Excited to share our new preprint! 🧬❄️ by brilliant @mdreimann.bsky.social and great collaborators! Using cryo-ET&EM, we reveal archaeal chromatin in a near-native state: variable-beads-on-a-string fibers shaped by growth phase and histone composition #ArchaeaSky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Pulsed-electron illumination does not reduce beam damage for imaging biological macromolecules pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42309992/ #cryoEM

Science really takes a village. Thrilled to share this with my friend @dudinlab.bsky.social, and with our brilliant and fearless teams, our collaborators around the world and our mentors - in my case a special shoutout to Buzz Baum, Jan Ellenberg and @monicabettencourt.bsky.social. 1/2

EMBO@embo.org · 2mo ago

Congratulations to Gautam Dey (EMBL) and Omaya Dudin (University of Geneva) for being awarded the EMBO Gold Medal 2026 in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the #LifeSciences in Europe! 🧪 https://www.embo.org/press-releases/embo-gold-medal-2026-awarded-to-gautam-dey-and-omaya-dudin/

You can take a look at a demo tomogram acquired with the xLPP of apo-ferritin on the cryoET data portal here: cryoetdataportal.czscience.com/datasets/10496 Raw data is of course also available for download!

Dataset

cryoetdataportal.czscience.com

Really important development in improving contrast in the painfully low contrast images we get out of a cryo-TEM

Biohub@biohub.org · 2mo ago

In a series of 3 papers and preprints, we’re thrilled to share with you the working laser phase plate. In collaboration with research led by Holger Müller at UC Berkeley, this is a huge innovation in imaging to make small and faint objects inside cells visible. bit.ly/4vK9LVn

Jon Chen @jonchenjk.bsky.social and Claris Chong's review of recent in situ cryo-ET chromatin studies and our opinion on an important future genomic direction is now published in Current Opinions in Structural Biology. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Our paper in Science is out! @souravagrawal.bsky.social, @rlynn.bsky.social, @susvirkar.bsky.social, and the rest of the team show human RPA is a telomerase processivity factor essential for telomere maintenance. This reshapes our thinking about telomerase regulation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Human RPA is an essential telomerase processivity factor for maintaining telomeres

Telomerase counteracts telomere shortening by repeatedly adding DNA repeats to chromosome ends. We identified the replication protein A (RPA) heterotrimer as a telomerase processivity factor critical ...

science.org

Happy to share our latest publication, in which we show that the arrangement of nucleosomes around CTCF sites contributes to higher-order organisation of chromatin into TADs: www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Wow www.bbc.com/news/article...

Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time

One of the most devastating diseases finally has a treatment that can slow its progression and transform lives, tearful doctors tell BBC.

bbc.com

This is huge: “A drug that provides near-perfect protection against H.I.V. with shots just twice a year will be made available at $40 per patient annually in low- and middle-income countries, offering new hope… making lenacapavir a realistic choice in countries with constrained resources.”

Philanthropies Strike a Promising Deal to Turn Back H.I.V.

nytimes.com

For something different, tried this approach on something on the other end of the spectrum - in situ ribosomes from low SNR 2DTM data. Used the U2OS-grid 9 dataset from EMPIAR-12459 (699 movies; doi.org/10.1016/j.mo...). Blob pick & 2D after denoising gave 12k particles. 2-class HR-HAIR --> 3.3 Å

Oli Clarke@olibclarke.bsky.social · 11mo ago

This one is a bit of a departure from the usual and definitely a work in progress! We found that by using ab initio reconstruction at very high res, in very small steps, we could crack some small structures that had eluded us - e.g. 39kDa iPKAc (EMPIAR-10252), below. Read on for details... 1/x

Correlative MS Imaging for cellular identification and analysis of in situ cryo-ET www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.16.676641v1 #cryoEM

Sub-cellular chemical mapping in bacteria using correlated cryogenic electron and mass spectrometry imaging Congrats Hannah Ochner and authors on this important paper! Strong collaboration with @kiranrpatil.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... @mrclmb.bsky.social @wellcometrust.bsky.social

🏅 Congratulations to Sandra Schmid (@czbiohub) on receiving ASCB’s 2025 E.B. Wilson Medal! This award honors distinguished researchers for far-reaching contributions to cell biology over a lifetime in science—an achievement Sandra exemplifies. #ASCB #CellBiology

Just published: Our paper on high-throughput analysis of cyclin docking interactions, led by the group of Norman Davey @icr.ac.uk and with some small-complex-plus-peptide #cryoEM by @natalia-mg.bsky.social from my lab. Congratulations, everyone! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

High-throughput investigation of cyclin docking interactions reveals the complexity of motif binding determinants - Nature Communications

Many protein–protein interactions depend on Short Linear Motifs (SLiMs). In this study, the authors use large-scale binding assays, deep mutational scanning, and structural analysis to map SLiMs recog...

nature.com

My PhD paper is in press @cellpress.bsky.social and now online: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...! Contents: weird #NPCs in yeast and flies, #CLEM, in situ #cryoET and more! Made possible by the amazing @becklab.bsky.social team at @mpibp.bsky.social and collaborators! #TeamTomo

The small GTPase Ran defines nuclear pore complex asymmetry

Nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) bridge across the nuclear envelope and mediate nucleocytoplasmic exchange. They consist of hundreds of nucleoporin build…

sciencedirect.com

Our first expansion microscopy results. Imaged today on "normal" Zeiss LSM 900, revealing chromatin and RNA polymerase II clusters at an unreal level of detail. Our PhD student @mofrawe.bsky.social learned the protocol from amazing @mpownall.bsky.social 🙏 Months of preparation are paying off now!

Looks like us structural cell biologists will have to be satisfied with false-atomic resolution for awhile.

Check out 🧐 our new preprint 📜: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Congrats🎉 to @vasilgaisin.bsky.social and Corina Hadjicharalambous, who studied contractile injection systems directly in hot spring♨️ bacterial mats🦠 #microsky #teamtomo #Chloroflexota

Check out our new preprint on the discovery of a molecular switch in NAC that mediates nascent chain sorting on the ribosome and prevents mitochondrial protein mistargeting by SRP. A great collaboration with the Shan Lab @Caltech and the Qi Lab @UVA: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Now out in Structure: Paper on high-resolution #cryoEM using the 100 kV Tundra cryo-TEM by Dimple Karia, Adrian Koh, @abhaykot.bsky.social, @lingboyu.bsky.social, @landerlab.bsky.social and many others. Happy to have contributed to this effort. Check it out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Sub-3 Å resolution protein structure determination by single-particle cryo-EM at 100 keV

Cryoelectron microscopy (cryo-EM) has transformed structural biology by providing high-resolution insights into biological macromolecules. We report s…

sciencedirect.com

New preprint! We solve a mystery you didn't know existed. Mitotic cells lack new transcription but require ongoing translation. Interphase mRNA half life is only 2-4 hrs. So how do cells arrest in mitosis for hours without depleting their transcriptomes? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Global inhibition of deadenylation stabilizes the transcriptome in mitotic cells

In the presence of cell division errors, mammalian cells can pause in mitosis for tens of hours with little to no transcription, while still requiring continued translation for viability. These unique...

biorxiv.org

And here it is now in print! www.cell.com/cell-reports... With a front cover splash 😍

Michael Grange@michaelgrange.bsky.social · last yr.

Proud to share our latest paper. doi.org/10.1016/j.cr... Through the dedication of @glynnca.bsky.social and @cryingem.bsky.social we report a thorough method to image molecular organisation within hippocampus tissue. Structural biology in tissue is well and truly here! @rosfrankinst.bsky.social

This seems like a really important paper comparing chromosome tracing methods, demonstrating that classical denaturing DNA-FISH and chromosome tracing leads to substantial distortion of 3D genome structure, likely due to the high-temperatures involved (70-90C): www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy to share our latest work on the structure and assembly of holocentric kinetochores! Huge thanks to Ines for a very fruitful collaboration, Claudio for all the support, and congratulations to Christine and all co-authors! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Frustrated with confusing or conflicting requests for revisions? At eLife, editors and reviewers discuss their reviews with each other before reaching a decision on a manuscript. Learn more about peer review at eLife: buff.ly/ioUIZyz

Proud to share our work where we resolved a longstanding question regarding the existence of a human telomerase dimer and provided insights into its function. Led by 3 amazing lab members in collaboration with @yiliangding.bsky.social and @rdaslab.bsky.social. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Cryo-EM structure of human telomerase dimer reveals H/ACA RNP-mediated dimerization

Telomerase ribonucleoprotein (RNP) synthesizes telomeric repeats at chromosome ends using a telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) and a telomerase RNA (hTR in humans). Previous structural work showe...

science.org

In our latest preprint on bioRxiv, we present the in situ structure of the human gap junction at 14 Å resolution using cryo-ET. The structure provides a blueprint for investigating how connexin regulation shapes intercellular communication in health and disease.

Excited and honored to be joining the EMBO Member community 🥳 Congratulations also to all the other newly elected members! -Martin

EMBO@embo.org · last yr.

Welcome and congratulations to the 60 new members and 9 associate members who have been elected to the EMBO Membership! This honour celebrates #research excellence and outstanding achievements in the #LifeSciences. 🧪 Learn more here: www.embo.org/press-releas... #EMBOMembers2025

Whoever gets the resolution of raw tomograms to <10 Å within the sampled parts of Fourier space would probably deserve a Nobel. Or they'd get one anyway for the crazy new physics they discovered to achieve that.

Bogdan Toader@btoader.com · last yr.

“Achieving individual tomograms of cells where any features are at 10 Å resolution or better is well-beyond both current capabilities and reasonable predictions of future improvements.” :(