Twenty years ago, Addgene co-founder Melina Fan, PhD, couldn’t get the plasmids she needed for her research, so she helped build a better way to share them. 🧬 On Aug. 1, Melina stepped into a new role as Chief Scientific Advisor. A thank-you and a look at what’s next:

blog.addgene.org

Thank You, Melina: A New Chapter After 20 Years

twp.ai

someone in the lab needs to use the PrepCell and apparently i am the last person to have used it 🙃. Needless to say there is a lot of sceptisism. But i have the receipts! Had to explain about degassing polyacrylamide, and analog recorders! lets see whether we can get this puppy to work.

Amazing structures, and distinct binding modes, of TOPBP1 or ETAA1 activating the ATR-ATRIP kinase by an allosteric mechanism. In NSMB from Pavletich lab: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Structural mechanism of TOPBP1 activating the ATR–ATRIP replication checkpoint kinase - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology

Li et al. present cryo-EM structures of the ATR–ATRIP complex bound to the ATR-activating domains of TOPBP1 and ETAA1; these reveal distinct binding modes and allosteric mechanism of activation for TO...

nature.com

Starting in Spring or Summer 2027 K99/R00 (under its new activity code KT1/R00) will only be available to US citizens, permanent residents, and non-citizen nationals. I am hearing this from many program officers, but NIH has yet to make an official statement to my knowledge.

🚀 My first Cryo-EM structures are OUT on the PDB! 🎉Super excited about this milestone as PhD, it’s been a journey, and I’m grateful to finally have these as my first Cryo-EM structures! 🙌 🔁Thank you for sharing!❤️ Read @daaninthelab.bsky.social et. al.: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... ⬇️ 2nd video

Fantastic work! Congratulations all

Razvan Borza@rborza.bsky.social · last yr.

🚀 My first Cryo-EM structures are OUT on the PDB! 🎉Super excited about this milestone as PhD, it’s been a journey, and I’m grateful to finally have these as my first Cryo-EM structures! 🙌 🔁Thank you for sharing!❤️ Read @daaninthelab.bsky.social et. al.: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... ⬇️ 2nd video

Riboseek is a fast RNA/DNA search. More sensitive than nhmmer at 250x speed. Structure-aware realignment produces MSAs approaching rMSA quality. Plus 1.7M precomputed RNA MSAs, and an API to search your own 📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 💾 github.com/steineggerla... 🌐 search.foldseek.com/riboseek

📣NAR is recruiting a new Executive Editor!📣Seeking an established researcher with expertise in RNA biology and translation mechanisms to help shape the journal's scientific direction, oversee peer review, and support its growth. Apply by 30 Sept 2026: academic.oup.com/nar/pages/ex...

Very sad to learn of the death of Ralf Seidel. He was a superb single molecule biophysicist--especially in studies of nucleic acid/protein complexes. www.physes.uni-leipzig.de/pdi/profil/n...

Nachruf auf Prof. Dr. Ralf Seidel

Mit tiefer Trauer nehmen wir Abschied von unserem Kollegen Professor Ralf Seidel. Er ist am 17. Juli 2026 plötzlich und völlig unerwartet verstorben. Sein Tod hinterlässt eine große Lücke. Wir vermiss...

physes.uni-leipzig.de

Congratulations to Professor Xiao Wang of MIT and the the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard on receiving the 2027 Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry! Dr. Wang's lab creates chemical tools to study tissue function and develops novel RNA therapeutics.

Join us on Aug. 4 for Bianca Chavez's PhD thesis defense! @biancachavez.bsky.social's research in the @cijilim.bsky.social Lab examined how telomere loops help to protect telomeres from degradation. Learn more: ipib.wisc.edu/2026/07/28/i...

IPiB Thesis Defense August 4, 2026: Bianca Chavez

Chavez’s research in the Lim Lab examined how telomere loops help to protect telomeres from degradation.

ipib.wisc.edu

Pls share: U of Washington has an opening for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor. This position is expected to specialize in molecular virology or bacteriology. Here is a link: microbiology.washington.edu/index.php/ne...

🧬 Delighted to share our new Nature Communications paper! We show how MCM2-7 double hexamers become active helicases and trigger DNA melting in vivo. Led by Chris Weekes & L. Maximilian Reuter. Congratulations to the whole team! doi.org/10.1038/s414... #DNAReplication

Breaking news: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine will launch a “comprehensive investigation” into the previously undisclosed death last year of a 6-year-old girl who had received an experimental gene therapy from one of its scientists. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4yJXPoU

Happy that our most recent paper on nucleotide excision repair mechanisms has now been published in Science Advances. This project was led by @natalia-mg.bsky.social and @callumhaste.bsky.social and focused on visualising early steps of the NER process by #cryoEM. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Visualization of stepwise derepression of TFIIH in global genome nucleotide excision repair

Cryogenic electron microscopy captures nucleotide excision repair complexes assembling on damaged DNA templates.

science.org

Thrilled to share our collab led by Grace Hibshman with the Shipman lab! Type IX retron-Kva2 structure reveals phage detection via an HTH fold, not a primary sequence. We computationally designed triggers that program bacteria cell death, pointing toward designer antimicrobials.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A superfolding sfPepper enables superresolution and single-molecule RNA imaging in live cells

Fluorescent RNAs (FRs) have emerged as powerful tools for the visualization of RNA in live cells. However, the poor folding of FRs is a major limiting factor in many advanced RNA imaging applications....

biorxiv.org

The LocScale 2.0 and SURFER papers are now both published in final form. LocScale 2.0: www.nature.com/articles/s41... SURFER: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/iucr/doi/10.... Led by @alok-bharadwaj.bsky.social with contributions of former MSc/Bsc students Reinier de Bruin and Lotte Veerbeek.

Had a blast putting this video abstract together with colleagues for @zjmaggiexu.bsky.social story in @currentbiology.bsky.social on how the "vampire cell" P. collini builds the perfect feeding trap 👀. Be sure to check out the full paper: www.cell.com/current-biol... www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikzm...

A cellular vampire builds the perfect feeding trap / Curr. Biol., June 24, 2026 (Vol. 36, Issue 14)

YouTube video by Cell Press

youtube.com

Kaitlyn continues to break barriers with her innovations for using LEA proteins to solve another major cryo-EM sample prep issue! This work should be of great interest to friends who are struggling with particle orientation bias. Another funtastic Lim X Grant collaboration! @uwbiochem.bsky.social

Kaitlyn Abe@kaitlynabe.bsky.social · 3w ago

1/5: Our latest preprint is out! We show that LEA proteins can diversify particle orientations in cryo-EM, helping to overcome preferred orientation at the air-water interface (AWI). www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... with @cijilim.bsky.social and Tim Grant #CryoEM #LEAproteins

He is a remarkably gifted scientist but he is also a welcome reminder to me that the best ideas in a lab often come from the imagination of trainees. Yiu can read about his integrin work here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... and in a preprint we hope to post later this year (watch this space)

Molecular exaptation by the integrin αI domain

An ancient protein domain insertion seamlessly preserved conformational signaling while providing a novel surface for adaptation.

science.org

Happy to share our latest paper in NAR showing that the 2B sub-domain is a general dimerization domain for the UvrD-family of SF1A helicases including Rep and PcrA, led by Binh Nguyen in collaboration with Eric Galburt's group. doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

Interested in joining our group in Oxford? We are looking for a PDRA with single particle Cryo-EM experience to help us figure out how sphingolipids are transported to the cell surface of Gram-negative bacteria. The deadline is 31st July. Informal enquires are welcome. Please share!

In print today @science.org Laser phase plate improves structure determination of small proteins by cryo-EM | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Laser phase plate improves structure determination of small proteins by cryo-EM

Phase plates can, in principle, overcome the poor image contrast in cryo–electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and the resulting limits on the structural reconstruction of small proteins. However, previous de...

science.org

@breakliquid.bsky.social and I are delighted to say our OpenEVO preprint is finally live! An open source hand-made turbidostat that's modular, affordable, and made to be customized. Designed with love for the research community. Enjoy!!!💚 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

OpenEvo: An Open-Source Platform for Automated Evolution and Analysis

Here we introduce OpenEvo, a fully open-source, low-cost turbidostat platform for automated continuous culture and directed evolution experiments. Existing tools are expensive, complex, or lack open-s...

biorxiv.org

📣 Applications are open for the next NAR Early Career Investigator (ECI) Advisory Board cohort! Work with Executive Editors, help shape journal strategy, and gain insight into peer review during a 2-year term. Apply by 1 Nov 2026: lnkd.in/g233ZCAf #ECR #NAR #AcademicPublishing #MolecularBiology

Beautiful work (and beautiful figures!) from Sashital lab alum @yuktidhingra.bsky.social! Congrats, and looking forward to seeing more exciting RNAP work in the future!

Yukti Dhingra@yuktidhingra.bsky.social · last mo.

Happy to share the first paper from my postdoc in the Darst and Campbell labs! 🧵 www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.... We used cryo-EM and allosteric inhibitors as mechanistic probes to visualize conformational landscapes of E. coli and M. tuberculosis RNA polymerases during nucleotide addition. 1/4

CryoROLE: describing large inter-domain rotation in single particle cryo-EM https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.04.736454v1

Congratulations to Mimi and her team!!!

Chi-Min Ho@cmholab.bsky.social · last mo.

Incredibly proud of Messi Haile @mehsehret.bsky.social, a founding member of the Ho Lab, for her beautiful work uncovering the inner workings of a central piece of the malaria parasite invasion machinery: the malarial moving junction, out today in @cellpress.bsky.social! tinyurl.com/4p3md2eb 🦠❄️🔬

Just announced: Meet Pew's new class of biomedical scholars and fellows! Together, these 36 scientists make up the 2026 class of: 🔬 Pew Biomedical Scholars 🩺 Pew-Stewart Scholars for Cancer Research 🧪 Pew Latin American Fellows Check out how they're driving discovery across health and medicine 👇

These 36 Scientists Are Leading the Way to Biomedical Discoveries

On June 16, Pew announced the 2026 class of Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences, Pew Latin American Fellows Program in the Biomedical Sciences, and Pew-Stewart Scholars Program for Cancer ...

pew.org