De novo designed oligomers that respond to copper, small molecules, and phosphorylation... Using a single design strategy? 🧬⚙️ 🎉 Excited to share our new bioRxiv preprint—a collaboration between the Khmelinskaia, Correia, Schoeder and a Tinnefeld labs! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A generalizable interface-seeded framework for de novo design of functional oligomers

Protein oligomers are ubiquitous in biological systems and essential for function. However, the de novo design of oligomers that controllably assemble in response to exogenous stimuli remains challeng...

biorxiv.org

New preprint! We used protein domain insertion to tighten the editing window of the TadA8e adenine base editor. Bulky domain insertions concentrated editing around position A5, maintained robust on-target activity, and reduced Cas-independent off-target editing. 🧬 doi.org/10.64898/202...

Domain Insertion Improves the Precision of a CRISPR Adenine Base Editor

Adenine base editors (ABEs) enable efficient A:T to G:C conversion, but their broad activity windows frequently cause unintended bystander edits. We hypothesized that insertion of a bulky, inert prote...

biorxiv.org

Our lab website is finally online! pacesalab.com You can find information about our research, publications, and on-going developments in the lab.

A system of protein binders directs energy-generating organelles to targeted cells, potentially improving ways to treat mitochondrial dysfunction go.nature.com/42bk2wX

Therapeutic mitochondria transplants made more efficient with targeting tool

A system of protein binders directs energy-generating organelles to targeted cells, potentially improving ways to treat mitochondrial dysfunction.

go.nature.com

DROP-CARs: Engineering Reversible, Drug-Controlled CAR T Cell Activity with a Clinically Approved Small Molecule | Wendell Lim @ucsanfrancisco.bsky.social Adam Stevens @upenn.edu via @theaacr.bsky.social url: aacrjournals.org/cancerres/ar...

Drug-controlled DROP-CARs enable reversible extracellular control of CAR T cell function via human-derived protein switches that modulate cell-cell interactions and support dual-antigen targeting as well as logic-gated signaling www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Drug-controlled CAR T cells through the regulation of cell–cell interactions - Nature Chemical Biology

Drug-controlled DROP-CARs enable reversible extracellular control of CAR T cell function via human-derived protein switches that modulate cell–cell interactions and support dual-antigen targeting as w...

nature.com

Manchmal greifen CAR-T-Zellen gesundes Gewebe an und verursachen Nebenwirkungen. Ein internationales Forscherteam hat nun ein System entwickelt, um die Bindung von T-Zellen an andere Zellen durch ein zugelassenes Medikament zu kontrollieren. doi.org/10.1038/s415... Bild: Copyright: Leo Scheller

You asked, we listened. Millions of AI-predicted protein complex structures are now available in the #AlphaFold Database. This spans homodimers from 20 of the most studied species, including humans, as well as the World Health Organization’s priority pathogens list. www.ebi.ac.uk/about/news/t...

📢 We’re launching Proteina-Complexa — and after the Jensen keynote mention, we definitely had to post this thread now ;) Atomistic binder design with generative pretraining + test-time compute, plus large-scale wet-lab validation. Project page: research.nvidia.com/labs/genair/... 🧵 1/n

High throughput data are more important than ever💻. On this note, Markus Jeschek from EPFL, shows us how translation initiation can be engineered, utilizing mRNA folding or tRNA interactions to tune protein production📈!

Looking for a theory partner for an #HFSP project? #morphogenesis in cells and tissues, #chemotaxis, #cilia? Feel free to reach out! Deadline for letters of intent 26.03.2026. physics-of-life.tu-dresden.de/team/pol-gro...

Wirkstoff-gesteuerte CAR-T-Zellen: Ein neuer Sicherheitsmechanismus für die Krebsimmuntherapie Die chimäre Antigenrezeptor-(CAR)-T-Zelltherapie basiert auf gentechnisch veränderten Immunzellen, die Krebszellen aufspüren und zerstören. Manch... weiterlesen

We are looking for RNA enthusiasts to join us at the @uniregensburg.bsky.social as a junior group leader! Our university offer excellent infrastructure and collaboration opportunities for ground breaking RNA research. Please RT @jrrnascientists.bsky.social @rnasociety.bsky.social

The core idea of this project was that we wanted a new CAR safety switch that works with minimally altered human proteins, an approved drug, and by breaking or inhibiting cell-cell contact. After a lot of optimization, this worked pretty well! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Drug-controlled CAR T cells through the regulation of cell–cell interactions - Nature Chemical Biology

Drug-controlled DROP-CARs enable reversible extracellular control of CAR T cell function via human-derived protein switches that modulate cell–cell interactions and support dual-antigen targeting as w...

nature.com

Ooooh. Cool new paper on origins of life. A simple 45-nucleotide RNA molecule that can perfectly copy itself. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand

The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...

science.org

We’re excited to announce the opening of the Geneva Expansion Microscopy Facility (GenExM)! GenExM is a full-service U-ExM platform (U-ExM, Cryo-ExM, iU-ExM), delivering nanoscale imaging. Led by Dr. Olivier Mercey, GenExM welcomes academic & industrial collaborations. 👉 www.unige.ch/genexm/

We are recruiting a tenure track professor in the broader area of molecular biology @zmbh.uni-heidelberg.de at Heidelberg University! www.nature.com/naturecareer... Please share and apply!

Tenure Track Professorship (W1 with Tenure Track to W3) in “Molecular Biology" (f/m/d) - Heidelberg job with Universität Heidelberg | 12850668

The Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University (ZMBH) and the Faculty of Biosciences invite applications for a   Tenure Track Professors...

nature.com

Cool work to design phospho-tyrosine binder by the Baker lab. They show it works but success rate is low (<0.1%) and binders are not super strong (>500nM, likely related to cost of desolvating the phosphate) . www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A computationally-designed ‘random walker’ protein with tiny feet can walk back and forth across a micrometer-long fiber share.google/3gzWosAVOeAh...

De-novo design of a random protein walker

Molecular machines hold great potential. Design of static monomeric and oligomeric protein structures has advanced tremendously, but few dynamic protein systems have been designed. Here we present the...

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Nature research paper: One-shot design of functional protein binders with BindCraft go.nature.com/46bhOAv

One-shot design of functional protein binders with BindCraft - Nature

BindCraft, an open-source, automated pipeline for de novo protein binder design with experimental success rates of 10–100%, leverages AlphaFold2 weights to generate binders with nanomolar affinity without the need for high-throughput screening.

go.nature.com

Exciting to see our protein binder design pipeline BindCraft published in its final form in @Nature ! This has been an amazing collaborative effort with Lennart, Christian, @sokrypton.org, Bruno and many other amazing lab members and collaborators. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I am super excited to announce that I will be starting my lab at the Department of Pharmacology of the University of Zurich in Switzerland next year!

Watch out, one of the best in the field! 😀

Martin Pacesa@martinpacesa.bsky.social · last yr.

I am super excited to announce that I will be starting my lab at the Department of Pharmacology of the University of Zurich in Switzerland next year!

We (meaning Aswin and Stan www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...) found this jumbophage protein homologue of PhiKZ_124 that activates Avast5 and we solved a 2.1A cryoEM structure of but we have no idea what it does. Let me know it you got some idea. www.rcsb.org/structure/9RP3

Molecular basis for anti-jumbo phage immunity by AVAST Type 5

Jumbo phages protect their genomes from DNA-sensing bacterial defense systems by enclosing them within vesicles and nucleus-like compartments. Very little is known about defense systems specialized to...

biorxiv.org

My highest recommendation! Working with Martin is the ideal entry point into protein design.

Humanized Caffeine-Inducible Systems for Controlling Cellular Functions https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.13.659463v1

Caffeine-regulated molecular switches for functional control of CAR T cells in vivo https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.13.659487v1

Happy to share our first foray into the world of AI-based #ProteinDesign. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Development of AI-designed protein binders for detection and targeting of cancer cell surface proteins

Artificial intelligence (AI)-based protein design opens new avenues for the rapid generation of new research tools and therapeutics, but experimental validation lags behind the computational design th...

biorxiv.org

THIS IS HUGE! TWO Phase I HIV vaccine clinical trials have demonstrated that a stepwise mRNA-based vaccination strategy can SUCCESSFULLY activate AND advance immune responses toward producing broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs), a CRITICAL milestone in HIV prevention. Let’s talk about that! 🧪🧵⬇️

"Adapting ProteinMPNN for antibody design without retraining" Our several-years-old fix to ProteinMPNN's tendency to make weird antibody CDR sequences is finally preprinted

Adapting ProteinMPNN for antibody design without retraining

The neural network ProteinMPNN designs protein sequences capable of folding into predefined tertiary structures and quaternary assemblies. It has become widely used due to its high success rates when ...

biorxiv.org