A minimal lipid kinase/phosphatase system, two effector proteins from Legionella pneumophila, self-organizes together with its lipid substrates (PI/PI3P) into dynamic patterns on membranes. Check out our preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Zikang (Dennis) Huang
@dennishuang.bsky.social
PhD student at Bugaj Lab UPenn | synbio | protein engineering | optogenetics | thermogenetics | systems bio | love weird dynamics, information flow, networks | BcLOV4 renovator | looking for postdoc positions
Congrats on the beautiful work and great luck with your own lab!
Beatrice Ramm@beatriceramm.bsky.social · last mo.Very excited to announce that my paper with @toettch.bsky.social from my time as a Fellow at Princeton's Center for the Physics of Biological Function @cpbf.bsky.social is finally out as a preprint! Here is the link if you want to check it out: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... A thread: (1/10)
Obituary: Susumu Tonegawa (1939-2026) Japan’s first Nobel prizewinner in physiology or medicine go.nature.com/4wty0Yy
Obituary: Susumu Tonegawa, Japan’s first Nobel prizewinner in physiology or medicine
Fearless molecular biologist who revealed the workings of antibodies and memories.
go.nature.com
We built a a self-dividing synthetic cell ! Check out this #CDlab preprint on BioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Great work by 1st author Charu Sharma who encoded dynaminA in a genome and expressed that in liposomes that then divide into daughter cells! Collaboration with Koenderink lab!
New Toettchlab paper alert! Harrison Oatman just published his beautiful work combining software design for "smart" microscopy+optogenetics and some really beautiful work understanding EGFR-driven collective cell migration. www.cell.com/cell-systems...
Did Thoreau encounter contagious cancer? A new study finds transmissible tumors in catfish--and raises questions about whether they could arise in humans someday. Gift link: nyti.ms/4whfi6v
Deep in This Lake, a Contagious Cancer Is Spreading (Gift Article)
Transmissible tumors have been reported in a handful of animal species, but never before among fish. Is it possible in humans?
nyti.ms
Impressive closed loop control of optogenetics from the Toettcher lab. Crazy video on flipping cell migration by changing speed of egfr activation. These automated systems will generate more data driven hypotheses in the future. Congrats! www.cell.com/cell-systems...
An optogenetic smart microscopy platform reveals signaling dynamics-dependent control over collective cell migration
Oatman et al. introduce PyCLM, a Python suite for closed-loop optogenetic experiments combining real-time biosensor measurement and segmentation of thousands of cells. The method is applied to epithel...
cell.com
SpudCell - a minimal synthetic cell. To me it lies between virus and modern cells, further blurring the boundary of living and non-living. What’s the upper limit of supply from environment for living organisms? Are ribosomes too much to ask? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Wanna know more about a photoreceptor that encodes a signal adaptation circuit in a single protein, its evolution, and how we engineer it into different info processing modes? Check out poster #26 (and flash talk!) on Tuesday at FASEB signaling!
Lukasz Bugaj@bugajlab.bsky.social · 3mo agoHighlights: Keynotes: Tobias Meyer and Jin Zhang Sessions on metabolism, development, stress, immune, cell cycle, optogenetics, image analysis Workshops on advanced microscopy, organoids Meet-the-experts: academia, industry, publishing Networking (+line dancing!) in Nashville Early reg. ends 5/10!
More than just on/off state! What if we can install a timer inside of CAR that has genetically encodable optimal off kinetics instead of depending on I endogenous processes.
Cell - a Cell Press journal@cp-cell.bsky.social · 3mo agoNow online! Cell-autonomous control of CAR signaling and receptor shedding via ADAM17-mediated proteolysis
Nature research paper: Gene ancestries reveal diverse microbial associations during eukaryogenesis go.nature.com/3Sjm8ZY
Gene ancestries reveal diverse microbial associations during eukaryogenesis - Nature
Phylogenomic reconstruction of the proteome of the last eukaryotic common ancestor sheds light on the origin of eukaryotes, indicating an important role of horizontal transfer of genes from diverse bacterial and viral donors.
go.nature.com
Very impressive work from my friend Xinyi! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Programmable macromolecule delivery via engineered trogocytosis - Nature Cell Biology
Chen et al. engineer TRANSFER (trogocytosis-inspired receptor transfer and functional effector release), a method to deliver functional cargos from donor to recipient cells in a specific manner via di...
nature.com
Multiplexed measurements of protein-protein interactions and protein abundance across cellular conditions using Prod&PQ-seq https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.01.697286v1
Wild that Galvanin is sufficient to make some cells sense and migrate in electrical field - curious on the downstream signaling it induces to do so www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
Galvanin (TMEM154) is an electric-field sensor for directed cell migration
Galvanin is an electric-field sensor that links electrical cues to directed migration in rapidly moving cells.
cell.com
Some of the most wonderful Attenborough pictures here: www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
A life in pictures: Celebrating Attenborough at 100
As the British naturalist celebrates a milestone birthday, we take a look at how his work has shaped science.
nature.com
Synthetic multicolor antigen-stabilizable nanobody platform for intersectional labeling and functional imaging @natmethods.nature.com @einsteinmededu.bsky.social @salkinstitute.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Deadline approaching! Submit your abstracts for the 10th session of YBM by tomorrow. Abstract submission link: forms.gle/SBeQeAp9MR2U...
Young Biophysicists Meeting@youngbiophymeet.bsky.social · 5mo agoSubmission open for the tenth YBM Meeting (deadline - 26th March)! Abstract submission link: forms.gle/SBeQeAp9MR2U...
Lifelong behavioral screen reveals an architecture of vertebrate aging | Science Was a wonderful collaboration with @clairebedbrook.bsky.social, Libby Zhang, Scott Linderman, @brunetlab.bsky.social & @deisseroth.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Lifelong behavioral screen reveals an architecture of vertebrate aging
Mapping behavior of individual vertebrate animals across lifespan could provide an unprecedented view into the lifelong process of aging. We created a platform for high-resolution continuous behaviora...
science.org
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... Super smart design of a system for evolving dynamics, congrats!!
Light-directed evolution of dynamic, multi-state, and computational protein functionalities
Optovolution leverages optogenetics and the yeast cell cycle to impose rapid, tunable selection, enabling the continuous evolution of light-responsive regulators, logic gates, and other complex protei...
cell.com
This is wild, our cellular clocks can be entrained by temp oscillations; even just 1.5C(!) changes; curious to see what happened molecularly to allow this big transition. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A cellular basis for the mammalian nocturnal-diurnal switch
Early mammals were nocturnal while dinosaurs dominated the daytime. Mammalian transition to daytime activity accelerated after the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, but the underlying mechanisms remain...
science.org
Not what I expected: increase in inter species feeding cooperativity is an indicator of many diseases www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Imbalance in gut microbial interactions as a marker of health and disease
Imbalances in the human gut microbiome, or dysbioses, are associated with multiple diseases but remain poorly understood. Existing biomarkers of dysbiosis fail to capture the ecological mechanisms tha...
science.org
Structural ontogeny of protein-protein interactions: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Fundamental work on how PPIs (co)evolve, combining directed evolution and machine learning to reveal the role of chance and contingency.
@GRC photoreceptor and signal transduction now! Please come and check my poster #22 on single proteins that’s adaptive to light stimulation!
Now in print at ACS Synbio! Introducing Aviatar: a concept for inducible translocation to any cell compartment using only a 1-component probe pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
Optogenetic Translocation to Subcellular Compartments through Regulation of Protein Avidity
Inducible translocation to subcellular compartments is a common strategy for protein switches that control a variety of cell behaviors. However, existing switches achieve translocation through induced...
pubs.acs.org
Lukasz Bugaj@bugajlab.bsky.social · last yr.Proteins often bind targets using avidity, the combined interaction strength of multiple weak binders. Now we’ve harnessed this principle for compact, *single*-component optogenetic tools for translocation. Lead by phenom PhD student @dennishuang.bsky.social #synbiosky🧵 📝 tinyurl.com/aviatar
Our new paper just out! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
Optogenetic Translocation to Subcellular Compartments through Regulation of Protein Avidity
Inducible translocation to subcellular compartments is a common strategy for protein switches that control a variety of cell behaviors. However, existing switches achieve translocation through induced...
pubs.acs.org
Zikang (Dennis) Huang@dennishuang.bsky.social · last yr.Check out our Aviatar toolkit for optogenetic translocation to arbitrary organelles! Simple, modular, compact, and many more.