🚨 Preprint alert 🚨 We’ve used in vitro transcription and DNA nanotechnology to programme the localisation of DNA within synthetic cells! Led by Chelsea @uclchemistry.bsky.social @sigsyncell.bsky.social @syncelleu.bsky.social #chemsky 🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Programmable and Dynamic DNA Localisation at Synthetic Cell Membranes

Spatial and temporal organisation of membrane-associated components is fundamental to cellular signalling, yet remains difficult to engineer in minimal synthetic systems. In synthetic cells, DNA and R...

biorxiv.org

Our review paper on Membrane-Associated Biomolecules for Synthetic Cell Signalling has just been published in #ChemBioChem! Led by Chelsea + Bingkun @uclchemistry.bsky.social, @sigsyncell.bsky.social, @chemistryeurope.bsky.social #chemsky 🧪 chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Membrane‐Associated Biomolecules for Synthetic Cell Signalling

Membrane-associated proteins and nucleic acids are transforming synthetic cell communication, unlocking applications in biosensing, therapeutics, and tissue engineering. This review explores how thes....

chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

still not quite over the fact that i watched 15 year olds get sued for millions of dollars for downloading twelve songs and now we all have to accept AI slop because every tech company in the known universe decided that IP laws don't exist now that they're inconvenient for them

Q: Does my thesis adviser pick the snake? A: No. Your adviser just tells the guy who picks the snakes how good your thesis was.

FAQ: The “Snake Fight” Portion of Your Thesis Defense

March 13 2022 4/24/23 5/8/24 5/13/26 CALENDAR 2027

buff.ly

Great to be at the 2026 Synthetic Cell international conference in London! Such a fantastic community to be in ❤️ Thanks to all the organisers @continiclau.bsky.social @syncelleu.bsky.social

At last the media is talking about what is really important: single or double unsaturation? 🧪 #chemsky

A unified platform for nucleoside analog synthesis | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A unified platform for nucleoside analog synthesis

Nucleoside analogs (NAs) are essential as antiviral and anticancer therapies. Despite decades of focused medicinal chemistry efforts, their related chemical space remains underexplored, mainly due to ...

science.org

I had the pleasure of seeing the presentations for the Blavatnik Awards for the Chemical Sciences today. Many congratulations to the awardees. Special shout out to UCL colleague @drmikebooth.bsky.social who was a finalist 🧬🧬🧬

It was a wonderful experience to receive my Blavatnik Awards in the UK Finalist medal in the gorgeous Banqueting House this week! Then give a public lecture at the Royal Society of Medicine! A giant thank you to the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the The New York Academy of Sciences

Congratulations to Dr Paola Pinilla @uclmaps.bsky.social and @drmikebooth.bsky.social @uclchemistry.bsky.social on being named finalists in the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the UK for their work on planet-forming discs and on new ways to use DNA in medicine www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2026/fe...

Exciting news: I've been selected as a Finalist for the Blavatnik Awards in the UK 🧬 🥳 This is an incredible honour and I'm thankful to all my past and present group members, whom I have had the privilege to work with, and my collaborators and mentors www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

What if we replaced Organic Chemistry Named Reactions with mythical weapons “To convert A to B we first ran a DoomSlayer followed by Anglachel Rearrangement. “The resulting olefin was cleaved with Excalibur revealing the desired target #ChemChat

a man is holding a green sword in a forest while another man watches .

ALT: a man is holding a green sword in a forest while another man watches .

media.tenor.com

We need to be shouting about the effects of this on junior researchers from the roofs, writing to our MPs. We are risking a "missing generation" of researchers.

Mark A. Hanson@hansonmark.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Both MRC and BBSRC responsive modes now withdrawn until further notice. Existing applications unlikely to succeed (late 2025 round expecting 1-5% success rate). Listen, I get that UKRI wants to pivot. But killing both at once is devastating. Let's hope at least one opens by summer... #AcademicSky

UCL gene therapy #spinout EpilepsyGTx raises $33 million www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/de...

UCL spinout EpilepsyGTx raises $33 million for new epilepsy treatments

The UCLB pharmaceutical spinout, EpilepsyGTx which is developing new treatments for refractory epilepsy, has raised $33 million USD (£24.78 million) in Series A funding to bring its gene therapy to cl...

ucl.ac.uk

Had a fantastic group winter day with lunch and bowling! I'm so lucky to have such a lovely bunch of people to get to spend time with 🤗

Organelles do NOT have a single uniform pH. And if you think they must, because “protons diffuse fast,” this paper is for you. A thread on why that assumption is wrong; and what we found instead. 🧵 1/n

bioRxivpreprint@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Organelles harbour pH gradients https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.12.694065v1

#RSCPoster is happening again on March 3rd and 4th, 2026, here on LinkedIn. I am happy to be involved as subject chair for #RSCChemBio. If you want to share some exciting research in #Chemistry and especially #ChemBio consider registering for the event: www.rsc.org/our-events/a... #ChemSky

It was exciting to have Prof Jonathan Hall from ETH Zürich visit @uclchemistry.bsky.social today to give a fantastic talk on RNA structure! Such incredibly detailed mechanistic work explained in such a simple manner 🧬❤️

👀

Excited to be at the UK Platform for Nucleic Acid Therapies (UPNAT) symposium today at UCL!

Really impressive talk on artificial cells and all the behaviours that can be built up inside them using DNA by @waltherlab.bsky.social #sbuk2025 #sbuk

Always great to be at the annual @biochemsoc.bsky.social Synthetic Biology UK conference - today's one is extra special as it's in London and I'm on the organising committee 🫡🫣 #SBUK26 #SBUK2026

We had a fantastic group day today - discussing new research ideas and a stimulating trip to the Tate Modern ❤️🧪🧬 It's always so wonderful to spend time with these amazing people #chemsky

Dr Chris Morris and I have a new paper in Nucleic Acids Research. This paper has been a long time in the making & was affected by COVID so we are proud to have it published! @shozebhaider.bsky.social @effrosynialexandr.bsky.social @chriswaudby.bsky.social academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Affinity-selected peptide ligands specifically bind i-motif DNA and modulate c-Myc gene expression

Abstract. c-Myc is an oncogene that is dysregulated in ∼70% of cancers. Its multifaceted function complicates effective drug targeting of the protein. i-Mo

academic.oup.com

lol

Unusual Whales@unusualwhales.bsky.social · 9mo ago

BREAKING: OpenAI is requesting US government support to help guarantee financing for the massive investments in AI chips and data centers it needs for expansion, per Bloomberg.

BBSRC, EPSRC, MRC 🧪

Happy to share our newest publication! 🤩 We found that DNA and RNA behave differently in primitive coacervates: RNA makes them more stable, DNA more fluid. Both properties are key for non-enzymatic DNA replication! An incredible teamwork across continents! 😊 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Differential stability and dynamics of DNA-based and RNA-based coacervates affect non-enzymatic RNA chemistry - Nature Communications

Mixtures of peptides and nucleic acids tend to demix and form coacervate droplets. Here, the authors show that even short peptides and oligonucleotides form droplets. DNA and RNA impart different prop...

nature.com

🚨Our paper is out! 🥳 Hijacking a bacterial ABC transporter for efficient genetic code expansion. Many congrats to everyone involved - a multi-year effort led by @taruniype.bsky.social @maxfottner.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... it all started years ago with a failed experiment 🧵👇 1/9

Hijacking a bacterial ABC transporter for genetic code expansion - Nature

Bacterial ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters can be utilized and engineered to transport non-canonical amino acids into Escherichia coli for highly efficient synthesis of proteins with novel func...

nature.com

‘Economics Nobel prize won by researchers who showed how science boosts growth’ by @philipcball.bsky.social in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This is a new one for me #chemsky 🧪 My name has appeared on a published paper that I've had nothing to do with (even using an incorrect version of my email address)! Has this happened to others? If so, what did you do?