bsky.social

🚨Members of #teamtomo!🚨 We invite you to submit abstracts to our ❄️🔬Cryo-electron Tomography: Progress and Potential session at Microscopy & Microanalysis (M&M) 2025! sample prep, data processing, structural biology, cell biology —we want to hear from you! DEADLINE: February 18 @tomo.science

looking forward to my first trip to Australia for this exciting conference! #teamtomo

After a remarkable 300 columns, David Goodsell has retired from the Molecule of the Month. We are very grateful for his service. @jiwasa.bsky.social will continue the series, beginning with January's article on Assembly Line Polyketide Synthases Details: cdn.rcsb.org/rcsb-pd...

At the heart of biology is the mantra: structure dictates function.Biological structures are also beautiful in their intricacy. David Goodsell brought this into public view. As he leaves "Molecule of the Month". here's a huge thank you for helping me see more clearly🧪1/2 cdn.rcsb.org/rcsb-pdb/gen...

Our December member tale spotlights @lukechao.bsky.social of MGH, who uses in vitro techniques, cryo-ET, & an evolutionary lens to understand the pasta geometries of mitochondrial crista. Read more here: https://buff.ly/40ef6XY #StayConnected #ScienceMatters

A flexible framework for fast and accurate segmentation of filaments and membranes in tomograms and micrographs - the TARDIS manuscript is now live @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social ! Thanks to hard work by Robert Kiewisz and our many collaborators! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Season 7 of our Front Row Lecture Series celebrated Scripps Research’s centennial with groundbreaking talks from our world-class scientists. 🌟 From neuroscience to global health, here’s a look at the remarkable discoveries shaping the future of science and medicine. ⬇️ (1/10)

@nanigrotjahn.bsky.social, PhD, unveiled how mitochondria—our cells’ ‘powerhouses’—act as stress sensors, shaping cellular health and contributing to diseases like cancer and neurodegeneration. Her work uses cutting-edge imaging to unlock these secrets. (9/10)

Labs that clay together, stay together 🩶🌪️🥣 @hamid13r.bsky.social @mmedina300kv.bsky.social @callmemich.bsky.social @nitishdua.bsky.social

As assistant professor @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social has proven, mitochondria are more than ‘powerhouses’—they’re vital stress sensors. In our final Front Row lecture of the year, Grotjahn revealed how their changing shapes could signal health or disease. Watch now: ow.ly/wLjR50U7mtE

Thrilled for the chance to share two of my scientific passions: microscopes and mitochondria!

✈️ Boarding my flight to 🇪🇸 to meet up with my fellow mitochondriacs for this exciting conference!

Happy Scripps Research Day from our lab to yours! #100yearsofScrippsResearch

When your 🧬reverse complement🧬 one of your scientific role models! @bcarra.bsky.social #throwbackthursday