Cilia alert! Last year Juyeon Hong described a new domain in 9+2 cilia called the EDT, the extreme distal tip. Now, she's found a new protein required for its assembly, but only in non-mammalian vertebrates. A cool evo-cell / protein evolution story in @cellreports.bsky.social tinyurl.com/2xvdskx6
Caitie McCafferty
@computingcaitie.bsky.social
Postdoc in the @cellarchlab.com at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch. Incoming junior group leader at @fmiscience.bksy.social. Find out more at ciliagirl.com.
This story is now published in @natplants.nature.com ! 🎉🎩 Check out the final article here: nature.com/articles/s41477-026-02361-1 Very similar to the original bioRxiv preprint, with the addition of some cool polysome analysis (in the supplementals)! Thanks and congrats to everyone involved! 🙏
Chloroplast-encoded small subunit extensions reshape the Chlamydomonas chlororibosome - Nature Plants
Using in situ cryo-electron tomography, researchers found a unique ‘arm’ domain on the small subunit of Chlamydomonas chlororibosomes. This discovery suggests that chlororibosome structure is more evo...
nature.com
Long in the making, but happy to present the Chlamydomonas chlororibosome! Cryo-ET🔬reveals a large new domain on the small subunit, built from multiple extensions in conserved ribosomal proteins. bioRxiv 📖: shorturl.at/q44tG This suggests greater chlororibosome diversity than expected! 1/n 🧵
The artist formerly known as #thatmitoriboguy has now become #thatchlororiboguy Check out some cool tomo from @florentwaltz.bsky.social @phaips.vd.st
This story is now published in @natplants.nature.com ! 🎉🎩 Check out the final article here: nature.com/articles/s41477-026-02361-1 Very similar to the original bioRxiv preprint, with the addition of some cool polysome analysis (in the supplementals)! Thanks and congrats to everyone involved! 🙏
Super excited to launch this search for a new endowed professor at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch! Join us to build a research cluster in Climate Biophysics! 🌍🌊🌾🔬🧪 This is a unique opportunity to create a community in Basel🇨🇭working together on this timely topic! ⏳🌡️ Questions? Please reach out! 👩🔬👨🔬
New Assistant (tenure-track) or Associate Professor position in Climate #Biophysics! Join our international research community to explore fundamental molecular mechanisms underlying climate-relevant biological processes. Apply by 7 Sept 2026! www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/de/open-posi...
Happy to finally share that I will be starting my independent group at the @fmiscience.bsky.social in Feb 2027 in a vibrant new environment. We will use integrative in situ structural cell biology methods to investigate ciliary structure and dynamics in several model (and non-model 👀) systems!!
Big congratulations to our winners: Smilla-Maria Koy (1st), Chandrama Ghosh (2nd), and Anthony Rabaté (3rd)! Check out their breath-taking micrographs and the rest of the Top 15 entries in the stunning poster attached. The future of cilia research looks beautiful. 📸 #Cilia2027
Great opportunity to work in an exciting environment and a wonderful group!!
Postdoc opportunity at FMI + Novartis Biomedical Research 🧬 The Dahmane lab (FMI) & Farady lab (Novartis) are seeking a postdoctoral researcher to study how extracellular inflammasome particles propagate inflammation during neurotropic RNA virus infection. Apply by May 31: www.fmi.ch/education-ca...
And now it's out! Happy that PNAS selected for the cover this SEM image snapped by @samjlord.bsky.social, one of the most evocative visualizations of Euplotes that I have ever encountered. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Stay tuned for what is shaping up to be some fascinating follow-up in the lab...
What could be more exciting than watching Euplotes scurry around under the microscope? How about adding some raptorial predation by supergiant cannibal cells? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Video by Vittorio Boscaro. 1/n
This mesmerizing timelapse captures the nonstop motion inside an animal cell. Red/orange streaks are the growing ends of microtubules, tiny “highways” that can rapidly assemble and disassemble to move proteins & other molecules within the cell. 📸: Andy Moore, HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus
Across scales from cells🦠 to atoms⚛️ – We reveal how anaerobic #bacteria break down very stable aromatic compounds found e.g. in oil spills 🛢️ #Bioremediation #TeamTomo 🧪 🧶🧬 🔬 Awesome collab with Lena, Matthias, @schullerjm.bsky.social @rnfr2d2.bsky.social @tomaspascoa.bsky.social @tamb-o.bsky.social
1/ Excited to share our preprint! 🥳 Degradation of aromatic compounds, including BTEX pollutants, requires highly endergonic aromatic ring reduction. Using #cryoEM and in situ #cryoET, we show how BCRII couples electron bifurcation modules in one giant redox machine www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
I told you it was final 😉, now we celebrate 🎉
I love the optimism of _FINAL.docx
This is why I’m not allowed in the wet lab anymore 🥼 🕺. My technique is too effective! 🤪 #PILife #TeamTomo 🧪
To supplement our cryo-ET and generate candidates for proteins that localize to different ciliary regions, we took a trip to the local butcher to pick up some cow trachea to build a mammalian multiciliated cell interactome using XL/MS (enjoy this vid of @cellarchlab.com shaking cilia off trachea)
Now THIS one was quite the journey. I'm beyond happy to see this work out in the world 🥹 Huge congrats to @computingcaitie.bsky.social and also to @hugovdhoek.bsky.social and everyone else involved ♥️ with @centriolelab.bsky.social @stearnslab.bsky.social @cellarchlab.com #Cilia #CryoET #TeamTomo
I am excited to share our most recent work collaborating with @centriolelab.bsky.social and @stearnslab.bsky.social to look at the ciliary base of mammalian multiciliated cells w/ cryo-ET, XL/MS, and U-ExM www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
It’s done!! Molecular architecture of the ciliary base in mammalian multiciliated cells! A study 13 years in the making 👴, thanks to collab with @stearnslab.bsky.social + @centriolelab.bsky.social & visionary work by @computingcaitie.bsky.social, who integrated native #cryoET with #XLMS & #UExM 🧪🧶🧬🔬
I am excited to share our most recent work collaborating with @centriolelab.bsky.social and @stearnslab.bsky.social to look at the ciliary base of mammalian multiciliated cells w/ cryo-ET, XL/MS, and U-ExM www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Crazy things have been happening in cilia world, catch up on them in Caitie's new paper! 🪱
I am excited to share our most recent work collaborating with @centriolelab.bsky.social and @stearnslab.bsky.social to look at the ciliary base of mammalian multiciliated cells w/ cryo-ET, XL/MS, and U-ExM www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
I am excited to share our most recent work collaborating with @centriolelab.bsky.social and @stearnslab.bsky.social to look at the ciliary base of mammalian multiciliated cells w/ cryo-ET, XL/MS, and U-ExM www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
What if you could cut out sub cellular structures and measure the proteome? SPEx: Compartment-Resolved Proteomics via Expansion Microscopy–Guided Microdissection www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... awesome work by Curdin Franziscus, @imcf-lex.bsky.social, @biehli.bsky.social, Alexander Schmidt!
biorxiv.org
New protein complex stoichiometry prediction tool from talent PhD student @daniil-litvinov.bsky.social, check out the thread below!
I'm excited to share *Stoic*, a method for fast and accurate protein complex stoichiometry prediction directly from sequence. Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵👇(1/10)
Exciting opportunity to work in a lab that’s pushing the boundaries of environmental sampling and work with an amazing scientist!!! 👩🔬🔬
Excited to announce I’m starting a new lab at @gmivienna.bsky.social (Vienna BioCentre) in Sept 2026 We study how carbon fixation is inherited and maintained in algae using cryo-ET, imaging, environmental sampling&more Looking for people who want to build the lab together, get in touch! #teamtomo
Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating). A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)
A study in Nature shows that the single-celled form of a tiny, aquatic organism can turn into a multicellular version by three different routes. The discovery adds insight to the possible origins of multicellular life, suggesting a previously unrecognized degree of flexibility. 🧪
Nice collab w my neighbor in Basel @abimoye.bsky.social on SAXO6 mol bio and genetics!!
📏🔬In collaboration with @computingcaitie.bsky.social and @cellarchlab.com, SAXO6 localization was mapped along ciliary microtubules with direct links to α-tubulin, linking this structural protein class to human retinal disease for the first time. 👉 @ajhgnews.bsky.social #Ophthalmology
Thrilled to share that our paper on a novel IRD gene has been published in The American Journal of Human Genetics (AJHG)! 🎉 This wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible group of colleagues and collaborators. Special thanks to @computingcaitie.bsky.social, Ditta Zobor, and ERDC members!
🧬 New IRD gene identified! IOB researchers (@abimoye.bsky.social, @mquinodoz.bsky.social, @carlorivolta.bsky.social) found pathogenic variants in SAXO6 (formerly MDM1) in families with a rare late-onset retinal degeneration. 🔗 www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltex... #AcademicBlueSky So what’s SAXO6 doing?
📏🔬In collaboration with @computingcaitie.bsky.social and @cellarchlab.com, SAXO6 localization was mapped along ciliary microtubules with direct links to α-tubulin, linking this structural protein class to human retinal disease for the first time. 👉 @ajhgnews.bsky.social #Ophthalmology
Long in the making, but happy to present the Chlamydomonas chlororibosome! Cryo-ET🔬reveals a large new domain on the small subunit, built from multiple extensions in conserved ribosomal proteins. bioRxiv 📖: shorturl.at/q44tG This suggests greater chlororibosome diversity than expected! 1/n 🧵
Very happy to say that our work on how axonemes are generated is now available on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... - if you’ve ever wondered how the incredibly beautiful, complex structures within motile #cilia are constructed then this is for you!
biorxiv.org
For #ECR’s: DBG’s Hot Tpoic Workshop on Cryo-Electron Tomography + FIB-milling 13 – 15 April 2026 In @cellarchlab.com 's lab @biozentrum.unibas.ch Organised by @tamb-o.bsky.social, Karen Zinzius, @fannyleblanc.bsky.social Details: www.deutsche-botanische-gesellschaft.de/en/about-us/...
Hot Topic Conference
Support for an "Eduard Strasburger Hot Topic Conference" for DBG's members
deutsche-botanische-gesellschaft.de
You like #LLPS? #TeamTomo? #Rubisco? Check out our latest preprint! What a great collaboration this has been!
How does molecular valency shape condensate assembly and function? We used the CO2-fixing organelle in algae—the pyrenoid—to find out… 🧵 Preprint here!: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @cellarchlab.com @phaips.vd.st @biologyatyork.bsky.social #Rubisco #PhaseSeparation #Condensates #Pyrenoid
Cilia alert! Stoked to have the new paper from Juyeon Hong about a new domain at the extreme distal tip of motile cilia! (The EDT, y'all!) It's out now @natcomms.nature.com. Check it out! #cilia www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A protein complex in the extreme distal tip of vertebrate motile cilia controls their organization, length, and function - Nature Communications
Here they combine in vivo imaging with proteomics to characterize a protein complex comprised of Ccdc78 and Ccdc33 that acts at the extreme distal tip of 9 + 2 motile cilia to control tip architecture...
nature.com
🔬🚨New preprint alert! 🚨🔬 We developed quantitative expansion microscopy (qExM) - a method to accurately count proteins in situ by combining expansion microscopy's improved labeling with statistical estimators borrowed from ecology www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #SuperResolution #CellBiology
biorxiv.org
Our research scientist Núria Ros-Rocher won the 1st prize @zeiss-microscopy.bsky.social microscopy contest with this beautiful choano colony www.zeiss.fr/microscopie/... 🥳 C. flexa might not yet be a genetic model, but it is now at least a calendar model, which counts for something. I think.