Yes! Spring is almost sprung

That’s a beautiful bike 🤩

Phospholipid-driven conformational switching of HCV NS5A links protein folding to replication membrane remodeling A host lipid flips a viral protein’s shape to control membrane remodeling during virus replication.

Take a look at the fresh post-Easter paper about lipid regulation of NS5A, a key protein of the hepatitis C virus.
We were happy to contribute to the all-star team by Anna, Rebecca, James et al, spearheaded by Christoph Welsch.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Thank you, Jan!

Thank you, Falk!

Thank you, Yasin!

Thank you, Henrik! Beers are on me at our next opportunity :)

Thank you, Rita!!

Thank so much Hanh! See you around town :)

Thank you, Sam!

Thank you, Anna!! And congrats to you as well 🤩

Thank you!! Looking forward to catching up soon...I'll need to practice biking up the Steigerweg 😅

That's it! That's THE paper 😅

Right! Everyone knows that hedgehogs have hopanoids.

I'm thrilled to be starting as Professor for Molecular Biology at Heidelberg University in April. Looking forward to this adventure!

Rektor of Heidelberg University posing with James Saenz in front of a mirror, holding the certificate of his appointment. In the front the official photographer taking a pic too.

Its official, from April civil servant for "the Ländle" - Congratulations @jamessaenz.bsky.social on becoming professor @uniheidelberg.bsky.social - and I am happy to be back in town.

@mpi-cbg.de @bcube-tud.bsky.social @tudresden.bsky.social

It’s incredibly hard to study lipids in biological membranes on the nanoscale. You need near-perfect information on both membrane ultrastructure and lipid density. Lipid-CLEM, now out in @natcellbio.nature.com brought to you by @mathilda95.bsky.social changes that:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Humanity is notorious for leaving problems for the next generations, but animals reveal the biology: C. elegans develop germline tumors if THEIR GRAND GRANDPARENTS’ cells fail to clear garbage from their body cavity… What the hell, you ask? Read our new preprint! 👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

#czechcellence on tap

Agreed!! A very exciting direction in structural biology

2026 Agnes Pockels Award in Lipids and Membrane Biophysics - Sarah Veatch

Videos of the 2026 @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social Award Lectures are now online, including the Agnes Pockel Award Lecture by @veatchlab.bsky.social! It's here: www.biophysics.org/video-librar...

Check out our new preprint! We show that tension drives mixing of phase separated membranes!

Thank you so much for this perspective, Elise...it's exciting to see lipids getting a little time in the spotlight!! 🤩 #lipidtime @elisecutts.bsky.social

A tuneable minimal cell membrane reveals that two lipid species suffice for life - Nature Communications All cells are encapsulated by a membrane of complex lipidic composition, and understanding the roles of different lipids in membrane function is experimentally challenging to address. Here, Justice et...

And finally, our own recent work...by tuning and minimizing the lipidome of the genomically minimal cell JCVI-Syn3A, we showed that two lipids are sufficient (but not optimal) for life...introducing a platform to explore the role of lipidome complexity and its evolution.
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Rana Ashkar then showed that the long-standing paradox of how cholesterol affects membrane stiffness disappears when you look at the right scale: what actually matters is lipid packing density.
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Maria Makarova @mashauob.bsky.social showed how some yeast can adapt to anaerobic growth: rather than using unsaturated fats (which usually require oxygen to make), they switch to hopanoids and saturated lipids with mismatched tail lengths that mimic the same physical effect.
doi.org/10.1016/j.jb...

Homeocurvature adaptation of phospholipids to pressure in deep-sea invertebrates Hydrostatic pressure increases with depth in the ocean, but little is known about the molecular bases of biological pressure tolerance. We describe a mode of pressure adaptation in comb jellies (cteno...

Jacob Winnikoff revealed how deep-sea comb jellies adapt to the crushing pressures of the deep by controlling membrane curvature, using a specific class of ether-linked lipids (plasmalogens) to keep their membranes stable.
doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Lost world of complex life and the late rise of the eukaryotic crown - Nature Analysis of sedimentary rocks from the mid-Proterozoic interval reveals traces of protosteroids, suggesting the widespread presence of stem-group eukaryotes that predated and co-existed with the crown...

Jochen Brocks kicked us off with a stunning result: ancient lipid fossils in billion-year-old rocks reveal a "Protosterol Biota" ...a lost world of early eukaryotes that dominated the oceans for nearly a billion years before the ancestors of modern eukaryotes emerged
doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Thank you so much Anirban, I'm humbled! It was a real joy to chair this session on the evolution of membrane phenotypes...it was an incredible lineup from ancient protosterol "fossils" to unified laws of membrane elasticity. I've pasted the key papers from the session below! 🧵 #BPS2026