The flurry of new publications continues! 🎉 A newly published article titled "Structural Insights into the Evolution of Alpha/Beta-Hydrolase (ABH) Fold Luciferases" has been published in the 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗼𝗳 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀.🧬
🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We’re happy to share our provocative Comment (with Stanislav Mazurenko, Zhongyue Yang, David Bednar) on multi-agent AI as virtual research teams 🧬

🔗 Preprint: chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10....
(in peer-review)

#AI #ProteinEngineering #Biotech

Our article is now in 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗖𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀! 🎉

A single mutation in haloalkane dehalogenases turns an irreversible SN2 reaction into a reversible one—enabling halide release and greener transhalogenation & recycling of halogenated compounds.

Great teamwork—looking forward to what comes next!

𝗭𝗯𝘆𝗻𝗲𝗸 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗼𝗽 presented a plenary lecture at 𝗛𝗧𝗖𝗗 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 in Lille 🇫🇷 to ~150 researchers from 20+ countries. 🌍

He also visited the REALCAT high-throughput catalysis platform. 🔬

Thanks to #CLARA for support!

𝗡𝗶𝗲𝗸 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗮𝗶𝗷𝗲 (University of Groningen 🇳🇱) spent 5 months at Loschmidt Labs working on ML in molecular biology. 🧬🤖

He built his own model and gained valuable hands-on experience in a supportive environment. 🌱

Thanks, Niek, and best of luck! 🚀

#MachineLearning #MolecularBiology #Research

𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗸𝗮 𝗗𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗵𝗮́, a student from Matyas Lerch Grammar School, has been selected as a finalist in the “Bystré hlavy” competition organized by the Goethe-Institut!
Her project of rational engineering of green fluorescent protein was carried out at the Loschmidt Laboratories.

Congratulations! 🌟

Our bowling team-building event took place at Bowling Brno on Monday, 30 March. 🎳 It was a great opportunity to enjoy some friendly competition and spend time together!

Many thanks to Martin Sitte for organizing this event 🙌

📸 Jiri Damborsky

New in 𝗔𝗖𝗦 𝗢𝗺𝗲𝗴𝗮: 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘃 𝗠𝗮𝘇𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗸𝗼 & DTU colleagues used VAEs to mine & map tryptophanase sequence space. 🧬

Of 21 enzymes, 18 were characterized, leading to the discovery of PreTIL for sustainable, biobased indigo synthesis. 🌿💻

Full article: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Champagne Celebration! 🥂
Congratulations to our team on several new publications, an accepted abstract, and a new academic position. 🍾

📸: Karolina Sedlackova

Students of @masarykuniversity.bsky.social spent 4 days diving into professional practice! Huge thanks to our hosts:

🔹 CCM
🔹 @recetox.bsky.social/ CELSPAC Biobank
🔹 EPS Biotechnology
🔹 GeneProof

The 1st #COMENZE Doctoral Training School just wrapped up in Platja d'Aro! 🇪🇸 Organized by @silviaosuna.bsky.social, the workshop dived into multiscale modelling & polymer-degrading enzyme design. Our researchers Stas Mazurenko & Pavel Kohout contributed to sessions on AI-driven enzyme engineering.

Huge congratulations to 𝗡𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗮 for winning the 𝗕𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗙𝗹𝗮𝘀𝗵 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 at the 5th International Conference on HDX-MS in Strasbourg! 🇫🇷

Naina’s work on staphylokinase variants impressed a "truly inspiring" and supportive global HDX community. Well deserved! 👏🔬

Interview series: Meet Martin Sitte, a FEBS Open Bio Poster Prize Winner This interview series aims to introduce early-career award winners, highlight their work and scientific interests, and inspire young scientists and students to get involved in FEBS and FEBS Junior Sec...

Meet 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲, winner of the @febsopenbio.bsky.social Best Poster Prize! 🏆

A PhD student at @recetox.bsky.social, Martin reminds us: "Science doesn’t always go as planned... but positive enthusiasm makes the difference."

Read the interview:
network.febs.org/posts/interv...

Photo: Mariya Ostrenko/Brno City Council

🎓 Big news from the Brno Ph.D. Talent program!

Huge congrats to our winners from Loschmidt Laboratories:

🔹 Jan Cesnek
🔹 Martin Havlasek
🔹 Tim de Martines
🔹 Monika Rosinska

Proud to see their research in Alzheimer’s, drug design, and protein engineering recognized! 👏🧪

#BrnoPhDTalent #Science

Concentration‐dependent dimerization of staphylokinase variants with engineered surface charges Staphylokinase (SAK) is a promising third-generation thrombolytic protein, but its clinical potential is limited by immunogenicity and stability concerns. The conformational and colloidal stabilities....

New paper accepted in 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲! 🧬 We explored how engineered surface charges and concentration-dependent dimerization shape the stability of #staphylokinase (SAK) variants.

Huge thanks to our collaborators at P. J. Safarik University! 🇸🇰

Read here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

We’re proud to have hosted 𝗟𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗷𝗮 𝗕𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻 (University of Zagreb) for a 3-month internship! 🧪✨

She worked on engineering enzymes for better bioplastic recycling using advanced in silico design. A great step forward for sustainable science! ♻️💻

Best of luck in your future research!

Theory meets practice! 🧬 MUNI students spent 4 days exploring the pharmaceutical world—from clinical research at the Cancer Institute to R&D and production at FAVEA.

Big thanks to our hosts for the real-world insights! 🎓✨

📷Pavel Vanacek

The online course was made possible with the support of:
Enantis | Masaryk University | RECETOX | St. Anne's University Hospital Brno | CLARA Center | COZYME (COST Action CA21162) | ELIXIR

The 7th Hands-on Computational Enzyme Design Course by #Loschmidt Labs & #Enantis is a wrap! 🧪✨

Participants mastered tools for mining & engineering enzymes, as well as for processing kinetic data. Good luck to our researchers as they explore the frontiers of protein design! 🚀

📷 Sergio M. Marques

We might have been exhausted after three intensive days, but we still had enough energy for a great dinner at Slunecnice Pub! Here are a few snapshots of the fun! 🥂

Day 4 of the 𝟳𝘁𝗵 𝗛𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀-𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗻𝘇𝘆𝗺𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲! 🚀

Our participants have been busy: 🔹 Designing stable proteins 🔹 Modeling protein-ligand complexes 🔹 Identifying enzyme tunnels 🔹 Using ML for biochemistry

Big thanks to guest lecturers Jan Byska and Elisabet Manaskova! 🧪💻

Loschmidt Laboratories joined #CzecHopes to inspire future scientists! 🎓

🔬 Jan Cesnek led a lab workshop on protein preparation & luminescence. 🤖 David Lacko showed how AI designs binders for the COVID-19 spike protein.

Record attendance this year! 📈

The 7th Computational Enzyme Design Course has begun! 🌍🧬

We’ve welcomed 63 experts from 20 countries—from Oxford and Princeton to Bayer and Samsung.

Supported by @MasarykUni, @Recetox, @ICRC, @COZYME & @Enantis.

#Bioinformatics #Enzymes #Biocatalysis

Field trip highlights! 🧬 MUNI students explored the world of #biotechnology at 𝗘𝗻𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘀, 𝗣𝗦𝗜, 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗽𝗿𝗼, and 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗩𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗿. From growth factors to diagnostics, it was an incredible look at the industry.
Thanks for having us! 🧪✨

Regioselective Sesquiterpene Hydroxylation Directed by Tunnel Remodeling in Rieske Oxygenases Selective hydroxylation of sesquiterpenes remains a major challenge in synthetic chemistry due to their chemical homogeneity and steric complexity. Here, we report the Rieske oxygenase (RO)-catalyzed hydroxylation of sesquiterpenes using cumene dioxygenase (CDO) from Pseudomonas fluorescens IP01. Wild-type CDO catalyzed the monohydroxylation of the sesquiterpene β-bisabolene, producing ring-hydroxylated β-bisabolene-5-ol and tail-hydroxylated (S)-β-bisabolene-13-ol in a 64:21 ratio, with a total product formation of 0.43 ± 0.07 mM. A single-loop deletion variant, L284del, enhanced both total product formation and selectivity toward the ring-hydroxylated product, producing 1.40 ± 0.08 mM and enabling preparative-scale isolation (17 mg, 0.08 mmol, 39% yield). Another single-loop variant, I288del, similarly increased total product formation while shifting regioselectivity from ring- to tail-hydroxylation in a 5:81 ratio, generating 1.07 ± 0.04 mM tail-hydroxylated product and enabling its preparative-scale isolation (24 mg, 0.11 mmol, 55% yield). To understand this clear switch in regioselectivity, we conducted molecular dynamics (MD) and adaptive steered MD simulations. This revealed that I288del increased the substrate tunnel openness and frequency of access, promoting a tail-first orientation of the substrate. This preorientation enhanced the probability of reactive conformations in proximity to the catalytic iron. Binding energy calculations further supported a loss of orientation bias in I288del, giving further insight into the regioselectivity shift. Additional engineering yielded the variant N279T_I288del_A321T, which enhanced the formation of the tail-hydroxylated compound to 1.58 ± 0.26 mM. Further, variant I288del enabled the conversion of α-santalene, a reaction not catalyzed by the wild-type enzyme. Our study provides mechanistic insight into how tunnel dynamics and substrate preorientation govern selectivity in RO-catalyzed C–H functionalization.

Excited to share our latest research in 𝗝𝗔𝗖𝗦 𝗔𝘂! 🧬✨ We discovered that substrate access tunnels govern the precision of Rieske oxygenases.

Great work by Jonathan Berger during his stay at Loschmidt Labs with Sérgio Marques. Congrats on the PhD, Jonathan!

🔗 pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

𝗠𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲 and 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗸 recently represented our team at the 𝗗𝗘𝗦𝗬 𝗣𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗨𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀' 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 and the 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗫𝗙𝗘𝗟 𝗨𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀' 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 in Hamburg (January 25–28, 2026).

Both researchers also participated in the 𝗠𝗫 𝗦𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽 to discuss the sample preparation techniques.

📸 Martin Sitte

Our first team-building event of the year was a hit! ⛸️We kicked off January on the ice at the Za Lužánkami Stadium, followed by a get-together at U Dřeváka Beer&Grill. 🍻

A special thank you to Irena Halikova and Sergio Marques for organizing such an event! 👏

📸 Linda Kasiarova & Sergio Marques

Kicking off 2026! 🚀

Our first group meeting featured inspiring reflections on 2025 and a look at the challenges ahead. We’re staying resilient and keeping our team spirit strong!

Welcome to our new postdoc, Khushboo Rani! 🤝🥂

Warmest wishes for a peaceful holiday season and a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year 🍀.