New preprint 🚀 ❄️
We developed Autogrid-compatible HPF planchettes that enable direct freezing of clipped EM grids and streamline integration with cryo-FIB workflows

✔️ improved grid stability
✔️ reduced handling
✔️ robust vitrification (🦠 🧫 🧠)
A step toward routine HPF for complex samples
#teamtomo

Excited to share our paper about copick, a dataset API and toolkit for collaborative annotation and analysis of #cryoET data! Whether you're picking particles or curating segmentations, copick reduces friction and brings #OME-Zarr to cryoET without breaking pipelines.
🧵👇

doi.org/10.1002/pro.70578

1/ Excited to share our preprint! 🥳

Degradation of aromatic compounds, including BTEX pollutants, requires highly endergonic aromatic ring reduction. Using #cryoEM and in situ #cryoET, we show how BCRII couples electron bifurcation modules in one giant redox machine

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I am excited to share our most recent work collaborating with @centriolelab.bsky.social and @stearnslab.bsky.social to look at the ciliary base of mammalian multiciliated cells w/ cryo-ET, XL/MS, and U-ExM www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Molecular architecture of the ciliary base in mammalian multiciliated cells www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...

Filipa Pereira working with LSI lab members.

The LSI labs of David H. Sherman and Filipa Pereira have teamed up to boost bacterial production of a long-elusive compound, leading to a potential new treatment for drug-resistant malaria.

Read more: research.umich.edu/research-sto...

Neurodegeneration risk variants promote lysosomal TMEM106B fibrilaccumulation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

Excited to share this collaborative work with Ward and Petrucelli Labs!

We show that two major genetic risk factors for #neurodegeneration and cognitive decline converge on TMEM106B fibrils accumulating within lysosomes.

A LOT of work packed in here 🧠🔬

Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Visualizing suborganellar lipid distribution using correlative light and electron microscopy - Nature Cell Biology Lennartz et al. introduce a correlative light and electron microscopy workflow, Lipid-CLEM, combining near-native lipid probes and on-section labelling via click chemistry. Lipid-CLEM quantitatively a...

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

Image from their link showing evidence of fabricated references

Holy smoke. What ultimately happened???

I fucking hate proline so fucking much it's the worst amino acid it's so fucking stupid it's incapable of being fucking normal so it forms an ugly ass ring with itself with its own fucking nitrogen cuz it's a loser fucking amino acid I hate it so much I'd rather cut off my right tit than have to ever draw a mechanism with proline ever again

Remember that everyone you meet is fighting their own battle, sometimes with amino acids

Context-dependent translation inhibition as a cancer therapeutic modality - Nature Communications Robust protein synthesis by the ribosome is required for rapid cancer growth. Here authors present interdictors, small molecule inhibitors of protein synthesis with context-dependent activity that inh...

Incredibly proud of our small but mighty team at Interdict Bio as we bring the interdictor modality closer to the clinic! Check out our first publication that lays the foundation for context-dependent translation modulators as a therapeutic approach for cancer!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Graduate student Martin Fernandez just won the best poster 🏆 at the Gordon Research Conference on ‘Frontotemporal Dementia and Related Rare Dementias’

#proudPI

Please spread the word: the Structural Studies Division @mrclmb.bsky.social is looking for a new tenure-track, independent group leader with an exciting plan in any area of Structural (Molecular & Cell) biology, in discovery biology and/or methods development. 🥳

mrc.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/...

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

I am getting excited about teaching at this! I think we're going to do copick, membrain-seg, morphometrics, and surforama on my day!

Cryo-electron tomogram on a navy background with text: Cryo-ET Data Processing Workshop. June 7-11, 2026

Join us this summer for U-M's 2026 #CryoET Data Processing Workshop!
This four-day workshop will introduce participants to standard image processing packages and all aspects of cryo-ET data processing.
Apply by March 20: myumi.ch/lsi-cryo-workshop-2026

@jbquerido.bsky.social @shyamalm.bsky.social

Caveolins are conserved (metazoan) proteins essential for forming membrane-derived vesicles called caveolae.

While evolutionarily distant caveolins have similar structures, we found they do not maintain caveolae-generating capabilities (movie).

What determines this? Check out our new preprint!

Introducing The Structural History of Eukarya (SHE): The first proteome-scale phylogeny constructed entirely from 3D structure.
We computed 300 trillion alignments across 1,542 species to map the tree of life. 🧵👇 (1/5)

GitHub - GrotjahnLab/surface_morphometrics: Morphometrics for Membrane Surfaces Segmented from Cryo-ET or other volumetric imaging. Morphometrics for Membrane Surfaces Segmented from Cryo-ET or other volumetric imaging. - GrotjahnLab/surface_morphometrics

I've been working on Surface Morphometrics for a new version (coming soon), and made some significant (AI-assisted) performance improvements, especially in pycurv (20-50x!). If you've had technical issues or just felt like it was too slow, give it another try! #teamtomo github.com/GrotjahnLab/...

AI-generated data contamination erodes pathological variability and diagnostic reliability Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly populating medical records with synthetic content, creating a feedback loop where future models are increasingly at risk of training on uncurated AI ...

"AI is rapidly populating medical records with synthetic content, creating a feedback loop [that] drives a rapid erosion of pathological variability and diagnostic reliability...this renders AI generated documentation clinically useless after just two generations" www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

EMBL is deeply saddened by the passing of our Interim Director General Peer Bork, a pioneering scientist who left an indelible imprint on life science research in Europe and beyond.

We extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.

www.embl.org/news/people-...

We are running the cryo-ET image processing workshop again this year! Come learn everything tomo: STA, segmentation, heterogeneity analysis from @baradlab.com @williamnwan.bsky.social and others!

Apply!

#Postdoc job opportunity: The Pereira lab at the LSI is seeking a postdoctoral researcher help develop cutting-edge experimental and computational approaches to accelerate #NaturalProduct discovery. Learn more and apply:
careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...

Online today, the journal version of our ( @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social @attychang.bsky.social @mmedina300kv.bsky.social) manuscript from earlier this year describing membrane thickness measurement in cells with #teamtomo! rupress.org/jcb/article/...

Wow! Amazing stuff from @matteoall.bsky.social. Congratulations to all the authors involved.

It’s out! Using cryo-ET in Dicty cells, we take a fresh in situ look at vaults. Surprisingly, we uncover vaults associated with ER and NE membranes, and find that many vaults enclose ribosomes in defined orientations, opening new avenues to their cellular function! www.biorxiv.org/lookup/conte...

Check out our new work! In collaboration with @moitrayee-lab.bsky.social lab at Yale!

I would be particularly keen to chat with #cryoET experts who would be interested in working on exciting new models of neurodegeneration, but the brief is wide open and could involve tau filament formation with recombinant protein, in cell cultures or in mice.

Metabolic engineering and late-stage functionalization expand the chemical space of the antimalarial premarineosin A - Communications Chemistry Premarineosin A, a potent and selective antimalarial natural product, is a promising yet underexplored scaffold due to its limited availability and synthetic complexity. Here, the authors employ metab...

Thrilled to share my recent work from the Pereira and Sherman Labs at @umlifesciences.bsky.social, out now in Communications Chemistry! We applied metabolic engineering, semi-synthesis, and biocatalysis to expand access to the antimalarial natural product premarineosin A. I suggest you check it out!