🥳🥳🥳 Our study on engineering enzymes to break C–F bonds is out in @angewandtechemie.bsky.social. Congrats to the brilliant & dedicated @suzannejansen.bsky.social for taking this step toward the remediation of #PFAS & other contaminating organofluorides! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Engineering Fluoroacetate Dehalogenase by Growth‐Based Selections on Non‐Natural Organofluorides

We present a high-throughput selection system to engineer fluoroacetate dehalogenases (FAcDs). By challenging E. coli populations that produce diverse FAcD libraries to grow on non-natural organofluo....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

📢 📢 📢 !!!Come and join us!! 📢 📢 📢 We are looking for a Postdoctoral Researcher with in-depth experience in next- and third-generation sequencing to help us understand the fitness landscapes of complex biomolecules! Please spread the word :) werkenbij.rug.nl/vacature/pos...

Had an excellent time at #NWOCHAINS 2025. It's always nice to see the huge diversity in chemistry research in the Netherlands! I am lucky to be part of it.

Well worth a read by @kashhill.bsky.social & @dylanfreedman.nytimes.com: everyday users risk spiraling into delusions during long AI chatbot sessions. Anyone who’s worked with AI knows this is inevitable without strong guardrails. #AI #GenAI #MentalHealth #EthicalAI #ResponsibleAI #AIRisk

Chatbots Can Go Into a Delusional Spiral. Here’s How It Happens.

Over 21 days of talking with ChatGPT, an otherwise perfectly sane man became convinced that he was a real-life superhero. We analyzed the conversation.

nytimes.com

Presenting my poster today at the #GRC Protein Engineering. Come have a chat about defluorinase engineering for organofluoride degradation at #37, Monday and Tuesday!

Happy to attend the Gordon Research Seminar and Conference on Protein Engineering this year, held in Bryant University. Looking forward to connecting and having inspiring discussions! #GRS #GRC #ProteinEngineering

With #PFAS and other organofluorides wreaking havoc, we set out to engineer natural defluorinases for man-made organofluorides. All credit goes to the amazing @suzannejansen.bsky.social, who has outdone herself in this project! (1/5) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Engineering fluoroacetate dehalogenase by growth-based selections to degrade non-natural organofluorides

The widespread use of organofluorides in modern society has inadvertently led to the bioaccumulation of harmful pollutants, most prominently per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS). In princi...

biorxiv.org

Preprint alert! With #PFAS contamination becoming an environmental crisis, we dared to engineer natural defluorinases towards degradation of (un)natural organofluorides. How? Check out our robust growth-based selection platform here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... thanks to @mayerlab.bsky.social !

Engineering fluoroacetate dehalogenase by growth-based selections to degrade non-natural organofluorides

The widespread use of organofluorides in modern society has inadvertently led to the bioaccumulation of harmful pollutants, most prominently per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS). In princi...

biorxiv.org

Had an excellent and inspiring time at NWO Life 2025, fascinating to see how Life science affects so many different research subjects! It's fun to see how Darwinism is still very much alive in these circles 😛

📢📢📢 PhD Opportunity! Join our research group at RUG! We're seeking a motivated PhD student for a project on biocatalytic cascade processes combining natural and designer enzymes, supported by machine learning. Click below to learn more — and feel free to share! sites.google.com/rug.nl/roelf...

Roelfes group - Open Positions

PhD position on Hybrid biocatalytic cascades aided by Machine learning (1.0 FTE)

sites.google.com

Escherichia coli with a 57-codon genetic code https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.02.651837v1

I've been selected as a speaker at #NWOlife2025 on May 28th! Sneak peek: how can we use life (or death) to elicit better defluorinating enzymes toward organofluorine degradation? Looking forward to discuss all the interesting ways that life is involved in your research!

This is so cool. I hope they make it.

Sam "The Mug Guy" Horrell @drhorrell.bsky.social · 2y ago

Calling all structural enthusiasts! An accurate depiction of the structure of DNA in #Lego is under 2000 supporters away from being considered to become a real set! It even has Franklin, Watson, and Crick minifigures and a Lego photgraph 51 and Bragg's law! ideas.lego.com/projects/c92...

Season's greetings from Roelfes and Mayer groups! Wishing our colleagues, collaborators, and the entire community a joyful holiday season and a prosperous New Year ahead! 🎉🎄✨🧪