Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science!

I'm grateful to work with so many amazing people, and to be able to do my part to support a more inclusive scientific community.

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I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity to present my group's work next to the big "biophysics" sign on the main stage at #nwobiophysics
(I'm also very happy that I didn't fall down the stairs)

As one of the people presenting on single molecules and optical tweezers, I was honoured to have you in the audience and very much enjoyed talking to you afterwards.

Great to have @thedneva.bsky.social here in Groningen presenting at the GBB symposium! Can't wait to see all that you can do with DNA origami!

Another academic year, another NWO Physics of Life newsletter!

Check it out 👇
nwobiophysics.nl/newsletters

> Interview with former chair Kristina Ganzinger (AMOLF) and our new chair Kristin Grußmayer @tudelfttnw.bsky.social
> Biosketch by Lisa Tran @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social
> and more..

Registration for NWO Biophysics 2025 is open! Sign up for the annual Dutch conference on physics of life.

📢 Submit your abstract for an oral or poster prsentation before 28 May, 4 Sept respectively.
🆕 Sign up for a demo!

📍 NH Koningshof, Veldhoven
📆 6, 7 Oct
✉️ nwobiophysics.nl/registration...

It is here! #BiophysicsWeek of the @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social has started, with activities and events both online and IRL. More info: www.biophysics.org/biophysics-w... …. and thanks to @biophysk.bsky.social this includes an event in Groningen on Friday: www.ktsinglemolecule.com/biophysicsday

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One‐pot dual protein labeling for simultaneous mechanical and fluorescent readouts in optical tweezers Optical tweezers are widely used in the study of biological macromolecules but are limited by their one-directional probing capability, potentially missing critical conformational changes. Combining ...

Out now! Our latest paper where we show a "one-pot" labelling technique which allows for simultaneous mechanical and fluorescent readouts from a protein (Hsp90):
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Congratulations to everyone who worked on this, especially Laura!

A group of people stands on a staircase with a red carpet holding a PhD certificate and smiling.

Huge congratulations to Laura for being the first PhD student to graduate from the KT lab! Laura did amazingly well both during her PhD (on Hsp90, of course) and in defending it. Big thanks to our examination and assessment committees and the chair of the session! 🧪

This was a great team effort with Saniye Kaya from the @fraaije.bsky.social lab, insightful discussions with Marco Fraaije, and very cool structural data from @alexanderbelyy.bsky.social. Thank you all!

Impact of Ligand-Induced Oligomer Dissociation on Enzyme Diffusion, Directly Observed at the Single-Molecule Level The existence of the phenomenon of enhanced enzyme diffusion (EED) has been a topic of debate in recent literature. One proposed mechanism to explain the origin of EED is oligomeric enzyme dissociation. We used mass photometry (MP), a label-free single-molecule technique, to investigate the dependence of the oligomeric states of several enzymes on their ligands. The studied enzymes of interest are catalase, aldolase, alkaline phosphatase, and vanillyl-alcohol oxidase (VAO). We compared the ratios of oligomeric states in the presence and absence of the substrate as well as different substrate and inhibitor concentrations. Catalase and aldolase were found to dissociate into smaller oligomers in the presence of their substrates, independently of inhibition, while for alkaline phosphatase and VAO, different behaviors were observed. Thus, we have identified a possible mechanism which explains the previously observed diffusion enhancement in vitro. This enhancement may occur due to the dissociation of oligomers through ligand binding.

Proud to announce Yulia's paper in Nano Letters. We were planning to measure enzyme diffusion rates under different conditions using label-free single-molecule methods, and accidentally uncovered an interesting effect: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/... 🧪

Huge congratulations! Well deserved:)

How many times have we had similar conversations but not gone through with systematically collecting the data and writing the manuscript? Full of admiration for this team for getting it done, instead of just collapsing in a food coma after (eating) the first 2 datapoints.

In our review, we highlight the big open questions relating to how Hsp90 functions, and suggest possible experimental approaches to address them. We can't wait to hear what you all think!

Also a special mention to the most constructive and encouraging reviewers - let's normalise this style of peer review.

The known unknowns of the Hsp90 chaperone An exploration of the unanswered questions in how the molecular chaperone Hsp90 supports protein homeostasis, and how single-molecule techniques could drive future breakthroughs in answering them.

What a way to start 2025! Our review on the Known Unknowns of the Hsp90 Chaperone has been published!
Huge thanks to Laura Silbermann and Benjamin Vermeer for all of their efforts, and to @scisonja.bsky.social for the great collaboration :)
You can read it here:
elifesciences.org/articles/102...

What a great joy to meet up with the PROGENIE group to discuss the future of #proteostasis and all the topics of new and not-anymore-so-new PIs.

Join us next time if you are a new PI in Europe working on proteostasis, 👉molsysmed.de/project/proteostasis-gro...

Do single-molecule studies of membrane proteins count? :)

Thank you for the suggestion!

Thank you for the suggestion!

Calling all #SciComm people who specialise in scientific animations. I would like to talk to someone about making some animations to communicate our research in single-molecule biophysics. Please message me if you are interested and share with your networks! 🧪

Hi! Please could you add me to the Biophysics starter packs? :)

Photos of York city and the University of York campus.

📢Looking for an exciting #PhD? Interested in #AntibioticResistance?
🦠🧫🧪
Anatomy of a genome segregation machine at the biology-physics interface🧬

DiMeN project open to applicants worldwide with me, Steve Quinn & @seanmeaden.bsky.social at the University of York
PR 🙏

findaphd.com/phds/project/m…

Forgot to add the 🧪!

Really excited to announce my group's latest pre-print on enzyme diffusion studied using mass photometry: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Great work from Yulia from the KT lab with Saniye from the Fraaije lab!

Analyzing Phantom Spectra Katarzyna Tych wants to normalize failure as part of the scientific process.

As early-career scientists, it's hard not to attach our self-worth to the success of our experiments. @biophysk.bsky.social, now the PI of the Single Molecule Biophysics Laboratory at @unigroningen.bsky.social, talks about difficulties with her PhD project and what we can learn from our failures.🧪

Finally, a possible scientific explanation for why I'm so bad at catching.

I'd love to be added! Here's my Google scholar page: scholar.google.com/citations?hl...
Thank you for curating this, by the way!