A rare bacterial protein tweak could point to new antibiotic targets The biochemistry lab of Doug Mitchell discovered the enzyme responsible for a rare chemical modification that doesn't exist in human cells, which can potentially become a new target for developing ant...

New research highlights how a rare bacterial protein modification could reveal new antibiotic targets.

Doug Mitchell and lab members report a rare bacterial protein tweak that could point to new antibiotic targets.

Read more: medschool.vanderbilt.edu/basic-scienc...

@vubasicsciences.bsky.social

For U.S. medical researchers, shrinking labs and bare budgets are the new reality The Trump administration has slashed the number of grants from the National Institutes of Health, with far fewer focused on women, cancer and mental health.

Very good (if tragic) story from the Washington Post

[GIft Link]

wapo.st/3OONwh6

1/8

Announcement for a three-year Rising Talent Fellowship for Black heritage postdoctoral scientists at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

The LMB Rising Talent Fellowship is open for new applicants!

Aimed at Black heritage scientists, the Fellowship offers a 3-year postdoctoral position beginning Oct-Dec 2026.

Visit our website for more info: mrclmb.ac.uk/careers-and-...

Please circulate this post to anyone who might be interested!

Congratulations to CSB researcher Stephen Fesik on winning the Marie Maynard Daly Award, the newest award sponsored by The Protein Society, which recognizes groundbreaking research at the interface between protein science and human health.
@vubasicsciences.bsky.social

Image has white text saying "Discover the new Glacios 3 cryo-TEM. CCPEM Spring Symposium. Nottingham, 22-24 April" over a rendered molecular image on black background of Liposome-encapsulated doxorubicin, a chemotherapy drug formulation, imaged with 200 kV cryo-ET. Purple shows correctly packaged liposomes for drug delivery while yellow indicates improperly packaged liposomes. Data segmentation with Thermo Scientific™ Amira™ Software. 3D rendering created in Blender.

If you're at the #CCPEM next week, don't miss the chance for a first look at the new Thermo Scientific™ Glacios™ 3 Cryo-TEM including advances in performance, productivity, and accessibility!
📍 CCPEM Spring Symposium, Nottingham, UK
🕛 Presentation: April 23, 1 PM BST
#CryoEM #StructuralBiology

Tomorrow is #GivingDay at @vanderbilt.edu. Your gift to the Dr. Anne Karpay Award in Structural Biology supports a senior graduate student who well-rounded, collaborative, collegial and has performed exceptional research in structural biology.
www.givecampus.com/campaigns/57...

Year 3 of Conformational Ensembles Conference! The most compelling questions in structural biology cannot be effectively addressed with a single structure. We have a stellar lineup of people looking at and answering these questions. @fraserlab.com More information: conformationalensembles.github.io

‼️Preprint from the Ivelin Georgiev lab: Prefusion-specific glycoprotein B human antibodies protect against neonatal HSV-2 infection

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

Registration is open for Bridging Atoms and Algorithms: A Symposium on AI and Structural Biology!
📅 March 17-18, 2026
🏫 Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN
ℹ️ vanderbilt.edu/csb/caipd-ai...

#CryoET #AI #protein #research #CryoEM #Biology

@rommieamaro.bsky.social @drgregbowman.bsky.social

🚨Preprint alert! The @stephanieaw.bsky.social lab shows that binding entropy can be quantitatively predicted from crystallographic ensemble models, accounting for both protein conformational entropy and solvent entropy!

@vubasicsciences.bsky.social

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

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!

Join us as the Spring 2026 VICB seminar series continues on Wednesday, January 28!

Dr. Jeremy Smith, Director of the Center for Molecular Biophysics at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will present "AI and Modeling in Drug and Vaccine Design" at 12:15 PM in 1220 MRB III.

AI can speed antibody design to thwart novel viruses: study AI and “protein language” models can speed the design of monoclonal antibodies that prevent or reduce the severity of potentially life-threatening viral infections.

New #research led by the Georgiev lab shows how #AI and #protein language can speed antibody design to thwart novel viruses! Read more about this study:
news.vumc.org/2025/11/04/a...

New work from the Sanders Lab: Pharmacological tools to modulate ordered membrane domains and order-dependent protein function.

@kmstefanski.bsky.social @vubasicsciences.bsky.social @vanderbiltvicb.bsky.social

📣 CBT & VICB Trainee Talks

Featuring:
🔬 Caro M. Icardi (Iverson Lab, Vanderbilt)
🧪 Hannah Snoke (Lee Lab, St. Jude)

🗓 Jan 15, 2026
⏰4:30–6:00 PM
📍U1202 MRB III

Join us for trainee-led research talks!

@vubasicsciences.bsky.social @vanderbilt.edu

2026 Summer Intern - Agents for Structural Biology in South San Francisco, California, United States of America | Students & Graduates at Genentech Apply for 2026 Summer Intern - Agents for Structural Biology job with Genentech in South San Francisco, California, United States of America. Students & Graduates at Genentech

Internship opportunity! @jackn.bsky.social and I have opened two Summer Intern positions at Genentech to build structural biology agents. If you are a (pre-PhD) #cryoEM or #Xray structural biologist with strong computational skills & motivation, please apply!

Conquer Your Fellowship: A Project Management Tool and Guide for Your NIH Fellowship Applying for an NIH fellowship can feel overwhelming, but the right guidance makes all the difference. This collection of resources walks you through every stage of the process – from identifying t…

📢 Planning to apply for an NIH F30, F31, or F32 fellowship? The process can feel overwhelming, but BRET has some helpful resources to guide you through the process and apply by the April 8 deadline! medschool.vanderbilt.edu/career-devel...

Webinars The SBGrid Consortium is an innovative global research computing group operated out of Harvard Medical School. SBGrid provides the global structural biology community with support for research…

Mark your calendars for January 13th when our own Alice-Roza Eruera will give a primer on Building CryoET Training Workflows Using the SBGrid Ecosystem.

Register here: buff.ly/AaZQlJL

#SBGrid #Structuralbiology #Webinars

Pharmacological Tools to Modulate Ordered Membrane Domains and Order-Dependent Protein Function Ordered membrane nanodomains colloquially known as “lipid rafts” have many proposed cellular functions. However, pharmacological tools to modulate protein affinity for rafts and to manipulate raft for...

Pre-print alert! 🚨 Work from the Chuck Sanders lab and collaborators with first author @kmstefanski.bsky.social. "Pharmacological Tools to Modulate Ordered Membrane Domains and Order-Dependent Protein Function"
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#research #biophysics #protein

Crystallographic Ensembles Reveal the Structural Basis of Binding Entropy in SARS-CoV2 Macrodomain Structure-based drug design has traditionally focused on optimizing static, enthalpic interactions between ligands and proteins or on displacing binding site solvent molecules to entropically favor bi...

New preprint! Entropy drives molecular recognition, yet most structure-based drug design ignores it because it is difficult to measure. X-ray crystallography captures ensembles, not single structures. Can we extract thermodynamically meaningful entropy from them?

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Kate Clowes Moster, of the Chuck Sanders lab, is the winner of the 2026 Dr. Anne Karpay Award in Structural Biology!
bit.ly/2026-karpay

@vubasicsciences.bsky.social @vanderbiltvicb.bsky.social @vandybiomed.bsky.social

Vanderbilt’s Ancora Partnership: A collaborative journey toward health care innovation Since the inception of the Ancora Innovations partnership in 2018, Vanderbilt and Deerfield Management have enjoyed a robust collaboration. Deerfield’s commitment includes significant support for adva...

@vanderbilt.edu and Ancora Innovations continue their collaboration to advance translational research and health care innovation.

VICB recognizes the importance of partnerships that connect discovery with real-world impact.

Learn more: bit.ly/47T1ZOP

🧬 🪦 Dean emeritus Larry Marnett, Mike Goodman (staff scientist in the Sanders lab), and senior advisor to the dean Chuck Sanders paid their annual visit to the grave of Oswald Avery, the scientist “best known for his discovery that DNA serves as genetic material.
profiles.nlm.nih.gov/spotlight/cc

A recent study from ZJ Yang Lab examines how structural flexibility contributes to cold adaptation in cellulases.

Read more:
www.vanderbilt.edu/csb/2025/10/...

Vanderbilt leaders in filling the biomedical research pipeline shine at national meeting VUSM played a major role in a national conference that showcased the critical need to train biomedical researchers to advance medical care.

Some of our leaders attended the 2025 Biomedical Research Training Conference, hosted by the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Group on Research, Education and Training. They shared Vanderbilt's innovative approaches to trainee recruiting, mentoring, and more! 👉 news.vumc.org/2025/10/08/v...

From lab to legacy: Marnett’s trainees gather to toast a life in science and service In a heartwarming tribute to a remarkable career, more than 70 of his former graduate students and postdoctoral scholars recently traveled from across the globe for a three-day festivity on Oct. 3–5 t...

Colleagues and former trainees gathered to honor Dr. Larry J. Marnett, Dean Emeritus, Distinguished Professor, and founding leader of the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology (VICB).

Celebrating 50 years.

🔗 Read more: bit.ly/4nhbP2w

@vanderbilt.edu @vubasicsciences.bsky.social #wednesday

Vanderbilt scientist tackles key roadblock for AI in drug discovery Vanderbilt’s Dr. Benjamin P. Brown is improving the way the field of drug discovery creates machine learning algorithms to predict a protein’s interactions with a small molecule. These improvements br...

Congrats to @bpbrown.bsky.social on his single-author paper recently published in @pnas.org! Read more on how he tackles a key roadblock for AI in drug discovery
medschool.vanderbilt.edu/basic-scienc...
@vubasicsciences.bsky.social

Investigating antibiotic characteristics from the computer SBGrid member Jens Meiler uses Rosetta to design antibiotic peptides called lanthipeptides with antibiotic properties.

@caltech.edu doctoral student Vida Robertson highlighted a publication from Jens Meiler, from @vanderbilt.edu, who describes using Rosetta to design antibiotic peptides called lanthipeptides with antibiotic properties.

Read more here: buff.ly/d6k8HvB

#SBGrid #NMR #ProteinDesign

Open science! 📖 Notes from the first @andolab.bsky.social beamtime for the @diffuseproject.bsky.social - check it out!

diffuse.science/logbook/beam...

¡No olviden solicitar a nuestro premio de viaje para asistir a la conferencia @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social #BPS2026! Vean más detalles de cómo solicitar en el fondo 👇

---

Don't forget to apply to our travel award to attend the #BPS2026 Meeting! See application instructions below 👇