How do human cells defend against viruses? @sgfern.bsky.social discovers that human immune proteins named ISGs target ancient features of replication shared between animal and bacterial viruses – opening analysis of human immunity to the power of bacterial genetics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Alternative splicing broadens antiviral diversity at the human OAS2 locus Emma Davies et al @fletcherlab.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Alternative splicing broadens antiviral diversity at the human OAS2 locus - The EMBO Journal

Interferons (IFN) are cytokines that regulate the expression of hundreds of genes during viral infections to generate a broadly antiviral environment in the stimulated cell. Antiviral breadth is provi...

link.springer.com

Delighted to share our article on the functional expansion of OAS2 via alt. splicing. link.springer.com/article/10.1... A tour de force from PhD student Emma Davies and friends.

Alternative splicing broadens antiviral diversity at the human OAS2 locus - The EMBO Journal

Interferons (IFN) are cytokines that regulate the expression of hundreds of genes during viral infections to generate a broadly antiviral environment in the stimulated cell. Antiviral breadth is provi...

link.springer.com

We are incredibly excited to see our most recent story out @nature.com today:HIV triggers CD4-signaling to remodel nuclear pores and license infection!A heroic effort led by our very own @d-mesner.bsky.social & @mattvxwhelan.bsky.social! @blizardinstitute.bsky.social Link: tinyurl.com/HIVNup 1/11

How diverse is bacterial immunity ? We report in @science.org how language models allowed us to predict 2.4M antiphage proteins spanning >23K novel potential systems. 👏 @emordret.bsky.social, @alexhv.bsky.social & al doi.org/10.1126/scie... Explore them here defensefinder.mdmlab.fr/wiki/refseq_...

Registration now open! 2026 #EMBO #Ubiquitin Workshop set in stunning Monopoli, Puglia 🇮🇹 Cutting edge science, great speakers, short talk opportunities, travel awards Limited spaces. Dont miss out - register early! Registration & more info: meetings.embo.org/event/26-ubi...

Our work on the role of Ufmylation on ribosome quality control on the ER is out! Great work of two terrific first authors Milica and @alessandrick.bsky.social together with our wonderful collaborators, the one and only Dagdas lab @plantophagy.bsky.social!

Max Perutz Labs Vienna@maxperutzlabs.ac.at · 4mo ago

🆕 publication! The @gekaragoz.bsky.social lab shows how cells clear stalled ribosomes at the ER, preventing harmful 'traffic jams' during protein synthesis🚦Their new @embojournal.org study reveals how quality control and UFMylation team up to keep translation moving ➡️ tinyurl.com/2czj8fvp

🔬 We’re hiring in Zürich🇨🇭! My lab is recruiting a new PhD student in molecular immunology (interferons, autoantibodies & viral disease). Position is fully-funded. Starting date anticipated to be late 2026/early 2027. Further details and how to apply: tinyurl.com/IMVPhD2026 Deadline 1st May 2026.

Receptor clustering is a common theme in viral detection, but whether detection directly hinders genome replication is less clear. Excited to share the Z in RZ-type E3s: ZNFX1 is an RNA helicase that builds ubiquitin chains leading to aggregates that ensnare viral RNA. www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

ZNFX1 uses two-component ubiquitin circuitry to quarantine viral RNA

Squair et al. show that ZNFX1 restricts ssRNA virus replication by integrating SF1 helicase activity with dual E3 ligase mechanisms. ATP-dependent RNA binding activates E3 function, driving self-propa...

cell.com

PhD position in our lab - 4-year funded by BBSRC and @nrpdtp.bsky.social in collaboration with @earlhaminst.bsky.social and Inspiralis Ltd. Open to UK fee qualifying students - UK citizens and citizens of Ireland (residency requirement), etc biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/how...

How do RNA molecules shape genome regulation in the nervous system? (AKAY_U26CASE) | Doctoral Training Partnership

This is open to Home Fee Status candidates only. This PhD project will investigate how RNA modifications influence the activity of topoisomerase I (TOP1), a crucial enzyme that regulates DNA…

biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk

CBASS is a cyclic nucleotide-based antiviral system in bacteria that is related to cGAS-STING signaling in animals. One of the big questions is how CBASS is activated during phage infection? We made some progress on this during my final year in the Kranzusch lab. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I am incredibly excited to share that I will start my independent lab at the @unidue-zmb.bsky.social at the @unidue.bsky.social as Junior Professor of Cellular Biochemistry. Research in my lab has the goal to decipher the ubiquitin code! There are multiple open positions! (1/3)

Excited to share our new paper uncovering how FANCD2 recognises various DNA repair proteins www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @hw1o9.bsky.social

🧐 What if metabolic defects are not just a consequence of inflammatory disease - but actively contribute to it? Inflammation and metabolism are deeply intertwined, but the molecular links remain unclear. Our new paper in Cell Death & Differentiation uncovers one. 🧵👇 nature.com/articles/s41...

Really happy to see this one out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Alibek's drive & great coll w/ friends @gekaragoz.bsky.social & E. Hallacli resulted in a cool story that starts with our beloved #Marchantia and ends with iPSC-derived neurons 🤩🤪 A short 🧵

I have multiple positions available to join my lab from this summer: #postdoc, #student and #technician. Adverts to follow but see www.saurinlab.com for further details. #senescence, #mitosis, #cellcycle, #phosphorylation are the key areas. Email me if interested.

I am excited to share our latest preprint - An evolutionarily divergent herpesvirus with a giant tail. Featuring symmetry breaking and genome annotation from structure using ModelAngelo. doi.org/10.64898/202...

Hello world! I am excited to announce my lab is open at the University of Utah in the Department of Biochemistry. We are looking for scientists at all levels interested in studying host-virus interactions in both bacteria and animals. Come join us in beautiful Utah! (photo is 10 steps from lab)

Super new paper from @ubch-alice.bsky.social and Danny Huang @cruk-si.bsky.social – a great deal of hard work and development behind this story. From a technical perspective, this reads as a primer for tapping 'unconventional' E3s. Very well done Alice and team!

Alice Wicks@ubch-alice.bsky.social · 7mo ago

My first-author paper is out in @chemicalscience.rsc.org from my time in Professor Danny Huang’s laboratory @cruk-si.bsky.social. We showed that CBL can be used as a degrader E3 to target the “undruggable” eIF4E. pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

Excited to share our work into ubiquitin E1-E2 specificity mechanisms. CryoEM visualising #ubiquitin transfer,biochemistry,evolution @labhofmann.bsky.social & tissue expression analyses @psarkies.bsky.social Big thanks to the team,reviewers & handling editor @dimitristypas.bsky.social rdcu.be/eTRdR

UBA6 specificity for ubiquitin E2 conjugating enzymes reveals a priority mechanism of BIRC6

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology - Riechmann et al. uncover structural features governing ubiquitin transfer from ubiquitin-activating E1 enzymes UBA1 and UBA6 to specific E2...

rdcu.be

We’re thrilled to onboard Alice Wicks @ubch-alice.bsky.social in the lab this week. Alice trained with Danny Huang @cruk-si.bsky.social and has developed exciting new ideas for co-opting E3s for targeted degradation. Welcome to the team, Alice.

We’ve made some new tools to manipulate N-recognins. Check them out in our preprint. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Join @uofglasgow.bsky.social for a funded 3.5 year PhD programme: www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/mvl... Also up for grabs is a project on antiviral PROTACs, supervised by us and the France lab (School of Chemistry) should ubiquitin and viruses appeal! Please get in touch with any questions.

Excited to share the peer-reviewed version of our work, now online in @embojournal.org! Big thanks to our reviewers and @hvodermaier.bsky.social for facilitating this process. Looking forward to continuing this fun collaboration with @michaelnadbio.bsky.social! www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

RNF114 and RNF166 exemplify reader-writer E3 ligases that extend K11 polyubiquitin onto sites of MARUbylation | The EMBO Journal

imageimageMARUbylation (mono-ADP-ribose ubiquitylation) is a multilayered post-translational modification controlled by PARPs and Deltex E3 ligases. This study identifies RNF114 and RNF166 as reader-w...

embopress.org

Jonathan Pruneda@jnpruneda.bsky.social · last yr.

Sharing the next installment of our fun collaboration with @michaelnadbio.bsky.social at the interface of #ubiquitin and #ADP-ribosylation! Building upon our identification of cellular MARUbylation, we now identify reader/writer E3 ligases that extend K11 polyUb! 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A #postdoc position in atypical #ubiquitin signalling and protein binder engineering is opening soon in my lab at DTU Bioengineering! Get in touch if you are interested.

🎉 Fletcher lab PhD student Emma Davies reflecting on her prize winning talk - we’re super proud of you Emma - many congrats! 🎉 @cvrinfo.bsky.social @uofgsii.bsky.social @uofgmvls.bsky.social

Microbiology Society@microbiologysociety.org · 10mo ago

Huge congratulations to Emma Davis, the winner of 2025's Early Career Microbiologist of the Year prize! We agree with Emma that all of the finalists' talks were brilliant and a massive well done to everyone involved!

Our work on the Panoptes antiphage system is published! Here we find that Panoptes "watches" the cytosol for phage immune evasion proteins–captured in this illustration by Clair Huffine of Insight Illustrations. A beautiful example of the effector triggered immunity paradigm.

Viro3D paper is out! We predicted 85,000 protein structures from human & animal viruses. 1/5 🧵 📑 Paper doi.org/10.1038/s443... 🔭 Explore virosphere viro3d.cvr.gla.ac.uk

Viro3D: a comprehensive database of virus protein structure predictions | Molecular Systems Biology

imageimageViro3D provides proteome-level, high confidence AI-protein structure predictions for >4,400 viruses, allowing mapping of form and function across the human and animal virosphere. Viro3D i...

doi.org

Allosteric activation of a ubiquitin ligase by an internal kinase domain! Congratulations to our team member Thornton Fokkens for this fascinating discovery in a neglected disease area with strong therapeutic need. Many thanks to all our great collaborators! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A Leishmania virulence factor harnesses an allosteric kinase switch to regulate its ubiquitin ligase activity

Stringent control of ubiquitylation is a central requirement of signaling specificity in eukaryotes. Here, we discover a domain module integrating pro…

sciencedirect.com

🚨📝 New work via @thepandemicinst.bsky.social now preprinted! We took ~19000 sequences of avian influenza virus and trained machine learning models on >40000 genomic/proteomic features - the resulting ensemble can predict zoonotic potential with AUC=0.95. More below! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

An AI for an AI: identifying zoonotic potential of avian influenza viruses via genomic machine learning

Avian influenza remains a serious risk to human health via zoonotic transmission, as well as a feasible pandemic threat. Although limited zoonotic cases have resulted from the current epizootic outbre...

biorxiv.org