New review by @tlaszlo.bsky.social and colleagues: Step-brothers in arms, SAGA and ATAC co-activator complexes, use different strategies link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#ChemSky #ChemChat boost: Post a fun chemistry meme

RNA-seq tells us how much RNA is present in the cell. But to understand gene regulation, we need to easily measure the synthesis and decay rates driving this abundance. We introduce AIR-seq: analog intrinsic recoding sequencing. (1/6) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Analog intrinsic recoding measures RNA dynamics without chemical conversion

Steady-state RNA abundance measurements mask the synthesis and decay rates that shape gene expression. Analog intrinsic recoding sequencing (AIR-seq) repurposes the base-pairing properties of N4-hydro...

biorxiv.org

A major story broken by Science and Retraction Watch: an unreported death in a human gene therapy attempt in China:

Exclusive: Death of girl in Chinese gene-editing trial was never made public

Parents want accountability after study went disastrously wrong, Science and Retraction Watch investigation reveals

science.org

Excited to see this collaboration now in print. Dye chemistry meets AI-designed proteins. Three small, orthogonal tags; lifetime modulation; split versions. Request the free dyes at dyes.janelia.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

De novo design of orthogonal far-red, orange, and green fluorophore-binding proteins for multiplexed imaging

Fluorescent proteins and small-molecule dyes offer complementary advantages for biological imaging: proteins are amenable to genetic tagging, whereas dyes provide superior brightness and photostabilit...

science.org

Out now in @science.org A transcriptional biosensor reveals mechanisms of α-ketoglutarate signaling to chromatin | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A transcriptional biosensor reveals mechanisms of α-ketoglutarate signaling to chromatin

The metabolite α-ketoglutarate (αKG) is required for chromatin demethylation, but mechanisms that control αKG abundance in the nucleus are poorly defined. We designed a biosensor to monitor this metab...

science.org

Thank you @onoinitiative.bsky.social for the support!

ONO PHARMA FOUNDATION@onoinitiative.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The 2026 Ono Initiative Award is presented to Emily Balskus, ‪@brianbelardi.bsky.social, @achemsynbio.bsky.social as noted. Congratulations! Emily P. Balskus, Harvard University Brian Belardi, @utaustinchemistry.bsky.social Abhishek Chatterjee, @bostoncollege.bsky.social

How cool!!

Nicholas Bellono@nbellono.bsky.social · 2mo ago

How did octopuses evolve novel traits? Rishav Mitra, Richard Han, Trey Scott, et al serendipitously discover a unique ribosome adaptation that increases the accuracy of protein synthesis and evolved alongside their elaborate nervous systems vs deep sea relatives. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Gonna show this to anyone who asks why they should study organic chemistry.

good stuff

turgut keskintürk@tkeskinturk.bsky.social · 2mo ago

data visualization is my passion.

Chemical biology royalty here at Stanford for the annual @onoinitiative.bsky.social symposium, here are just a few of legends:

Excited to announce that our research group will be joining the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Department of Chemical Biology & Therapeutics in September. 🥼 🧬 🧪 @stjuderesearch.bsky.social

Of all the Enshitifications, the ChemDraw Enshitification must be competing for Most Enshitified Lifetime Achievement Category.

I wanted to share some news: I'll be leaving the NCI at the end of August. I'm excited to share more about the lab's next step soon, but for this post wanted to focus on expressing gratitude for my colleagues, trainees, and friends at the NCI Center for Cancer Research.

After years of Costco trips,I looked up from checkout to see the littles had found the boxes and spontaneously self-assembled.

For 40 years the 8-nt ‘Kozak Sequence’ was thought to mark sites of translation initiation. In a new study, we revise this model by identifying an ~80-nt sequence—the extended Translation Initiation Sequence (eTIS)— that guides ribosomes to correct start sites. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

“the very prospect of challenging a luminary in the field serves as a deterrent for entry by outsiders. Indeed, most of the entry we see occurs in those fields that lost a star who was especially accomplished.” pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?

We examine how the premature death of eminent life scientists alters the vitality of their fields. While the flow of articles by collaborators into affected fields decreases after the death of a star ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

M. S. AtKisson@igrrrl.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Out in Science. Years ago I recall another paper that said how fields make bigger leaps in the few years after one of the "greats" retires. www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagaz...

Interesting @chemrxiv.org preprint by the group of @katrinrittinger.bsky.social. They use enantiomeric pairs of covalent inhibitors to profile ligandable cysteines. Interesting use of machine learning to predict new compounds that can add most to the ligandable space. doi.org/10.26434/che...

i dunno man

Please repost! This comes from the good people at ChimeraX, who produce powerful up-to-date software to study protein (etc) structures, which are FREE to the community. 🙏 To stay viable and serve us, they need an experienced structural biologist to assume the leadership role on a funded project.

Faculty Position – In-Residence

University of California, San Francisco is hiring. Apply now!

aprecruit.ucsf.edu

Congratulations to our Senior Scientists, Drs. Hansen He and Cheryl Arrowsmith for receiving AACR Scientific Achievement Awards in recognition of their outstanding contributions to cancer research. #AACR26

It's really inspiring how Duke brings people together.

A high-affinity split-HaloTag for live-cell protein labeling. And much more. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A high-affinity split-HaloTag for live-cell protein labeling

Nature Communications - Lin and colleagues present high-affinity split-HaloTag pairs for protein tagging and multiplexed labelling. This versatile system allows protein visualisation with diverse...

nature.com

🚨 Our new paper is out! 🙌 Bioorthogonal reactions often create bulky, non-native linkages-great for labeling, but not ideal for installing natural PTMs. We combine GCE with a chemoselective amide-bond forming reaction to install site-specific acylation PTMs. www.cell.com/chem/fulltex... 1/4

A modular genetic code expansion approach to site-specific lysine acylations

A modular strategy combining genetic code expansion with a selective amide bond-forming reaction enables the site-specific installation of lysine acylations on folded proteins. Acylboronates react sel...

cell.com

Kids: “Dad that car cut you off!” Me: “He’s harmless.”

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Rapid directed evolution guided by protein language models and epistatic interactions

Protein engineering is limited by the inefficient search through a high-dimensional sequence space to find combinations of synergistic mutations. Traditional approaches use stepwise mutation stacking,...

science.org