Therapeutic mitochondria transplants made more efficient with targeting tool A system of protein binders directs energy-generating organelles to targeted cells, potentially improving ways to treat mitochondrial dysfunction.

A system of protein binders directs energy-generating organelles to targeted cells, potentially improving ways to treat mitochondrial dysfunction

go.nature.com/42bk2wX

DROP-CARs: Engineering Reversible, Drug-Controlled CAR T Cell Activity with a Clinically Approved Small Molecule | Wendell Lim @ucsanfrancisco.bsky.social Adam Stevens @upenn.edu via @theaacr.bsky.social url: aacrjournals.org/cancerres/ar...

Drug-controlled CAR T cells through the regulation of cell–cell interactions - Nature Chemical Biology Drug-controlled DROP-CARs enable reversible extracellular control of CAR T cell function via human-derived protein switches that modulate cell–cell interactions and support dual-antigen targeting as w...

Drug-controlled DROP-CARs enable reversible extracellular control of CAR T cell function via human-derived protein switches that modulate cell-cell interactions and support dual-antigen targeting as well as logic-gated signaling

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Manchmal greifen CAR-T-Zellen gesundes Gewebe an und verursachen Nebenwirkungen. Ein internationales Forscherteam hat nun ein System entwickelt, um die Bindung von T-Zellen an andere Zellen durch ein zugelassenes Medikament zu kontrollieren.
doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Bild: Copyright: Leo Scheller

You asked, we listened. Millions of AI-predicted protein complex structures are now available in the #AlphaFold Database.

This spans homodimers from 20 of the most studied species, including humans, as well as the World Health Organization’s priority pathogens list.

www.ebi.ac.uk/about/news/t...

📢 We’re launching Proteina-Complexa — and after the Jensen keynote mention, we definitely had to post this thread now ;)
Atomistic binder design with generative pretraining + test-time compute, plus large-scale wet-lab validation.
Project page: research.nvidia.com/labs/genair/...
🧵 1/n

High throughput data are more important than ever💻. On this note, Markus Jeschek from EPFL, shows us how translation initiation can be engineered, utilizing mRNA folding or tRNA interactions to tune protein production📈!

Looking for a theory partner for an #HFSP project? #morphogenesis in cells and tissues, #chemotaxis, #cilia? Feel free to reach out! Deadline for letters of intent 26.03.2026.
physics-of-life.tu-dresden.de/team/pol-gro...

Schematische Darstellung eines DROP-CAR - Copyright Leo Scheller

Wirkstoff-gesteuerte CAR-T-Zellen: Ein neuer Sicherheitsmechanismus für die Krebsimmuntherapie
Die chimäre Antigenrezeptor-(CAR)-T-Zelltherapie basiert auf gentechnisch veränderten Immunzellen, die Krebszellen aufspüren und zerstören. Manch...
weiterlesen

We are looking for RNA enthusiasts to join us at the @uniregensburg.bsky.social as a junior group leader! Our university offer excellent infrastructure and collaboration opportunities for ground breaking RNA research. Please RT @jrrnascientists.bsky.social @rnasociety.bsky.social

- Can we find a venetoclax dosing regimen for optimal efficacy/safety? Intermittent shutoff vs. continuous low dose? Could this improve exhaustion/killing efficacy? Could this help to "let go" of dead cancer cells? Could this improve tumor penetration?
- ...

Happy to discuss 😄

There are many open questions and possible follow-up projects:
- Which tumor type and antigen are most suitable for this system?
- Can (and should) we further optimize DROP-CAR expression?
- Can we combine the DROP-CAR with armored CAR strategies, including TRUCK?

Drug-controlled CAR T cells through the regulation of cell–cell interactions - Nature Chemical Biology Drug-controlled DROP-CARs enable reversible extracellular control of CAR T cell function via human-derived protein switches that modulate cell–cell interactions and support dual-antigen targeting as w...

The core idea of this project was that we wanted a new CAR safety switch that works with minimally altered human proteins, an approved drug, and by breaking or inhibiting cell-cell contact. After a lot of optimization, this worked pretty well!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...

Ooooh. Cool new paper on origins of life. A simple 45-nucleotide RNA molecule that can perfectly copy itself.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We’re excited to announce the opening of the Geneva Expansion Microscopy Facility (GenExM)!

GenExM is a full-service U-ExM platform (U-ExM, Cryo-ExM, iU-ExM), delivering nanoscale imaging.

Led by Dr. Olivier Mercey, GenExM welcomes academic & industrial collaborations.

👉 www.unige.ch/genexm/

Tenure Track Professorship (W1 with Tenure Track to W3) in “Molecular Biology" (f/m/d) - Heidelberg job with Universität Heidelberg | 12850668 The Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University (ZMBH) and the Faculty of Biosciences invite applications for a   Tenure Track Professors...

We are recruiting a tenure track professor in the broader area of molecular biology @zmbh.uni-heidelberg.de at Heidelberg University! www.nature.com/naturecareer... Please share and apply!

Cool work to design phospho-tyrosine binder by the Baker lab. They show it works but success rate is low (<0.1%) and binders are not super strong (>500nM, likely related to cost of desolvating the phosphate) .
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

De-novo design of a random protein walker Molecular machines hold great potential. Design of static monomeric and oligomeric protein structures has advanced tremendously, but few dynamic protein systems have been designed. Here we present the...

A computationally-designed ‘random walker’ protein with tiny feet can walk back and forth across a micrometer-long fiber

share.google/3gzWosAVOeAh...

One-shot design of functional protein binders with BindCraft - Nature BindCraft, an open-source, automated pipeline for de novo protein binder design with experimental success rates of 10–100%, leverages AlphaFold2 weights to generate binders with nanomolar affinity without the need for high-throughput screening.

Nature research paper: One-shot design of functional protein binders with BindCraft

go.nature.com/46bhOAv

Exciting to see our protein binder design pipeline BindCraft published in its final form in @Nature ! This has been an amazing collaborative effort with Lennart, Christian, @sokrypton.org, Bruno and many other amazing lab members and collaborators.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I am super excited to announce that I will be starting my lab at the Department of Pharmacology of the University of Zurich in Switzerland next year!

Watch out, one of the best in the field! 😀

Molecular basis for anti-jumbo phage immunity by AVAST Type 5 Jumbo phages protect their genomes from DNA-sensing bacterial defense systems by enclosing them within vesicles and nucleus-like compartments. Very little is known about defense systems specialized to...

We (meaning Aswin and Stan www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...) found this jumbophage protein homologue of PhiKZ_124 that activates Avast5 and we solved a 2.1A cryoEM structure of but we have no idea what it does. Let me know it you got some idea. www.rcsb.org/structure/9RP3

My highest recommendation! Working with Martin is the ideal entry point into protein design.

Humanized Caffeine-Inducible Systems for Controlling Cellular Functions www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06....

Caffeine-regulated molecular switches for functional control of CAR T cells in vivo www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06....

Development of AI-designed protein binders for detection and targeting of cancer cell surface proteins Artificial intelligence (AI)-based protein design opens new avenues for the rapid generation of new research tools and therapeutics, but experimental validation lags behind the computational design th...

Happy to share our first foray into the world of AI-based #ProteinDesign. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

THIS IS HUGE! TWO Phase I HIV vaccine clinical trials have demonstrated that a stepwise mRNA-based vaccination strategy can SUCCESSFULLY activate AND advance immune responses toward producing broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs), a CRITICAL milestone in HIV prevention. Let’s talk about that! 🧪🧵⬇️

Adapting ProteinMPNN for antibody design without retraining The neural network ProteinMPNN designs protein sequences capable of folding into predefined tertiary structures and quaternary assemblies. It has become widely used due to its high success rates when ...

"Adapting ProteinMPNN for antibody design without retraining"

Our several-years-old fix to ProteinMPNN's tendency to make weird antibody CDR sequences is finally preprinted

a cat is sitting in front of a laptop computer asking for advice ALT: a cat is sitting in front of a laptop computer asking for advice

Hi everyone! I’m a #NewPI just starting my lab and would love to hear your advice on lab management and building the lab culture. Any tips, lessons learned, or resources you’ve found helpful are very welcome! Feel free to reply, message me, or email me at rcastellsg(at)cnio.es
thanks a lot!! 🤗