Exciting work from @lucas.farnunglab.com & @voslab.org report structures of CTCF-nucleosome complexes, revealing that CTCF dimers promote oligomerization of nucleosomes into defined higher-order assemblies involving specific histone-histone and CTCF-CTCF interactions. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New work from our own Liberles Lab (liberles.hms.harvard.edu) demonstrates that vagal mechanoreceptors monitor the cardiac cycle and initiate a blood-volume-dependent reflex that defends the constancy of circulation www.nature.com/articles/s41...

CONGRATULATIONS! to our own Lucas Farnung on being recognized by a Mark Foundation for Cancer Research Emerging Leader Award. Well deserved! themarkfoundation.org/2026/01/2026...

Historically, viruses were thought to primarily use host cell's translational machinery. New work from @harvardcellbio.bsky.social faculty Amy Lee reveals that a giant DNA virus encodes its own IF4F initiation complex, suggesting an unexpected evolutionary innovation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New work from the Moazed lab reveals the requirements for establishment & epigenetic stability of mammalian heterochromatin! www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

New work from our own Chouchani Lab finds that LRRC58 is the substrate adaptor of an E3 ubiquitin ligase that mediates proteasomal degradation of CDO1, the rate-limiting enzyme of the catabolic shunt of cysteine to taurine in response to altered Cysteine levels. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Why are α-synuclein aggregates in Parkinson’s disease (PD) toxic at the cell biological level? Our new study shows that α-syn fibrils hijack the ESCRT membrane repair system, triggering a feedback loop that worsens aggregation. You can find it at: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

New insights into transcriptional elongation by IWS1 from the @lucas.farnunglab.com lab. This work establishes IWS1 as a scaffold to organiz the elongation complex, illustrating how disordered regions regulate transcription elongationhttps://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.28.672863v1

New work from the @sshaolab.bsky.social lab with Gu and Elledge labs reveals structure of TXNL1 bound to proteasome and mechanism of its ubiquitin-independent degradation www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thoughts from our own Tom Rapoport on the role of basic science in curing disease. magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/rev...

Impact of federal funding cuts on science, the progress of knowledge, and our future - an essay by our own Steve Liberles: magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/i-t...

Congratulations to our own David Pellman, who was elected as an Associate Member of EMBO 2025 - Well deserved! www.embo.org/press-releas...

Work from our own Corey Allard allardlab.hms.harvard.edu & Nick Bellono reveals a process by which foreign chloroplasts (derived from algae food sources) are incorporated into novel, host-derived organelles termed “kleptosomes". \https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867425006373

New work from @xingulab.bsky.social @sshaolab.bsky.social & Elledge lab report structure of Midnolin-proteasome complex & its role in controlling myeloma via ubiquitin-independent degradation. www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Congratulations to our own Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com who has been named as one of 30 Freeman Hrabowski Scholars for 2025 by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). So well deserved deserved !! www.hhmi.org/programs/fre...

Chan Lee @harperlabhms.bsky.social reports CASM-driven V-ATPase recruitment to lysosomes for acidification upon TRPML1 activation via DMXL1-RAVE loader. With Magdalene Moran(Caraway), Sophie Helaine lab, Joao Paulo, & HarperLab teams(HMS). Funds: Warren Alpert FND/NIH www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Questions and answers from our own Corey Allard allardlab.hms.harvard.edu on his labs quest to discover new biology and reveal conserved and fundamental principles that operate across biological systems and impact human health. hms.harvard.edu/news/fish-le...

New work @harvard by Miguel Gonzalez-Lozano @harperlabhms.bsky.social & @ernstschmid.bsky.social in Johannes Walter lab charts structural interactome of endosomes. #XL-MS #Alphafold Funded by @asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org & NIH. Science continues-despite attacks www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Questions and answers from @harvardcellbio.bsky.social faculty member Rachel Wolfson concerning her work on interoception and how our brain and gut communicate with each other. hms.harvard.edu/news/investi...

New work from @lucas.farnunglab.com reveals multiple states of the CHD1 chromatin remodeler and mechanisms of remodeler recruitment!

CONGRATULATIONS!! to @harvardcellbio.bsky.social faculty member Tommy Kirchhausen for his election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. So well deserved! www.amacad.org/new-members-...

Another outstanding study by @sshaolab.bsky.social reveals the structures of prohibin and erlin assemblies. Could also be a hat, it seems.

In parallel with the updated Harvard website, there is also a new page on the Harvard Med website providing some of the important discoveries of our dedicated community, including the CellBio faculty and trainees. One can only ask “Why?” hms.harvard.edu/about-hms/hi...

Check out the updated Harvard University website, which speaks to the breadth and depth of the research we do and its contributions to human health and beyond: www.harvard.edu

We are so happy for our own Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas who today was the co-recipient of the Gairdner Award from his work on the Notch pathway! Congratulations!! www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA6d...

How do cells achieve an optimal mitochondrial distribution? Excited to share a piece of this puzzle: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Ever wonder how the human replisome engages the nucleosome? New work from the @lucas.farnunglab.com provides a striking visual tour of the process with reconstituted components!

Exciting new work from the Shao lab @sshaolab.bsky.social by @samanthasedor.bsky.social reveals novel functions and interactions for the CDAN1 protein with ASF1A/B complexes. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Work from @harvardcellbio.bsky.social faculty Brad Bernstein reports microglial inflammatory immunosuppressive programs unique to primary brain tumours, & systemic inflammatory and complement immunosuppressive programs, which are also expressed by non-brain tumours. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congratulations to our own Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas for recieving the Wiley Prize for his work on the Notch Signaling pathway! We deserved recognition for a pioneer in developmental biology. newsroom.wiley.com/press-releas...

New work from Coon Lab (Wisconsin), @harperlabhms.bsky.social & Gygi Lab @harvardcellbio.bsky.social reports global proteomics/lipidomics of > 2 dozen Lysosomal Storage Disease mutant cells & reveals iron defects associated with mitochondrial defects in NPC2 mutants www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New paper from @ppuigserverb.bsky.social - uncovering more phenotypes for complex I deficiency!

Another supercool paper from the Puigserver Lab @harvardcellbio.bsky.social reveals mechanism underlying chaperone assisted TOMM70 insertion into mitochondrial outer membrane.

New exciting work from the Chouchani Lab @harvardcellbio.bsky.social reports a global analysis of the zinc binding cysteine proteome. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

New work from Tommy Kirchhausen's lab @harvardcellbio.bsky.social uses 3D EM to visualize tiny perforations in endosomes, allowing access of cytosolic alpha-synuclein to endocytosed alpha-synuclein pre-formed fibrils, thereby triggering further alpha-synuclein aggregation rupress.org/jcb/article-...

Yet another super cool study on cotranscriptional chromatin modification from @lucas.farnunglab.com in our department!

New work from @harperlabhms.bsky.social examines the response of proteasomal pathways including UBE3C & NRF1 to rapid protein aggregation, revealing temporally diverse outcomes for aggregate turnover via the proteasome. @asapresearch.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2417390121

New work from @harperlabhms.bsky.social reports tool kit for proteomic analysis of endosomal/lysosomal proteomes in ES cell derived iNeurons, including identification of candidate synaptic endocytic cargo for SNX17 or SNX27 @asapresearch.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2419079121

Exciting new work from the Brugge Lab @harvardcellbio.bsky.social reveals that luminal breast epithelial cells of BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers and noncarriers harbor common breast cancer copy number alterations. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New work from Brenda Schulman Lab (@mpi-biochem), Gary Kleiger (UnivNevada), @harperlabhms.bsky.social , & Elledge Lab (HMS) reveal combinatorial mechanisms of substrate specificity by a family of KLDC C-degron ubiquitin ligases. Led by Danny Scott (St Jude). www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New work from Salic Lab @harvardcellbio.bsky.social & Mitchison lab reports a ER-derived vesicle harboring coronovirus RNA polymerase & an Nsp3/4 pore that allows export of newly synthesized coronovirus RNA to to the cytoplasm. Super cool biology! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New work from Joan Brugge's lab @harvardcellbio.bsky.social explores how Brca1 haploinsufficiency promotes early tumor onset and epigenetic alterations in a mouse model of hereditary breast cancer - Led by Carman Li www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Can colleagues amplify this appeal to journals and journal editors to open accounts on Bluesky, please? @MicrobioSoc @TrendsMicrobiol @CellCellPress @JBacteriology @jbiolchem @Nature @ScienceMagazine @PNASNews @MolMicroEditors @NAR_Open @NatureMicrobiol @NatureComms @ASMicrobiology 🙏 🦠🧪🧫🧬

Happy to be making our first post on bluesky - a photo from our recent departmental retreat. Looking forward to sharing new discoveries and news from our trainees and faculty, as we continue to build a cell biology community here - check us out at cellbio.hms.harvard.edu