I'm honored to receive the @ascbiology.bsky.social WICB Junior Award for Excellence in Research! Thank you to my lab team, my @berkeleymcb.bsky.social mentors and nominators, and my family for their support.

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽@needhibhalla.bsky.social · 2d ago

Congratulations to all the winners and particularly @wallaceucsf.bsky.social, @samlewis.bsky.social, @veronicasegarra.bsky.social, @mattwelchlab.bsky.social and @davidbreslowlab.bsky.social! 🥳🎉🎊

Congrats to MCB's Diana Bautista, Samantha Lewis & Matt Welch for being ASCB Honorific Award Winners! 👏🎉@ascbbiology.bsky.social, @dianambautista.bsky.social, @samlewis.bsky.social, @mattwelchlab.bsky.social

American Society for Cell Biology@ascbiology.bsky.social · 2d ago

Congratulations to the 2026 ASCB Honorific Award Winners! ASCB is proud to recognize scientists whose research, mentorship, education & leadership are helping shape the future of cell biology. See all the awardees: https://www.ascb.org/society-news/ascb-announces-2026-honorific-award-winners/

Excited to share our latest preprint on #PhycologyFriday. We map out the carbon fixation pathway for the first time in a multicellular alga, the green seaweed Ulva, and reveal a unique Rubisco-Linker interaction in the pyrenoid, a chloroplast condensate. Below I summarize some key points. #seaweeds

bioRxiv Cell Biology@biorxiv-cellbio.bsky.social · 3w ago

A spatial atlas of the seaweed CO2-fixation machinery reveals a unique Rubisco condensation mechanism https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.16.738900v1

What do lipid droplets do in neurons? Thrilled to share the 🌟1st preprint from my lab, led by Eleni Katafygiotou, showing activity-dependent formation of neuronal LDs in vitro and in vivo, and the impact of LD modulation on neuronal function and behavior. #lipidtime www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Activity-dependent lipid droplet biogenesis and turnover regulate synaptic integrity

Lipid droplets (LDs) are conserved organelles that buffer lipid storage and stress, yet their dynamics and functions in neurons remain largely unknown. Here, we report activity-dependent dynamics of n...

biorxiv.org

Structural Mechanism and Cellular Restriction of Tau Seeding from Endolysosomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.08.731026v1

The Trump Administration’s racist science policies have achieved some of their goals. The number of Black Principal Investigators has dropped by 10% between 2024 and 2025; while the number of Hispanic PIs has fallen by 7%. For research trainees, the numbers are far worse.

Trends in NIH Investigators by Sex, Race, Ethnicity, and Disability Status

This cross-sectional study assesses National Institutes of Health (NIH) data from fiscal years 2016-2025 comprising annual counts of principal investigators funded through research grants and fellowsh...

jamanetwork.com

🚨 This proposal to cap total NIH RPGs per PI includes R00, R03, R35, and DP2. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

On July 1st, I'll be joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, with a joint appointment in the Division of Molecular Therapeutics within MCB and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute.

academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Mitochondrial DNA replication is regulated by endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondrial contact sites, the mitochondrial calcium uniporter, and manganese

Abstract. Mitochondrial DNA replication occurs at contact sites between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondria (ERMCS). Beyond the known role of t

academic.oup.com

A must read for all weirdos

Zachary Gillan@megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Somehow it's already been a year since I wrote about using weird fiction as a metaphor for critically thinking about the fascist world we live in. The struggle continues!!!

My Nebula and Hugo finalist novella is on super Kindle deal $1.49 right now! Meet Minh, cranky 83 year-old ecologist who gives no f*cks, and earnest young Kiki who only wants to learn everything Minh knows. Together, they time travel and get into big trouble.

TheAfterwords@theafterwords.bsky.social · 4mo ago

#DEAL ALERT! Calling all one clickers because GODS, MONSTERS, AND THE LUCKY PEACH @kellyrobson.com is on #sale on #Kindle US for a limited time only! amzn.to/4eHknyO #GodsMonstersandtheLuckyPeach #ad #amazoncom

I’m looking for an automated way to read others’s scientific data without giving credit or acknowledgement, and also claim full credit for insights from it. And I want it to have a fitting name OAI: say no more

OpenAI {bot}@openaibot.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Introducing GPT-Rosalind, our frontier reasoning model built to support research across biology, drug discovery, and translational medicine. Video: https://twitter.com/openai/status/2044861690911850863

There's also a kind of intentional myopia in focusing just on higher ed when diagnosing "declining trust." Only one of these explanations also has something to say about why there's simultaneously declining trust in elections, public health authorities, etc, in the same spaces over the same period

Mark Copelovitch@mcopelov.bsky.social · 4mo ago

If people are going to claim that the decline in public trust of universities in the last decade is driven by soaring costs, then costs should actually have soared in the last decade. Within higher education, we should insist on data & facts mattering, even if critics do not.

I'm excited to tell you about the most recent preprint in my lab, demonstrating that a conserved spindle matrix protein, NPP-21/TPR, is required for the stronger checkpoint in germline cells during embryogenesis in C. elegans

bioRxiv Cell Biology@biorxiv-cellbio.bsky.social · 4mo ago

NPP-21/TPR is required for developmental control of spindle checkpoint strength in C. elegans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.13.718277v1

Excited to share a new collaborative paper with Lena Koslover's team, fueled by @chanzuckerberg.bsky.social Metabolism Across Scales Program 🧪 1/ www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Diffusive spreading across dynamic mitochondrial network architectures | PNAS

In eukaryotic cells, mitochondria form networks that range from highly fused interconnected structures to fragmented populations of individual orga...

pnas.org

I had a wonderful time connecting with the research community at the Buck last week! Special thanks to Saam Doroodian, Malene Hansen, and Ashley Webb!

The Buck Institute for Research on Aging@buckinstitute.org · 5mo ago

FRS seminar with Assistant Professor Samantha Lewis from UC Berkeley, who gave a terrific talk on her work on mitochondria, and also gave valuable career advice at an MTA-organized event.

NIGMS is signed onto the F31 NOFO. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

⚡️We are excited to share a new paper from the lab by @drkhole.bsky.social in @cp-cellrepmethods.bsky.social - suggesting MitoTracker dyes are not a reliable tool for detecting intercellular mitochondrial transfer❗️ www.cell.com/cell-reports...

MitoTracker transfers from astrocytes to neurons independently of mitochondria

The mitochondrial dye MitoTracker is commonly used to investigate intercellular mitochondrial transfer (IMT), particularly between astrocytes and neurons. Hole et al. compare MitoTracker with a geneti...

cell.com

Some molecular machines, like ribosomes, can persist for long periods of time in cells. Could molecular aging of ribosomes shape how proteins are made? In our new preprint we track ribosomes as they age in cells and uncover unexpected effects on translation (1/10) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

On my way to DC and looking forward to this exciting mini-symposium! #ASBMB26

Megan Doty et al discovered that myelin remains for weeks after cortical axons degenerate. We call the sheaths without an axon de-axoned myelin. During the slow, asynchronous, degeneration, microglia don't play a major role in clearing the axon or de-axoned myelin. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

No Kings includes Draft Kings

We are organizing a mini-symposium on "Membrane and Organelle Dynamics" at ASBMB 2026! #ASBMB @asbmb.bsky.social @aydinlab.bsky.social and I have put together a fantastic lineup of speakers for Day 1 morning. Come learn about some cutting-edge research in the field.

Check out my first @prelights.bsky.social article, based on some great work done by Dr. Tejashree Waingankar & @samlewis.bsky.social at UC Berkeley 🔬🧬🧠 prelights.biologists.com/highlights/s...

Self-renewal of neuronal mitochondria through asymmetric division - preLights

Neurons contain “hotspots” for mitochondrial biogenesis at distal branch points

prelights.biologists.com

How does molecular valency shape condensate assembly and function? We used the CO2-fixing organelle in algae—the pyrenoid—to find out… 🧵 Preprint here!: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @cellarchlab.com @phaips.vd.st @biologyatyork.bsky.social #Rubisco #PhaseSeparation #Condensates #Pyrenoid

I found me!

Journal of Cell Science@jcellsci.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Issue 24 is complete Marking the end of @biologists.bsky.social 100-year anniversary celebrations, our cover features members of the JCS community, including some researchers from our ‘First Person’ & ‘Cell Scientists to Watch’ interviews. Explore our ToC: journals.biologists.com/jcs/issue/13...

I taught my grad-level cell bio seminar using the Socratic method in the fall, and shockingly (to me), students loved it. No slides, just yapping. I assigned two research articles per week as the starting point, but we were mostly led by their questions

I love this video of mitochondrial trafficking and POLG2-GFP in pLL neurons of live zebrafish larvae - from our awesome collaborator Katie Drerup @kdrerup.bsky.social at UW-Madison. She and her team are so talented!

Sam Lewis, Ph.D.@samlewis.bsky.social · 8mo ago

⚡️Mitochondria make ATP, the energy that powers life. But in neurons, with axons up to a meter long, how do these tiny power plants stay functional in the right places? We went looking. 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...