Once again, @keribackus.bsky.social and I are coordinating the chemoproteomics evening workshop at #ASMS2026. And being in San Diego, we have quite the panel depth! Join us Tuesday June 2 at 5:45pm! 🧪💊
Keri Backus
@keribackus.bsky.social
Associate Professor at UCLA, all things chemical biology, chemoproteomic-, covalent-, cysteine- and redox-related
With a few days since it's been out @keribackus.bsky.social @oligopain.bsky.social and I wanted to highlight a few of our favorite aspects of POCA for photocatalytic proximity labeling of DNA, RNA or proteins. (1) POCA builds on standard in situ hybridization and immunofluorescence workflows.
Keri Backus@keribackus.bsky.social · 3mo agoSuper excited to launch POCAxOMAP with @dschweppe.bsky.social and @oligopain.bsky.social and led by Eli Biletch, Conor Herlihy and Lidan Li. If you’ve ever wanted to do proximity labeling on DNA, RNA, or protein without genetic engineering, look no further. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Super excited to launch POCAxOMAP with @dschweppe.bsky.social and @oligopain.bsky.social and led by Eli Biletch, Conor Herlihy and Lidan Li. If you’ve ever wanted to do proximity labeling on DNA, RNA, or protein without genetic engineering, look no further. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Congrats to all award recipients and special recognition to our lab’s own Caroline Canavan!
ASMS@asms.org · 3mo agoCongratulations to all the 2026 ASMS Award Recipients! We look forward to celebrating you at #ASMS2026 in San Diego. Learn about the 2026 awardees: https://www.asms.org/about-asms-awards #TeamMassSpec
Super excited that our SEE-CITE photoaffinity labeling method is now out in @natchem.nature.com rdcu.be/ffBSC. Here we introduce a custom silyl ether cleavable linker between a diazirine photocrosslinker handle and molecules of interest to streamline site-of-labeling analysis for PAL chemoproteomics
The next iteration of O-MAP targeting genomic loci is now at eLife!! DNA O-MAP enables proximity labeling at specific DNA loci took a ton of work from many lab members and collaborators, so it's really exciting to wrap up this paper with @oligopain.bsky.social! elifesciences.org/articles/102...
DNA O-MAP uncovers the molecular neighborhoods associated with specific genomic loci
DNA O-MAP enables proximity labeling at specific genomic loci in fixed cells using programmable oligonucleotides, revealing locus-proximal proteomes and chromatin interactions without genetic modifica...
elifesciences.org
Excited to share our new paper and lipid- and protein-directed photocatalytic labeling method (POCA) just out in @natchembio.nature.com. tinyurl.com/2kcxuvvv. Big congrats to first author Andrew Becker and the whole team for launching our lab into the wild world of singlet oxygen interactomics.
New paper in @jcb.org! We found a new regulator of p62 phase separation, autophagy, and antioxidant signaling. It is an E3 ligase adaptor called SHKBP1, but the effect is via direct p62 binding, not ubiquitination. Congrats to Lin Luan & team! @weillinstitute.bsky.social
Journal of Cell Biology@jcb.org · 6mo agoLin Luan, @jeremybaskin.bsky.social and colleagues @weillinstitute.bsky.social identify the Cullin-3 adaptor SHKBP1 as a non-canonical regulator of p62 phase behavior limiting p62 body formation and affecting Keap1/Nrf2 antioxidant signaling. rupress.org/jcb/article/... #CellSignaling
LipoID profiles lipid droplet interactions and identifies interorganelle regulators www.nature.com/articles/s41...
How can we study target engagement and selectivity of covalent inhibitors? Which electrophilic probes are best suited to study a certain amino acid? Our study on "Profiling the proteome-wide selectivity of diverse electrophiles" is published in Nature Chemistry.(1/7) www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Profiling the proteome-wide selectivity of diverse electrophiles - Nature Chemistry
Covalent inhibitors are powerful entities in drug discovery. Now the amino acid selectivity and reactivity of a diverse electrophile library have been assessed proteome-wide using an unbiased workflow...
nature.com
Real-time API control of mass specs has been hard to get started (C#, VS, etc). Mike Hoopmann's recent work makes dev easier & more open!: Nova - lightweight dev library schweppelab.github.io/Nova/ pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.... Helios - a unified instrument API now @ JPR github.com/SchweppeLab/...
Congratulations to my great friend and colleague @bradylabupenn.bsky.social for this well deserved award! @pennmedcso.bsky.social @penncancer.bsky.social
American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology@asbmb.bsky.social · 11mo agoCongratulations to the 2026 ASBMB Award Winners! Through their pioneering work, these scientists are advancing discovery, driving innovation, and shaping the future of molecular life sciences. Read more about their work: ow.ly/x05f50WSbax. #ASBMB26 #MakeItPossible
🚨 Save the date! 🚨 2nd LA Mass Spec Day: Oct 17, 2025 @ UCLA South Bay 🎉 Talks, posters, networking + plenaries by Jennifer Van Eyk & Melissa Hoffman! Register 👉 forms.gle/e6A9XWxiRF6K... Submit abstracts 👉 forms.gle/RCf5v3Gab5V8... More info to follow soon
Daily Bruin article about the ~800 frozen grants at UCLA including some from my lab dailybruin.com/2025/08/02/a...
About 800 NIH, NSF research grants suspended following UCLA federal funding cuts - Daily Bruin
About 800 research grants have been suspended at UCLA, according to a Friday email from Vice Chancellor for Research and Creative Activities Roger Wakimoto. Wakimoto said in the email, which was sent ...
dailybruin.com
Suspension of all grants to UCLA www.latimes.com/california/s...
Trump freezes $200 million in UCLA science and medical research funding, citing antisemitism
The Trump administration has frozen roughly $200 million in National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and other federal agency-funded research at UCLA, citing allegations the school d...
latimes.com
Consider signing the letter to support NIH and the "Bethesda Declaration" (www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...) #ASMS2025 @asms.org
Bethesda Declaration — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE
Support NIH Staff Now!
standupforscience.net
Andrea Sinz 🧪@sinzandrea.bsky.social · last yr.This is great to hear! 😀 We need to stand up for science 🧪. I am sorry I could not attend.
ASSIGNMENT: COMMENT ON SCHEDULE F 1 week left to comment about Schedule F, potentially making NIH institute and center director essentially political appointees. www.regulations.gov/commenton/OP... 1/n
Regulations.gov
regulations.gov
Join @lindsaykpino.com, me, and our amazing panelists for the #ASMS2025 #Chemoproteomics workshop on Monday!
Anyone else notice that ART is now giving different study section assignments compared to earlier in the week? Same title and abstract last night and today, different strong and possible matches...?
We will be hosting the 2025 ONO Pharma Foundation Annual Symposium on June 23 at the Royal Sonesta Boston. This event offers an opportunity to explore the latest breakthroughs presented by ONO INITIATIVE awardees and to discuss groundbreaking science in chemical biology. (1/2)
The 13th General Meeting of the International Proteolysis Society will be held in Búsios, Brazil Oct 26-30, 2025. Training workshops will be held at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz Oct 23-23. Register now! Links below. 1/3
The fantastically successful NIGMS MIRA R35 "expired" on May 17, after the most recent deadline--these removals are the most aggressive attack on American science in the current series of devastating actions 🧪
Gabi Serrato Marks@gserratomarks.bsky.social · last yr.NIH moved up the expiration date for some funding opportunities, effectively *canceling* the next application date without removing it from the standard table. I can't even imagine how many people are still prepping these grants. 👀 List of impacted opportunities: grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
Excited to see this out in @science.org today!! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Intracellular protein editing enables incorporation of noncanonical residues in endogenous proteins
The ability to study proteins in their native cellular context is crucial to our understanding of biology. In this work, we report a technology for intracellular protein editing, drawing from split in...
science.org
George Burslem@gburslem.bsky.social · 2y agoEver wanted to edit a protein sequence inside a living mammalian cell? Maybe to site specifically incorporate a non-canonical residue? Perhaps you’d like to do a pull down without an antibody? Or use a small molecule fluorophore to image an endogenous protein? 1/4
Great news: NIH postbac program is recruiting again! If your grad school plans were affected by program cutbacks or admissions freezes this year I highly encourage you to apply, this could be a perfect opportunity. Please repost. www.training.nih.gov/research-tra...
training.nih.gov
Congrats to all the award winners and especially to Backus Lab PhD student Flowreen Shikwana and undergrad Joelle Darrouj!
ASMS@asms.org · last yr.2025 asms.org Awards! Join us in congratulating the 2025 recipients. We look forward to recognizing them all at #ASMS2025 in Baltimore. Learn more: www.asms.org/about-asms-a...
U of Michigan @umich.edu set aside funds from central to support researchers with unexpected disruption in federal funding for up to 6 months. Are any other institutions doing this? Seems like a good move. #Medsky #NIH #federalfunding #researchfunding 🧪 record.umich.edu/articles/uni...
University launches new research support program | The University Record
record.umich.edu
Bluetorial: Women, courage, and leadership What follows will include some generalizations based on population averages of what I have experienced over the course of my career. There are, of course, exceptions in every group who are substantially more to one extreme or the other.
a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
ALT: a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
media.tenor.com
One of the most significant and challenging projects of my career so far. PepCentric: a scalable computational platform utilizing novel 2-D fragment indexing for rapid peptide-centric searches, enabling proteogenomics searches against billions of spectra in seconds. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Extending my grant update this morning. Here are data limited to new and competitive renewal applications. The Pause is dead, Long live the Pause...
