a cartoon of batman says shall we begin ALT: a cartoon of batman says shall we begin

Tree pollen to Jeremy:

Congratulations to our Senior Scientists, Drs. Hansen He and Cheryl Arrowsmith for receiving AACR Scientific Achievement Awards in recognition of their outstanding contributions to cancer research. #AACR26

It's really inspiring how Duke brings people together.

A high-affinity split-HaloTag for live-cell protein labeling Nature Communications - Lin and colleagues present high-affinity split-HaloTag pairs for protein tagging and multiplexed labelling. This versatile system allows protein visualisation with diverse...

A high-affinity split-HaloTag for live-cell protein labeling. And much more.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A modular genetic code expansion approach to site-specific lysine acylations A modular strategy combining genetic code expansion with a selective amide bond-forming reaction enables the site-specific installation of lysine acylations on folded proteins. Acylboronates react sel...

🚨 Our new paper is out! 🙌

Bioorthogonal reactions often create bulky, non-native linkages-great for labeling, but not ideal for installing natural PTMs.
We combine GCE with a chemoselective amide-bond forming reaction to install site-specific acylation PTMs.
www.cell.com/chem/fulltex...
1/4

Kids: “Dad that car cut you off!”

Me: “He’s harmless.”

Were they told they had to drink it before passing through

Rapid directed evolution guided by protein language models and epistatic interactions Protein engineering is limited by the inefficient search through a high-dimensional sequence space to find combinations of synergistic mutations. Traditional approaches use stepwise mutation stacking,...

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

We are hiring a postdoc! The group has a funded opening to join our amazing team on the NCI's Frederick, MD campus.

This is an opportunity to train in cutting-edge chemical & RNA biology methods with a supportive, tight-knit group.

Link to posting below. Please share!

jobrxiv.org/job/national...

Mechanisms linking cytoplasmic decay of translation-defective mRNA to transcriptional adaptation Transcriptional adaptation (TA) is a genetic robustness mechanism through which mutant messenger RNA (mRNA) decay induces sequence-dependent up-regulation of so-called adapting genes. How cytoplasmica...

This is a fascinating paper that reveals defined and clear mechanism for a phenomenon that for some seemed unbelievable- the up regulation of genes paralogous to those with specific types of inactivating mutations. This is called transcriptional adaptation 1/ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

douglas adams was our most accurate futurist

If it were 2026 he would say: "species and varieties of Seq experiments."

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

3️⃣4️⃣ Robert G. Roeder collecting sea urchings, the organism in which eukaryotic RNA Pols I, II and III were discovered

(source : youtu.be/efNtZyXSHC4?...)

One on left is a black dog and above it the words “Reality”. Below it is “I chased a squirrel” One the right is a black dog and above it says “LinkedIn”. Below it says, Proud to announce that I effectively executed a rapid-response squirrel displacement strategy to mitigate potential yard intrusions. Humbled by the unwavering support of my family and local stakeholders. This experience reinforced the importance of vigilance, ownership, and continuous improvement. Looking forward to scaling this impact in future engagements.

😂

You Have To Be Human I realize now that I want to be real

"There’s never been a better time to touch the hearts of people, you just have to be human." A wonderful post on my Substack by Freya India, one of the best writers I know, who writes about Gen Z.

www.afterbabel.com/p/you-have-t...

"authors also express frustration at the amount of work expected for a single publishable unit, a concern we
share (while humbly noting that it may not be
held by the same authors when they serve as
reviewers of other work)" <-THAT www.nature.com/articles/s41... ht @ritastrack.bsky.social

Color photograph of Joan Steitz (Joan Argetsinger Steitz), the distinguished American molecular biologist and biochemist renowned for her groundbreaking discoveries in RNA biology, including the identification of small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs) essential to RNA splicing. She is pictured in a close-up portrait within a laboratory or research setting, smiling warmly and directly at the camera with an engaging, approachable expression that conveys enthusiasm and expertise. Steitz has gray hair pulled back, striking blue eyes, and is wearing large, elaborate dangling earrings adorned with purple gemstones and metallic accents. She is dressed in a rich purple blouse. The softly blurred background includes scientific elements such as lab benches, equipment, monitors, charts, and partial signage, evoking the environment of her long career at Yale University where she served as Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. #JoanSteitz #MolecularBiology #WomenInScience #Biochemistry #RNA

Biochemist/molecular biologist Joan Steitz was born #OTD in 1941.

She (& team) figured out how our cells read/use genetic instructions to make proteins. A key person who helped crack the code on RNA—the molecule that acts like a messenger between DNA & and the proteins our bodies need. #WomenInSTEM

I’ve seen some weird drug molecules over the last 30 years but not many that I’d use as a synthetic intermediate (and store in a sealed vial) #ChemSky #ChemChat

(h/t @drughunter.com for the screenshot)

I was late to this just coming out but the crazy idea here is to store transcriptome in Vault particles as a snapshot of the prior gene expression states!!!

this is a fascinating article, featuring a ton of analytical chemists arguing with one another #chemchat

Excited to share our new preprint in collaboration with Paul Cohen's lab at Rockefeller University and Ken Loh's lab at Yale University! We introduce TurboID-TMT for cell type-specific proximity labeling to profile organ secretomes and ER-resident proteomes in vivo. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

David's AlphaFold WorkShop 2026 YouTube video by David Fay

Greetings! I decided to make a YouTube video of my AlphaFold workshop that I've given a few times in the past year. Caveats aside, people seem to find this useful for thinking about how to model protein interactions and how to interpret various AF outputs 1/2

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u63o...

Magic Johnson was the grand marshal of the Rose Parade today, and as someone who remembers his November 1991 HIV announcement: if you had told anybody that day that he would be alive and healthy 34+ years later, I don't think they would have believed you. Medicine and research—they work.

Medical breakthroughs in 2025 ... and a happy new year.

New post!

There was a lot of innovation in medicine and biomedical research this year, and I've tried to summarize the biggest ones in this blogpost.

Medical breakthroughs in 2025. Plus a serious note at the end.
www.scientificdiscovery.dev/p/medical-br...

What Do Oral Drugs Really Look Like? Dose Regimen, Pharmacokinetics, and Safety of Recently Approved Small-Molecule Oral Drugs An analysis of dose, dose frequency, human pharmacokinetics, and potential drug–drug interactions (DDI) was performed on small-molecule oral drugs approved by the FDA from 2020 to 2024 (n = 104). Alth...

What Do Oral Drugs Really Look Like? Dose Regimen, Pharmacokinetics, and Safety of Recently Approved Small-Molecule Oral Drugs

Discovering Glycosylation-Dependent Protein Function by Thermal Proteome Profiling Protein glycosylation regulates essential cellular processes including protein folding, stability, and cell-cell interactions; however, how aberrant glycosylation impacts protein function and interact...

Congratulations former postdoc @jfhevler.bsky.social (in transit to Roche) and the team on their work using thermal proteome profiling along with glycosylation perturbagens to discover glycan-dependent protein functions at the proteome scale 👏

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

Excessive vigorous exercise impairs cognitive function through a muscle-derived mitochondrial pretender Huang et al. show that excessive vigorous exercise causes cognitive impairment. During this process, muscle lactate accumulation facilitates the secretion of otMDVs through ATF5 lactylation. PAF and m...

Excessive vigorous exercise impairs cognitive function through a muscle-derived mitochondrial pretender: Cell Metabolism www.cell.com/cell-metabol...

My wife, who designed our card, completely shares my sense of humor. Happy holidays!

old tweet: Every year, Putting Away the Christmas Decorations Ken makes a series of decisions designed to infuriate Unpacking the Christmas Decorations Ken the following year. It’s a magical holiday tradition.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…