Sean Rudd
@seanrudd.bsky.social
Group leader @ Karolinska Institutet & SciLifeLab in Stockholm, Sweden. Interested in understanding how cancer drugs work. Lab site - https://www.seanruddlab.com/ Genome stability | dNTP metabolism | Cancer therapy
#Scientific papers are written to mask the human in the process, by design. This Perspective by @prof-tregoning.bsky.social invites us to consider the structure of the paper, and the need to celebrate the human in an age when #AI threatens to overwhelm us. 🧪 #AcademicSky plos.io/4xn4OlZ
Missed it? Our March preprint shows how endogenous oxidative base damage drives the PARPi response in ATM-deficient cells. In working this out we uncovered a role for ATM in safeguarding replication through damaged DNA and discuss what this could mean for Ataxia-Telangiectasia.
MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine@imm.ox.ac.uk · 4w ago#WIMMReads🧪 From the Chapman Group: a new preprint offers a potential explanation for why ATM deficient cancers respond to PARP inhibitors, with implications for cancer treatment and Ataxia Telangiectasia. #CancerResearch #AcademicSky @rdm.ox.ac.uk @medsci.ox.ac.uk @rosschapmanlab.bsky.social 🧬
🧬 Our new paper is out in @natsmb.nature.com! ATRX is one of the most mutated genes in cancer, and linked to the rare ATR-X syndrome. We ran genome-scale CRISPR screens to map how it protects the genome, and found it is doing two separate jobs... 🧵 (1/4) nature.com/articles/s41594-026-01827-2
Distinct ATRX functions cooperate with 9-1-1 and CST complexes to safeguard replication and telomere integrity - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
Segura-Bayona et al. uncover genetically separable ATRX functions that independently safeguard telomeres and genome replication, revealing how CST and 9-1-1 pathways suppress accumulation of toxic sin...
nature.com
Marked for destruction The significance of the first FDA-approved PROTAC lies not in proving that targeted protein degradation is superior to conventional therapies, but in proving that degrading proteins is possible as a therapeutic go.nature.com/4x3NYt7
“In other words, unwritten science is not just incomplete; it simply does not exist for the purposes of the field. When you look at it this way, the job of a scientist - having ideas, testing them, and persuading others they are right - turns out to be, fundamentally, an act of writing.”
Ran Blekhman@blekhman.bsky.social · 2mo agoJust start writing. My new post: substack.com/home/post/p-...
Excited to finally share our preprint on mapping the genetic interaction network of the DNA damage response with combinatorial knockout screens led by Sam Hayward, Alina Vaitsiankova, and Tomas Lama-Diaz! www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
Mapping the genetic landscape of the DNA damage response with Cas12a-based combinatorial knockout screens
The DNA damage response (DDR) is a complex network of cellular pathways that ensures the faithful maintenance of our genomes upon a wide array of genomic insults. To elucidate the functional architect...
biorxiv.org
Everything you wanted to know about the protein chemistry behind how amino-acid changes affect the cellular abundance of proteins from @tkschulze.bsky.social Effects of residue substitutions on the cellular abundance of proteins doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
"I would like to emphasize the importance of question-driven science...young scientists might enjoy science more if they are thinking about questions rather than just collecting data" journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
Interview with Noboru Mizushima – President of the Japan Society for Cell Biology
Noboru Mizushima is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Tokyo, Japan, where he runs a laboratory studying the mechanisms and physiological functions of autophagy and o...
journals.biologists.com
Our paper is now out in @natcellbio.nature.com! @craigmcrews.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... We identify a new regulator of the quality control system that protects one of nature's most important molecular machines: the ribosome. QC failure → unmitigated metabolic stress & cell death.
The atypical E3 ligase HOIL-1 safeguards the ribosome during cellular stress - Nature Cell Biology
Douglas et al. study the E3 ligase HOIL-1, mutated in patients with a type of myopathy. Mutant HOIL-1 influences the sensitivity to disulfidptosis initiated by ZAKα–ATF4 in glucose starvation and inte...
nature.com
Very interesting articles about cancer metabolism this month, and insightful reviews. Highlighting fresh articles and comments about cysteine and glutathione from @lucasbsullivan.bsky.social @ginadenicola.bsky.social @harrislab.bsky.social and others metabolist.wordpress.com/2026/05/04/m...
MetaboList – April 2026
Cystine / Glutathione / NADPH SLC33A1 exports oxidized glutathione to maintain endoplasmic reticulum redox homeostasis Shanshan Liu (刘珊珊), Mark Gad, Caifan Li (李采蘩), Kevin Cho, Yuyang Liu (刘雨洋),…
metabolist.wordpress.com
We identify novel catalytically impaired PARP1 mutants and show that the toxicity of some variants in cells can be rescued by the PARP inhibitor saruparib. Thus, in specific contexts, saruparib plays a pro-survival role rather than a cytotoxic one. www.cell.com/cell-reports...
PARP1-specific inhibitor displays PARP1-detrapping activity
Schützenhofer et al. show that expression of catalytically impaired PARP1 mutants is toxic to cells, which can be overcome by treatment with saruparib, a PARP1-specific inhibitor that displays a pro-r...
cell.com
Doing the periodic cleaning of used plasmid miniprep columns and realized in honor of Earth Day it may be worth reminding you molecular biologists: Plasmid miniprep columns can be cleaned and reused essentially indefinitely! Just add 1 M HCl, soak overnight and wash 3x w/ water. Save $ and plastic
Could the #ribosome be a selfish element? @mkrupovic.bsky.social & Eugene Koonin propose that the #evolution of life can viewed as a ribosomal takeover, where the ribosome evolved to consume most of the cell’s resources. 🧪 #OriginsOfLife
The selfish ribosome
In this Essay, the evolution of life is construed as a ribosomal takeover, whereby the ribosome evolved to consume most of the cell’s resources, while other cellular componentry ensured the…
plos.io
Genetically encoded manipulation of ATP/ADP ratio in human cells uncovers proteomic and physiological signatures of energy stress #chembiol
Genetically encoded manipulation of ATP/ADP ratio in human cells uncovers proteomic and physiological signatures of energy stress
Ekvik et al. genetically introduced an exogenous ATP-consuming enzyme into human cells in order to study the direct effects of energy stress in vivo. This genetic approach offers flexibility and specificity inaccessible through conventional drug-based models of energy stress. The intervention produced well-established as well as unexplored energy stress responses.
dlvr.it
Few people are aware of how much progress has been made against cancers. Leukemia is probably the most striking example. Before the 1970s, most children affected by leukemia would soon die from it. Now, most children in rich countries survive. ourworldindata.org/childhood-le...
Mike Black@mikeblack114.bsky.social · 4mo agoCancer wasn't quite a literal death sentence like HIV was, but you had a barely coin flip chance of making it across the board 5 years, and a whole lot of different kinds that were close to a death sentence in 1980 that are extremely treatable today
5-Azacytidine incorporation into mRNAs disrupts translation and induces ribosome collisions https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.30.714548v1
Non-canonical role for glutahtione in supporting tumours by acting as a reservoir of amino acids @nature.com @fabiohecht.bsky.social @uofr.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
What goes on in a collection of assays in purified proteins can be very different from what happens in a living well. Case in point:
In Cells and Outside of Them
science.org
Proteomic profiling reveals pleiotropic antimetabolite activity of triciribine in acute lymphoblastic leukemia https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.13.710465v1
The complete set of nucleobases found in terrestrial DNA and RNA — adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil — have been detected in samples returned from the asteroid Ryugu, according to research in Nature Astronomy. go.nature.com/3P9A9YN 🔭 🧪
Inference of Cancer Drug Cross Resistance Using Only Single-Drug Exposure Data https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.10.709822v1
Macrophage-specific Ak4 regulates mtDNA synthesis, through which it controls mitochondrial biogenesis and mtROS levels and, subsequently, bacterial killing rupress.org/jem/article/... @jem.org
Happy to share the second paper from the group this year, out in @moloncology.bsky.social Another story about the dNTPase & drug resistance factor SAMHD1 and our attempts to find ways to suppress its activity in cancer cells 👇 febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... @scilifelab.se @ki.se
FEBS Press
Cytarabine is a key therapy for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), but its efficacy is limited by the dNTPase SAMHD1, which hydrolyses its active metabolite. Screening nucleotide biosynthesis inhibitors ...
febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Happy to share the second paper from the group this year, out in @moloncology.bsky.social Another story about the dNTPase & drug resistance factor SAMHD1 and our attempts to find ways to suppress its activity in cancer cells 👇 febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... @scilifelab.se @ki.se
FEBS Press
Cytarabine is a key therapy for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), but its efficacy is limited by the dNTPase SAMHD1, which hydrolyses its active metabolite. Screening nucleotide biosynthesis inhibitors ...
febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
With Eugene Koonin, we propose a concept of “the selfish ribosome”, under which evolution of life is viewed as a ribosomal takeover, where the ribosome evolved to consume most of the cell’s resources, while other cellular componentry ensures the propagation of the ribosome. arxiv.org/abs/2602.23268
Our story on #FBXW7 and #biotin in #glutamine_addiction is now peer-reviewed and published in Molecular Cell! Heroic work led by the very first postdoc of the lab @miriamlisci.bsky.social. Have a look! www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
Functional nutrient-genetic profiling reveals biotin and FBXW7 are essential to bypass glutamine addiction
Lisci et al. present a unified model revealing how cells escape glutamine addiction, a metabolic vulnerability of several cancers. Combining systematic genetic and nutrient screens, they show that bio...
cell.com
My objection to LLMs is not about form but substance: writing is about the only thing a PI actually produces. LLM coaching makes writing yet another task where we're managers instead of makers. It's the final victory of the managerial model – same reason why I'm also against outsourcing research
Christophe 🔬 Leterrier@christlet.bsky.social · 6mo agoInteresting thread on PI attitudes toward LLM-assisted grant writing. Comments on uniformity of style reminds me of why electronic music composers rapidly felt the need to "humanize" the output of machines physicstoday.aip.org/quick-study/...
