A herculean effort by many, but esp. the first three authors: Ujjwal Rathore, Eli Dugan, and Hunter Thornton working in the Krogan and Marson labs, with a veritable army of collaborators from HARC (harc.ucsf.edu) and beyond.
Press release: gladstone.org/news/scienti... (inc. paper link)
I am incredibly proud of my mentee, Tiia Freeman, for securing a prestigious NSF GRFP! Tiia is multi-talented, an outstanding scientist, with an indomitable spirit and infectious positivity. She’s also headed to UCSF for grad school this fall, so keep an eye out for her if you are hiring!
Announcing Seattle DROP: Discover Research Opportunities for Postdocs on May 5th
Interested in postdoc opportunities in Seattle, WA? Seattle DROP is a virtual biomedical postdoc recruitment event sponsored by @fredhutch.org, @uwnews.uw.edu, and @seattlechildrens.org on May 5th from 8 AM-1 PM PT.
Celebrating our lab manager Aida Flor de la Cruz, on her 30th anniversary of working at @fredhutch.org @basicsci.fredhutch.org
Aida is absolutely amazing at everything she does, from art, pottery, baking to microscopy, therapy, & drosophila genetics. We’re very lucky to have her.
Thinking about a #virology #postdoc in academia, industry, or government?
Register now for @amersocvirology.bsky.social #ASV365 webinar on finding the right fit for your postdoc!
Register: albany.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
Fill out our presurvey with your questions: forms.gle/TzK73NUWRUqZ...
Hiring Alert: My lab(www.labofpie.org) is looking for BS/MS-level research assistants to study fungal-bacterial competition. Come join us if you are interested! ipmb.sinica.edu.tw/en/recruitme...
A new mechanism for “RNA memory”! This time in Planaria! (Here's a video of a Planarian with mulitple heads, one of the heritable phenotypes we studied).
This work summarizes >10 years of research and is an amazing collaboration with the labs of Jochen Rink and Omri Wurtzel labs. Read thrad below👇
Transient RNA structures play a key role in the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses! Great to see this collaboration with Mathis Funk, Mathilde Richard, Stephen Cusack, and others in @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Rebecca is starting her lab as a UCSF Sandler fellow in August 2026; folks at #Dros26 interested in host-parasitoid interactions should try to catch her at the meeting to find out about available positions: www.tarnopollab.org/people
In new research, Yu-Ying Phoebe Hsieh, Ian O’Keefe, Ajai Dandekar, Harmit Malik &co reveal how magnesium sequestration by C. albicans enables P. aeruginosa to evolve much higher levels of resistance to colistin (a last-resort #antibiotic).
🧪#MicroSky
With Eugene Koonin, we propose a concept of “the selfish ribosome”, under which evolution of life is viewed as a ribosomal takeover, where the ribosome evolved to consume most of the cell’s resources, while other cellular componentry ensures the propagation of the ribosome. arxiv.org/abs/2602.23268
🎉Proud to present our latest paper, out now in Nature Communications: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
RNA Binding Proteins (RBPs) are often full of intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs), but what these regions do during RNA recognition is often unclear. 1/10
#RNA #IDR #RBP
Integrase anchors viral RNA to the HIV-1 capsid interior pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41708858/ #cryoEM
🧵Good news out of #NIH today.
(1) NIH is extending #ESI and #K99/R00 eligibility to accommodate researchers whose eligibility would have ended during the previous shutdown. Take a look at NOT-OD-26-020. If your ESI status would have ended in 2025, you get an automatic extension through 2026/03/31.
How could a simple self-replicating system emerge at the origins of life? RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but existing ones are so large that their self-replication seems impossible. Could they be smaller?
Excited to share our latest work in @science.org on a new small polymerase.
1/n
New preprint from our lab led by fantastic graduate student @titas10.bsky.social, in which we retrace the emergence of antimicrobial function in the mammalian protein lactoferrin.
The visualization of two bacterial genomes, of 50 and 52kb, representing independent instances of extreme genomic reduction in ancient heritable endosymbionts of planthoppers.
Our new paper in @natcomms.nature.com is now online-early!
We describe independent evolution of bacterial genomes of only ~50–52 kb — the smallest known outside cellular organelles — revealing striking convergence toward minimal gene sets.
🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s414...
Excited to share our work on #AncientRNA from alcohol-preserved lungs, recovering the oldest human RNA virus genome (an 18th-century rhinovirus). Our study shows that viral RNA remnants persist in centuries-old tissue, opening new ways to study virus evolution and historical disease #Paleovirology🫁🦠
I am super happy to share this paper in its final form. We used FIB milling to "dig in to" cell lines and mouse brains infected with tick-borne flaviviruses, followed by cryo-ET to study the virus replication. It's open access, so have a look!
#virology #teamtomo
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Sequences of 5′ untranslated regions in viral RNAs drive codon-usage-independent translation by blocking mRNA circularization, enabling viruses to evade the host’s codon-usage control of translation @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41... on
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Thrilled to share the first major preprint from the lab. Viruses are classically viewed as targets of host sensing. Do viruses also sense and respond to the host? We propose viruses may act as “biosensors” of the host signaling state. A thread👇🏾 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
My first lead author paper is out with Ben Kerr and @alisonfeder.bsky.social! We found that making an antiviral too strong can sometimes make resistance easier to evolve. This has implications for how we design drugs, choose doses, and think about viral evolution in the face of treatment. (1/n)
Flaviviridae RdRp exploits NSUN2-driven m5C methylation to establish persistent infection
journals.plos.org/plospathogen...
Now published as version of record at @elife.bsky.social !
Layers of Immunity: Deconstructing the Drosophila effector response. The tools are now deposited in the VDRC (link ⬇️)
elifesciences.org/articles/107...
shop.vbc.ac.at/vdrc_store/d...
#Drosophila #IDsky #SymbioSky #Infection #Immunology
How to keep in step when your (protein) partner speeds up…
Here we investigated the adaptive remodeling of a protein-protein interaction surface essential for telomere protection.
Congrats to whole team!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Deeply saddened by the passing of my colleague, Prof. Meng-Chao Yao, a remarkable scientist and mentor. He left an indelible mark on all of us fortunate enough to know him. His legacy in molecular and ciliate biology will endure. Rest well, my friend. 1/
obituaries.seattletimes.com/obituary/men...
