Richard Wheeler
@zephyris-science.bsky.social
Parasite cell biology, science and microscopes (with a garnish of computers, graphics and graphic design). Runs a research lab in the University of Edinburgh.
Flagella can be assembled by IFT without the canonical heterotrimeric kinesin! Grab a cup of tea or coffee and follow a story that started 25 years ago
bioRxiv Cell Biology@biorxiv-cellbio.bsky.social · 3mo agoLife without heterotrimeric kinesins: trypanosomatids use a combination of homodimeric kinesin-2 motors to drive intraflagellar transport https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.12.724483v1
Do you use or analyse trypanosomes, leishmania, etc. genomes? You might find this useful - we've got loads of genomes, but an annotation gap for mRNAs, this tool aims to fix that.
biorxiv.org
Want to computationally analyse a genome's-worth of protein localisations? Have data for 4.5 million cells at your fingertips using this Python tool to access TrypTag.org data www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... (we're out of beta and releasing on time 🎂)
biorxiv.org
A brief communiqué on the temporary funding pause recently announced by UKRI detailing a summary of the main changes can now be found on the network website. www.cilianetwork.org.uk/news/4687/uk...
UKRI Funding Pause
Members of the UK Cilia and Centrosome Network have prepared the following briefing on the UKRI funding pause collating publicly available information:n Background: UKRI has been given a £38.6 billion four-year budget (2026–2030) by the government [1]. This will be divided into 4-streams (buckets) to align with national priorities. Curiosity driven research ...
cilianetwork.org.uk
The AlphaFold Database, jointly developed with Google DeepMind, now contains datasets from specialist communities. This includes rich datasets for microbes, viruses & parasites associated with tropical diseases. Explore the new datasets in the AlphaFold Database. www.ebi.ac.uk/about/news/u...
AlphaFold Database welcomes community datasets
Latest AlphaFold Database update adds high-value datasets for microbial and viral proteins, generated by specialist communities
ebi.ac.uk
Better parasite protein structure predictions, now on the official @EMBL-EBI Alphafold database. www.ebi.ac.uk/about/news/u...
AlphaFold Database welcomes community datasets
Latest AlphaFold Database update adds high-value datasets for microbial and viral proteins, generated by specialist communities
ebi.ac.uk
Welcome, piles of slop filling up the journals with clouds of useless wordy garbage. Case in point:
What the Literature is Filling Up With
science.org
New PNAS study identifies ESBX, a protein controlling which surface coat gene is active in sleeping sickness parasites - key to immune evasion. @tiengwe-tryplab.bsky.social @zephyris-science.bsky.social @fariatrypslab.bsky.social www.imperial.ac.uk/news/article...
Scientists reveal how sleeping sickness parasites control their surface coat
Researchers have revealed how parasites hide thousands of antigens behind a single-colour coat and how disrupting this control could make the parasit...
imperial.ac.uk
It was very interesting contributing to this, fascinating to go head to head with cutting edge AI models. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A benchmark of expert-level academic questions to assess AI capabilities - Nature
Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.
nature.com
Hot take. Stop AI-generated peer reviews by encouraging journals run the paper through a few LLMs to check for basic factual and statistical errors.
Check out this thread for a nice breakdown (with videos!) of some of our questions about how dyneins generate a beat, all from our new preprint:
Matt Doran@matthdoran.bsky.social · 9mo agoUsing Leishmania as a model, we determined the cryo-EM structure of the doublet microtubule to pinpoint the position of each dynein. This gave us a detailed map of where every “rower” sits on the ciliary “boat.”
Very excited to share this one! Our comprehensive structure, genetics and biophysics dissection of which flagellar dyneins and other proteins are needed for flagella to beat and drive cells swimming behaviours: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
tryptag.org update now done... Now with gene annotations from the latest genome, better links to source data (on BioImage Archive www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/B...), fixed missing images, and better cell cycle stage examples (selected using github.com/zephyris/try...). Any problems, let me know.
TrypTag is a genome-wide database of the subcellular protein localisation in the unicellular parasite Trypanosoma brucei. The main paper describing this resource is Billington et al., 2023.
tryptag.org
I'm working on some server changes for tryptag.org, you might see missing data (particularly missing images)... But don't worry, it will all be up again soon!
tryptag.org
After a hiatus, the discoba lineage-optimised Alphafold2 structure predictions are back up! Get your improved Trypanosoma and Leishmania structure predictions here. Try out the Google Colab iPython notebook (and let me know if you have any problems) colab.research.google.com/github/zephy...
Google Colab
colab.research.google.com
A team @mpi-cbg.de from @hymanlab.bsky.social & the @edinburghup.bsky.social (Richard Wheeler group) has identified the molecule lipoamide that can prevent the formation of pathological stress granules - protein-rich condensates associated with cellular stress and ALS. www.mpi-cbg.de/news-outreac...
Molecule Disarms Cellular Stress Granules Linked to ALS
Discovery by researchers in Dresden and Edinburgh points to new understanding of the onset of ALS.
mpi-cbg.de
Very cool new study about how multiple cilia self-coordinate for swimming by @micromotility.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Dynamics and emergence of metachronal waves in the ciliary band of a metazoan larva
Both natural and synthetic ciliary arrays exhibit diverse coordination patterns. Proper coordination of cilia is essential for the normal physiology of many organisms, from single cells to humans. Yet...
biorxiv.org
Thank you @dereklowe.bsky.social for featuring our work in In the Pipeline (www.science.org/content/blog...). It's been 6 year journey, but we finally have a target, a mechanism and a paper! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A Condensate-Modifying Compound, Put to the Test
science.org
Having spent an afternoon developing some models with Google AI Studio, Ted Chiang seems more prescient than ever. It's only about a page, worth reading right now! www.nature.com/articles/350...
Catching crumbs from the table - Nature
In the face of metahuman science, humans have become metascientists.
nature.com
Hiro's paper is out! @hiro-cg5445.bsky.social Collaboration and Tour de Force with Richard Wheeler @zephyris-science.bsky.social and many other coauthors. Big congratulations and thank you to anyone involved! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Small-molecule dissolution of stress granules by redox modulation benefits ALS models - Nature Chemical Biology
Uechi et al. found that a small-molecule lipoamide dissolves stress granules (SGs) by targeting SFPQ, a redox-sensitive disordered SG protein, alleviating pathological phenotypes caused by amyotrophic...
nature.com
Small molecule targeting intrinsically disordered protein domains to help neurodegeneration, really great to finally have this collab with @hymanlab.bsky.social out! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Small-molecule dissolution of stress granules by redox modulation benefits ALS models - Nature Chemical Biology
Uechi et al. found that a small-molecule lipoamide dissolves stress granules (SGs) by targeting SFPQ, a redox-sensitive disordered SG protein, alleviating pathological phenotypes caused by amyotrophic...
nature.com
