Best news ever- I have finally earned my PhD in Neuroscience!!🧠 My thesis was completed in the lab of Dr. Gregory Corder @flybottleescape.bsky.social & is titled: “Opioidergic Organization of the Nociceptive Medial Thalamus & A Behavioral Model of Placebo Analgesia”
Quentin Smith
@qmsmith.bsky.social
🧬⭕ | DNA Topology & DNA binding proteins! Postdoc: @bostonchildrens.bsky.social @harvardmed.bsky.social PhD: @mrc-lms.bsky.social @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social
My fellow colleague Alba (@svnddlsns.bsky.social) and I had the pleasure of hosting the 2026 GRS for Single Molecule Approaches to Biology in Switzerland 🇨🇭☀️!
Our latest paper is out! 🎉 We show that the HSV-1 origin binding protein UL9 tethers dsDNA thereby forming intramolecular DNA loops and intermolecular DNA tethers. 🤝 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
HSV-1 origin binding protein UL9 forms intermolecular DNA tethers and intramolecular DNA loops - Nature Communications
The mechanism of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) genome replication remains not fully understood. Here, the authors find that the HSV-1 origin binding protein UL9 does not mediate DNA looping but ...
nature.com
The first paper from my postdoc, looking at how tension activates DNA cleavage by the endonuclease ANKLE1, is out in @narjournal.bsky.social. ANKLE1 processes ultrafine bridges, persisting linkages between chromosomes that can lead to catastrophic DNA ruptures. (1/3) doi.org/10.1093/nar/...
🚨 Preprint alert 🚨 Excited to share our latest bioRxiv preprint introducing DeepDiffusion, a tool for analysing facilitated 1D diffusion! 🔗 Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... (1/3)
DeepDiffusion: a Physics-Informed Neural Network for Heterogeneous Facilitated 1D Diffusion
Single-molecule fluorescence microscopy combined with optical tweezers has enabled the direct observation of diffusing proteins on tethered DNA. These and complementary techniques reveal facilitated o...
biorxiv.org
My fellow colleague Alba (@svnddlsns.bsky.social) and I had the pleasure of hosting the 2026 GRS for Single Molecule Approaches to Biology in Switzerland 🇨🇭☀️!
Join us! Postdoc position (2-3 years) in our lab @molbiolau.bsky.social Looking for candidates with experience in cell culture, genome editing, biochemistry, and/or structural biology. Application opens in August via AU's system but informal enquiries by email are welcome from now. (1/2)
#cryoem folks- we keep seeing this popping up in 2d classes. Sample is a recombinant complex from insect cells
Archaea the hornets of the microbial world. Discuss. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... TLDR: Archaeon kills bacterium with secreted phospholipase. Pretty nifty way to kill bacteria if you are a microbe with a very different lipid make-up, I reckon. No need to worry about accidentally killing yourself.
A Bactericidal Phospholipase from Archaea
Archaea kill bacteria, at least on occasion. The molecular underpinnings of these lethal interactions are barely understood. Here, we describe cinquedea, an α/β hydrolase secreted by the halophilic ar...
biorxiv.org
Might enjoy using this tool and see if it’s the model building or innate to the dataset! CrystalBoltz soniaminseokim.github.io/crystalboltz...
CrystalBoltz: End-to-End Protein Structure Determination via Experiment-Guided Diffusion<br>for X-Ray Crystallography
Deformable Neural Radiance Fields creates free-viewpoint portraits (nerfies) from casually captured videos.
soniaminseokim.github.io
Calling all xray structure folks that have worked with denovo proteins. Do you suffer from high rfactors? Myself, someone else I know and now multiple structures all seem to suffer from this. Assuming we all tried our best in model building, what could be some causes?
Huge congratulations to @ashleyonthebrain.bsky.social on her successful thesis defense 🥳 It has been a joy to serve on her thesis committee alongside @dr-autumnivy.bsky.social. We are glad to have you in the community of Black women neuroscientists, Ashley! 🧠✨
Surprised to discover that Thermo Fisher appears to show a fake western blot for the validation of one of their p53 antibodies. I've added a diagram to show the very similar bands. This does not appear to be one of the "published figures" but their own internal data.
Try this new online training game from Leandro F. Estrozi designed for newcomers in structural biology, with a focus on cryo-EM and cryo-ET map interpretation: rico.ibs.fr/helixplo...
Congratulations to Della Syau and the Farnung Lab @lucas.farnunglab.com on this outstanding work!
⭐ #NARBreakthrough! ⭐ New #cryo-EM study reveals how #transcription factor IWS1 promotes #RNApolII #elongation. Its C-terminus contains #modularmotifs that bind elongation components, stabilizing the complex. IWS1 also competes with #RECQL5 for Pol II binding. 📖 Read here: doi.org/10.1093/nar/...
Job navigation in table view, searchable tags, 3D mesh optimized for masks, and many more features! 👉👉👉 github.com/hanjinliu/hi... Let's make our RELION directory a better place.
Registration is opened for the FASEB conference DNA Topoisomerases in Biology and Medicine ! July 20th-23rd 2026, Nashville, TN Abstract Submission Deadline: Monday, May 25, 2026 Early Registration Deadline: Monday, June 8, 2026 #DNATopSRC John Nitiss, Valerie Lamour & Keir Neuman
Excited to co-organize the @keystonesymposia.bsky.social on Integrative Structural Biology with Alex De Marco @NewYorkStructuralBiology and Niccolò Banterle @embl.org! ⭐️Stellar speakers & keynote by @fraserlab.com! keystonesymposia.org/conferences/... RETWEET&APPLY #KSStructuralBio27 #CryoEM #AI
55 stars on GitHub for SpliceCraft! Thank you all so much for the interest. Gonna make y'all proud.
The Farnung Lab is looking for postdoctoral researchers interested in understanding mechanisms at the intersection of chromatin, transcription, and replication. Find out more here: www.farnunglab.com
Contact — Farnung Lab
farnunglab.com
tl;dr: MissAlignment learns to score misalignment then wiggles your alignments around to reduce that misalignment -> no more misalignment = high res STA 🌟 Watching @martenchaillet.bsky.social chip away at this was a real privilege! I’m excited to see this out and what you all will do with it 🙃
We're super excited to share MissAlignment: a new ML-based approach to reference-free tilt series alignment, spearheaded by @martenchaillet.bsky.social. We think it's going to make your cryo-ET life a lot better. Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Code: github.com/warpem/miss-... 🧶 Thread:
Congratulations to @lapassmore.bsky.social, Joint Head of the LMB’s Structural Studies Division, who has been elected an international member of @nationalacademies.org Congratulations to #LMBalumni Andrea Brand who has also been elected. Read more: mrclmb.ac.uk/news-events/... #LMBNews
Re-entering the research field after a long break can be difficult. That’s why the LMB has introduced the Career Returner Fellowship: a 3-year, fully-funded postdoc placement to rebuild career momentum and reignite scientific ambitions. Applications open until 17th May. mrclmb.ac.uk/careers-and-...
New work from Sashi Weerawarana on how TFAM compacts mitochondrial DNA 🧬 TFAM oligomerizes on DNA to form compact, homogeneous higher-order complexes (see beautiful mass photometry data below), that still retain dynamic behavior. Congratulations Sashi and Wei. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🚨 Applications are open for our Rising Talent Fellowship! Thinking of applying but have questions? Join our webinar today at 1pm to find out more. Hear from LMB Group Leaders and current Fellows. 👉 Register here: https://ow.ly/JggH50YQr3x
Congratulations to Dr Tianyi Zhang and Dr Layara Abiko@layaraabiko.bsky.social, who are recipients of Career Development Awards from Wellcome Trust. www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2026/su...
Success for Birmingham researchers in Wellcome Career Development Awards - University of Birmingham
Researchers at the University of Birmingham have been successful in the most recent round of the Wellcome Career Development Awards.
birmingham.ac.uk
A massive congratulations to @nicfarmer.bsky.social, Race Equality Lead at the LMB, who has achieved their CMI Level 6 Diploma in Professional Management and Leadership Practice, with a focus on leading EDI in an organisational context 👏 Read more: mrclmb.ac.uk/news-events/... #LMBNews
Calling all xray structure folks that have worked with denovo proteins. Do you suffer from high rfactors? Myself, someone else I know and now multiple structures all seem to suffer from this. Assuming we all tried our best in model building, what could be some causes?