Meng-meng Fu
@mengmengfu.bsky.social
Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley. Cytoskeleton and transport in glia. Prev: NIH, Stanford, UPenn, Caltech.
Belated post… last year, our lab painted a glia mural! It took about 1 day and we used a projector for tracing. Can you guess which cell is which?
New preprint from the lab 🎉: γ-tubulin is a novel target of the tubulin autoregulation pathway! Previously thought to exclusively target α- and β-tubulin mRNAs, we show that the TTC5–SCAPER–CNOT11 axis also degrades γ-tubulin mRNA, expanding the scope of this fundamental regulatory mechanism.
Vaults. They are cell biology's greatest puzzle! This preprint from Martin Beck's lab shows them docked on ER membranes with a ribosome inside. What on earth is going on there?? #CellBiology #WTFology www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
The vault associates with membranes in situ
The eukaryotic vault particle is a giant ribonucleoprotein complex that assembles into an iconic barrel-like cage. Its cellular function has remained elusive despite extensive characterization. Using ...
biorxiv.org
@hhmi.org Summer Undergraduate Research Experience - #CechFellows named in honor of Prof Tom Cech Deadline to apply: 12/22/2025 Spend 9 weeks in a paid, mentored biomedical research experience in an HHMI lab. See you next summer!!! www.hhmi.org/programs/cec...
Summer Undergraduate Research Experience | HHMI
The Cech Fellows Program is a paid, nine-week summer research experience empowering the next generation of scientific leaders.
hhmi.org
One of my Oxford visit highlights? I got to see these priceless slides that Ruffini sent to Sherrington of various sensory end organs. And yes, Ruffini had to excise these receptors from his own skin 😳🔬🧠
Excited to share our new pre-print collab w. @rdaslab.bsky.social Study led by Ved Topkar brilliant MD/PhD student who used biochemistry and bioinformatics to probe the relationship between Mbp mRNA structure & transport/local translation in oligodendrocytes! biorxiv.org/content/10.110… 1/8
biorxiv.org
Study from Mayo Clinic on deep brain stimulation (DBS) for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Not currently FDA approved but promising!
Michael D Kornberg@mdkornberg.bsky.social · 9mo agoAt least once per year I see someone with debilitating MS-related tremor, usually cerebellar or rubral. This is a study I was hoping would be done... journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
We have an exciting PhD position available in the Williams lab related to cerebral small vessel disease and funded through our Racing Against Dementia project - if you are interested then do apply here: regenerative-medicine.ed.ac.uk/postgraduate... www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
PhD opportunities | Centre for Regenerative Medicine | Centre of Regenerative Medicine
Information about available funded PhD Positions
regenerative-medicine.ed.ac.uk
The UNC Department of Biology is seeking a Director of Biology Teaching Labs, a key leadership role overseeing our undergraduate laboratory program. 1/n Learn more and apply here: unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/308...
Director of Biology Teaching Labs
The Director of Biology Teaching Labs provides leadership and direction in the management of the Biology Department's undergraduate laboratories and will be responsible for the undergraduate laborator...
unc.peopleadmin.com
Two tenure-track faculty positions open in our department: 1) Microbial Ecology and Evolution careers.rpi.edu/en-us/job/49... 2) Cellular Neuroscience careers.rpi.edu/en-us/job/49... Join our collaborative, interdisciplinary community, which has proved to be a fantastic place to start a lab!
Details - Assistant Professor, Microbial Ecology - RPI Jobs
careers.rpi.edu
The NIH institute director firing last Friday is very bad. I made a video explainer about why. Stay for last post, w link to @science.org story from @jocelynkaiser.bsky.social 1/4 🧪
This is the creepiest Halloween decoration I’ve ever seen… IRL it’s very lifelike 😱 # BerkeleyLife
Reposting link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Spatially patterned cytoskeletal organization shapes astrocyte branch complexity
Astrocytes, the most abundant cells in the brain, extend elaborate branches that enable diverse functions, from synapse maintenance to blood-brain-barrier integrity. The cytoskeletal basis of this arc...
biorxiv.org
Meng-meng Fu@mengmengfu.bsky.social · 10mo agoExcited to share our preprint on cytoskeletal organization in astrocytes! biorxiv.org/content/10.110… Postdoc @mewynne759 looked at microtubules, IFs/GFAP & actin along long elaborate processes. Wonderful to collaborate w postdoc @dharshinigopal & @NogalesLab on cryo-ET 🤓 1/x
Excited to share our preprint on cytoskeletal organization in astrocytes! biorxiv.org/content/10.110… Postdoc @mewynne759 looked at microtubules, IFs/GFAP & actin along long elaborate processes. Wonderful to collaborate w postdoc @dharshinigopal & @NogalesLab on cryo-ET 🤓 1/x
biorxiv.org
Meet the 2025 ASCB Award Winners—trailblazing scientists honored for research, mentoring, education, and innovation. Celebrate excellence across all career stages in cell biology. Read more: www.ascb.org/society-news...
Powerful stuff!
Teddy Drivas 🏳️🌈 (he/him)@tdrivas.bsky.social · last yr.We’re super grateful to see our work amplified by @sciencenews.bsky.social , which covered our study’s implications for ICU practice, surprise diagnoses, and what must change for genetic testing to help more adults. 📰 Read the feature: www.science.org/content/arti...
Deepika Dogra, Karin Tuschl, and I are thrilled to host the Neural Disorders RIG meeting of the @ZDMSociety on July 30, 10:00-11:30 am ET. We have a fantastic line-up of speakers. Register here: zdmsociety.org/2025-zdms-ri....
This week, we welcome Lana Ho (right), PhD student from @mengmengfu.bsky.social's lab at @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social, to our lab to teach us some cool smFISH (in a heatwave) as part of a lab exchange in the @hfspo.bsky.social Early Career Award.
Vaults are cool! What do they do? We don’t know!
Oli Clarke@olibclarke.bsky.social · last yr.1/x New story - the structure of the Vault cap, at 2.3Å! Matching a beautiful preprint from @sjorsscheres.bsky.social, we show that the cap of the vault particle has C13 symmetry, in contrast to the 39-fold symmetry of the body. Study lead by talented postdoc @huanli00.bsky.social from my group! ⬇️
Really beautiful study from Mike & collaborators! Basic cell biology question: how do axons know how long to grow? Important implications for PNS & CNS injury. Unexpected link between retrograde signaling & transposon/lncRNA mediated feedback! Wonderful demonstration of omics use & team science!
Mike Fainzilber@mfainzilber.bsky.social · last yr.A 🧵 to walk those interested through this paper...
As the incoming Chair of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine, I am looking for a Director of Research. Exciting opportunity for a PhD scientist to shape the future of this new Department! Apply here: jobs.weill.cornell.edu/NY/job/New-Y...
Director of Research, Biochemistry & Biophysics
Director of Research, Biochemistry & Biophysics
jobs.weill.cornell.edu
The Spencer Foundation is offering rapid response bridge funding for those who lost NSF research grants. www.spencer.org/grant_types/...
Rapid Response Bridge Funding Program
In the face of recent abrupt shifts in federal funding for education research, including large-scale terminations of National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant awards, we have developed a rap...
spencer.org
My dear health equity peers, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is doubling down on their DEI efforts. 💪🏽 Here’s a grant opportunity tinyurl.com/3pnxhy2d with a rapid response option those whose “health equity research projects have lost federal funding.” ⭐️ Please share ⭐️
Research to Advance Racial and Indigenous Health Equity
We seek to build an actionable body of evidence to construct fair systems that determine resource distribution and support health equity. Deadlines: Rapid Response brief proposal 5/28/25; New Research...
tinyurl.com
Important to celebrate trainee victories: excited to have Holly Merta's @hollymerta.bsky.social paper out! We use TurboID sub-organelle proteomics to map the ER network. We find calmin/CLMN, an ER-to-actin tether regulating focal adhesions & cell motility. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Spatial proteomics of ER tubules reveals CLMN, an ER-actin tether at focal adhesions that promotes cell migration
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is structurally and functionally diverse, yet how its functions are organized within morphological subdomains is incomp…
sciencedirect.com
Great This American Life episode: www.thisamericanlife.org/857/transcript So important now more than ever to have a solid biology education! Judge Ana Reyes on the EO banning transgender military personnel: “this executive order is premised on an assertion that's not biologically correct…
857: Museum of Now - This American Life
thisamericanlife.org
