What a terrific recognition of our research field! Dirk Görlich (Max Planck Institute Göttingen) and Steven McKnight (UT Southwestern) received the Lasker Award for their work on low-complexity domains and their phase separation. Read the perspective in PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

Last week, I started teaching the freshman biology class (BIO 101), which I'm very excited about. I'm sharing one of my introductory slides on the three pillars of modern biology - evolution, genetics and molecular nature of genetic material. Looking forward to teaching the first-year biology class!

Happy to share our community note published in Nature Communications @natcomms.nature.com. In this 14-page article (34 authors from 9 countries), we discuss current practices in phase separation. We hope it will be useful to the biomolecular condensate community. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Breathtaking view of the Shivalik range of the Himalayas from the balcony of our apartment on the 7th floor at IISER Mohali: at 5:30 pm and 7 pm.

Happy to share a sneak peek of our foray into plant proteins: A fluorescence image of phase-separated condensates of an intrinsically disordered protein from Arabidopsis (prepared & imaged by my PhD students Snehasis Sarkar & Muskan Koundal). I'll share more details later. Happy Fluorescence Friday!

Yesterday, I had a great visit/seminar/discussion at the University of Lorraine, Metz, then arrived in Paris in the evening & had a breathtaking view of Paris from Eiffel Tower. Now at Paris CDG airport & will fly to Delhi. Had a wonderful time in France. Au revoir Paris/France/my friends in France!

Had an amazing 2-day stay in Montpellier & gave 2 seminars at IBMM, Université de Montpellier & CBS (Centre de Biologie Structurale), CNRS. Thanks to my amazing hosts, Joseph Chamieh (IBMM) & Emmanuel Margeat (CBS). I just arrived in Paris and on my way to Metz to visit the Université de Lorraine.

Goodbye, Marseille! Had an exciting scientific visit & enjoyed breathtaking views of the Mediterranean Sea! Now on the train to Montpellier to visit/speak at the Institut des Biomolécules Max Mousseron (IBMM) CNRS, Université de Montpellier in the next 4 hours. See you all at IBMM, CNRS Montpellier!

Yesterday, I taught biological phase separation at CNRS Marseille (photo credit: my former student, Harshita). Had an amazing lunch with students/postdocs of my host, Sonia Longhi. Had a wonderful dinner with Harshita near Marseille Port. Looking forward to visiting Nice & Cannes during the weekend.

Had busy last two days - gave a seminar at CNRS Marseille (photo credit: Harshita) & had discussions with scientists. Had a quick visit to Prado Beach & an amazing dinner at my host's (Sonia Longhi) beautiful house near Cassis (overlooking the Mediterranean Sea). Today, I'll teach phase separation.

Flying to Paris tomorrow. Looking forward to visiting and speaking at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Aix-Marseille Université, Institut des Biomolécules Max Mousseron, Centre de Biologie Structurale, CNRS/Université de Montpellier, and Université de Lorraine, Metz.

Congratulations to Lisha Arora @aroralisha20.bsky.social (15th PhD of my lab) and Rakshana, Ayush & Keshav (BS-MS) for receiving their degrees during commencement at IISER Mohali. We had a wonderful send-off dinner at The Lalit Chandigarh (where we also celebrated our latest Science Advances paper).

I'm so delighted to see my former PhD student, Priyanka Dogra, being featured by St. Jude Research @stjuderesearch.bsky.social. Priyanka's postdoctoral work at St. Jude aims to fight cancer at the cellular level by investigating nucleolar phase separation. www.stjude.org/research/pro...

Happy to share our latest paper published in Science Advances @aaas.org. Congratulations to my incredible students, Sandeep @sandeeprai.bsky.social, Roopali @roopsiek.bsky.social (co-first author), Anusha @anushasarbahi.bsky.social & Ashish @ashishjoshi.bsky.social. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Happy to share our latest paper published in Science Advances @aaas.org. Congratulations to my incredible students, Sandeep @sandeeprai.bsky.social, Roopali @roopsiek.bsky.social (co-first author), Anusha @anushasarbahi.bsky.social & Ashish @ashishjoshi.bsky.social. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

With @tanjamittag.bsky.social we asked if A1-LCD condensates are protective or crucibles for amyloid fibril formation. Their interfaces enable fibril nucleation but their interiors suppress fibril formation. Insights were transferrable to stress granules in cells. doi.org/10.1016/j.mo...

📢Stay tuned for our latest paper that will be published on June 6. We submitted the manuscript in July 2024. We had a 3-country, 4-time zone epic revision meeting in Oct 2024 (see the screenshot). This paper was accepted on May 1. I submitted proof corrections last week from Academia Sinica, Taiwan.

I had a lovely one-week stay at Academia Sinica, Taipei. I gave a seminar, taught phase separation/single-molecule FRET & gave a plenary lecture at Taiwan Biophysics conference. I enjoyed speaking/teaching/discussing science with very talented scientists here. Thanks to my incredible host Ruby Chen.

Check it out - amazing new work by @raflynn5.bsky.social and Kostas Tzelepis labs, discovery of a cell surface RNA/glycoRNA binding protein that is also a cancer antigen, new target for antibody therapy! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The 15th PhD from my lab: Today, Lisha Arora defended her PhD thesis. Congratulations to Dr. Arora! @aroralisha20.bsky.social Thanks to Samir Maji (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay) for serving as the external examiner, and the doctoral committee members, Sanchita Sengupta and Raj Kumar Roy.

My former PhD student, Ashish Joshi, visited our lab last week. He just reached San Diego to join Keren Lasker's lab at The Scripps Research Institute @scripps.edu It's amazing; now 3 of my former PhD students, including Debapriya Das & Anamika Avni, are postdocs at Scripps, my postdoc alma mater.

Today, I was super excited to see live C. elegans worms with my students using our new stereomicroscope in my lab. Thanks to my colleague Jogender Singh & his lab for providing us with a plate. My students, Deepti, Snehasis, and my postdoc, Arpita, taught me how to watch worms. Exciting times ahead!

Attn. Participants of the IDP Subgroup Symposium at the Biophysical Society meeting TODAY at 1:30 PM PST: I'm happy to share the latest program (Venue: Petree Hall C, Los Angeles Convention Center). We'll have our subgroup dinner tonight at Sol Agave L.A. LIVE. See you soon!

We had a wonderful my lab alumni dinner at a Southern Thai food restaurant in Hollywood yesterday (Feb 14). Thanks to Priyanka, Debapriya, Ashish & Anamika, and my better half, Mily, for joining us at an exciting dinner. Now gearing up for the Biophysical Society meeting in Los Angeles!

Arrived in Los Angeles after 35 h. A technical snag delayed the Delhi-San Francisco flight. Managed to get the LA connection. Mt. Fuji (flew over Japan) & LA downtown before/after landing. Tonight I'm hosting my lab alumni dinner in Hollywood before Biophysical Society meeting kick-starts tomorrow.

Happy to share my interview with Pavan Kumar (Professor of Physics at IISER Pune) for his channel. In this podcast, I share some hitherto untold stories of my academic journey from my childhood, PhD, postdoc to professor at IISER Mohali. The YouTube link is below (1h:40m): youtu.be/UrQJbuhv1s0?...

Happy to share the final program of the 2025 Intrinsically Disordered Proteins Subgroup Symposium at the Biophysical Society Meeting to be held in Los Angeles on February 15. Looking forward to seeing you all in less than a week @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social.

Ancient human genomes offer clues about the earliest migrations out of Africa www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Dear Intrinsically Disordered Proteins Subgroup (IDP Subgroup) members of the Biophysical Society: I can't wait to see you at the IDP Subgroup symposium in Los Angeles on Feb 15. You can buy a symposium dinner ticket from the Biophysical Society store: www.biophysics.org/store/produc...

Attn. Intrinsically Disordered Proteins Subgroup members: We are excited to host our IDP subgroup dinner on Feb 15 after the IDP symposium at a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles: Sol Agave L.A. LIVE. www.solagave.com/los-angeles You can purchase a dinner ticket: www.biophysics.org/store/produc...

To all the attendees of the Biophysical Society meeting to be held in Los Angeles (Feb 15-19): As a member of the Committee on Sustainability, I invite you to attend the President's Symposium on "Biophysics for a Sustainable Future" on Sunday, Feb 16 at 10:45 AM. www.biophysics.org/2025meeting/...

A fluorescence image of fusing protein droplets we prepared in vitro from a key protein involved in the formation of cellular stress granules prepared/recorded by PhD students in our lab (Snehasis, Deepti, and Anuja). #FluorescenceFriday. Stay tuned for our exciting updates on protein-RNA granules.

We welcome two new PhD students to our lab at IISER Mohali - Muskan Koundal and Poorva Grover. They will work on some fascinating and emerging aspects of biological condensates. We also have a new group photograph taken today by Kanika Sharma.

Homo-FRET (Förster resonance energy transfer), a special case of the more commonly used hetero-FRET, can be employed to study biomolecular organization by probing the depolarization of fluorescence anisotropy. Homo-FRET was first introduced by Gregorio Weber in 1954. pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

1/n. 20 years ago, January 2005: A decision changed my career path forever. In Nov 2004, I sent postdoc applications to Ahmed Zewail (Caltech; Nobel Prize in 1999, 5 years before I applied) & Ashok Deniz (who had just started as an Assistant Professor at Scripps) and got both offers in Jan 2005.

To all our students, colleagues, friends, associates, collaborators, supporters, and well-wishers: Wish you, your family, and loved ones a very happy, prosperous, safe, healthy, peaceful, and productive New Year 2025. - The Mukhopadhyay Lab at IISER Mohali

1/n. As 2024 draws to an end and 2025 is almost upon us, it's time to look back at 2024 which turned out to be such an amazing year for me and my lab. Some amazing things happened in 2024. In January 2024, I was awarded the prestigious JC Bose Fellowship which allows us to diversify into new areas.

Excited to share our preprint, work by Anthony Gurunian, showing that #condensates can induce localized potentials in membranes + an analytical framework, with important biological implications, collaboration with @kerenlasker biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

On this day, 16 years ago, on December 29, 2008, I joined the faculty of IISER Mohali. Choosing from several options was never easy, but I must say that I made the right decision 16 years ago. Shown here: Our transit campus in Chandigarh, our present campus in 2008 and now (and a bird's-eye view).

We had an amazing Malabari food at our holiday lab dinner in Chandigarh. Thanks to Mily, Neha and her student, Bhumika, for joining us. Unlike previous years, this time, we didn't organize a lab symposium/reunion, which we'll do next December when many of my former students are expected to visit us.

My institute, the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali mourns the passing of Dr. Manmohan Singh (1932-2024), the former Prime Minister of India (in office: 2004-2014), who laid the foundation of IISER Mohali on September 27, 2006. A photo from the IISER Mohali archive.

I am now off to my hometown, Kolkata (Calcutta), for a one-week vacation (or a staycation!) - to see my parents, sister, niece, and to attend a wedding ceremony of a close relative. Aerial view of Kolkata and the Hooghly River (I took from the aircraft during my last visit):

Sometimes, it's nice to come out and look at the building where I work at IISER Mohali. Today, on a gorgeous day, Academic Block 2 at IISER Mohali with the blue sky and the moon in the backdrop.

Some changes in the IDP subgroup program (Feb 15, 2025, Los Angeles): There are flash poster talks and two talks by postdoctoral award winners. The postdoc awards are sponsored by Keith Dunker. Please note, Sheena Radford will deliver a closing keynote lecture. www.biophysics.org/2025meeting/...

Today, my first PhD student, Neha Jain (graduated in 2013), now an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur, was awarded the Young Associateship of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) at a ceremony during the INSA annual meeting in which she also gave a lecture.

I just received an invitation to speak at the International Weber Symposium that will be held in Genoa, Italy in June 2025. It's such a great honor to speak at a conference named after the pioneer and titan of biological fluorescence, Gregorio Weber (1916-1997). www.webersymposium.com

Opportunity for postdocs in IDP related biophysics research! The deadline is coming up quite soon.

If you attend the BPS meeting in February, come join the IDP subgroup symposium, check out the fantastic speakers below 👇

G3BP1 promotes intermolecular RNA-RNA interactions during #RNA condensation #RNAsky www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Maybe a good time to plug this awesome book edited by former PhD students Howard Hang (Scripps), Matt Pratt (USC), Jenn Prescher (UC Irvine), featuring chapters by leaders in the field including @jeremybaskin.bsky.social and a forward by yours truly.