Don't be shy to take on a little two-week side project. These five months will be the most precious three years of your academic journey.

Transfer to a naturalistic setting restructures fear responses in laboratory mice Zipple et al. show that transferring laboratory mice to naturalistic outdoor enclosures prevents and even reverses a canonical anxiety phenotype in rodents. The findings underscore the value of studyi...

"Although animals in natural environments accumulate a wide range of experiences that allow them to calibrate threat assessment, most behavioral studies of anxiety rely on laboratory animals housed in static, impoverished conditions."
🔥
www.cell.com/current-biol...

ICYMI: a quick calculation of transmembrane domain-containing proteins in a proteome.

If you need to use this info: the code is in the post, or you can cite it since all quantixed posts have their own DOI courtesy of Rogue Scholar. doi.org/10.59350/0ah...

I'm looking for #NewPIs (<3 years as lab heads) in the gene regulation/functional genomics space. If you are one or know one, please comment below! 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...? A researcher at Gothenburg U made up a skin problem caused by too much screentime, and uploaded a popular science piece and "preprints" online. Soon, LLMs would treat the condition as real, and the fake study cited in real medical papers.

The beauty and value of studying non-model organisms:

Open Positions -

Open postdoc position in my lab on HGT and interbacterial competition. We seek candidates with a PhD in microbiology (or related fields)+ strong 1st-author publications.
Curious, highly motivated, and dedicated team players ready to contribute fully are encouraged to apply. Details: tiny.cc/cz01101

If we want to understand and treat human diseases, we need to have better and human-specific models. Many excellent talks and posters today at #BonnOrganiodSymposium2026 highlight new directions in #organoid, ex vivo tissue models and #organ-on-chip development and application:

Clinical development of cancer vaccines - Nature Medicine This Review highlights insights from recent clinical trials and discusses critical factors for optimizing cancer vaccines, with a focus on proxies for vaccine efficacy, neoantigen selection, modular p...

Want to know how cancer vaccines can keep you alive?
Very pleased to join several luminaries in the field to offer a comprehensive review on this important topic.
@harvardmed.bsky.social @bostonchildrens.bsky.social #cancer #vaccine
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We’re happy to share our updated manuscript on Ninj1, incorporating measurements of membrane tension, cellular assays of ninj1 and ninj2 dimer stability and MD simulations of ninj1 oligmers opening and forming (see below!). @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social

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

Sunday read:
An excellent review from my friend and virology expert Jen Wuerth and @fischmidtlab.bsky.social on everything you want to know about inflammasomes in antiviral immunity, and how to find them: www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/18...

I can only recommend...

When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.

Functional nutrient-genetic profiling reveals biotin and FBXW7 are essential to bypass glutamine addiction Lisci et al. present a unified model revealing how cells escape glutamine addiction, a metabolic vulnerability of several cancers. Combining systematic genetic and nutrient screens, they show that bio...

Our story on #FBXW7 and #biotin in #glutamine_addiction is now peer-reviewed and published in Molecular Cell! Heroic work led by the very first postdoc of the lab @miriamlisci.bsky.social. Have a look!

www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

You are interested in immunology and how nucleic acid structures contribute to their function and how this impacts disease development - Rayk Behrendt and myself have open PhD positions for a joint PhD program between Bonn and Osaka.

Caspase-4 binds to LPS membranes with positive curvature for non-canonical inflammasome activation The non-canonical inflammasome, comprising caspase-4 in humans, initiates pyroptosis upon sensing cytosolic lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from Gram-negativ…

We're thrilled to share the lab's latest publication demonstrating how caspase-4 and the non canonical inflammasome recognize cytosolic LPS by preferentially binding to the convex portions of membranes - both bacterial and micelles @cp-immunity.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Scientist's way of saying 'I ❤️ you'

"I found this paper/preprint that made me think of your project."
"I checked the mice/cells/plates already."
"I just sent you the edits you requested."
"I have a slide/diagram that will work for that."
"I had that problem with [lab equipment], I have a fix."

Preprint: fever is beneficial for antimicrobial defence by raising AMP activity towards bacteria while reducing mitochondrial damage when pathogens are absent
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8... @ucirvine.bsky.social

On the balance of knowledge - Nature Reviews Immunology Ruslan Medzhitov shares his thoughts on the balance between generating data and developing theories in immunology, with a focus on exploring the rules that govern complex systems.

Too much data, too little thinking.
A important essay from Ruslan Medzhitov on the importance of understanding data, not just generating it. A must read.
@Yale
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

2nd postdoc job alert in the Crick Institute in London. Project will examine the role of motors & the cytoskeleton (actin, septins and microtubules) during vaccinia virus egress using biochemical, structural & cellular approaches + live cell imaging. spread the word.
crick.ac.uk/WayPostdoc20...

Does anyone have any experience with the Navinci Diagnostics Naveni PLA kits, especially in comparison with Duolink PLA reagents? I would extremely appreciate any information and feedback regarding the sensitivity and specificity

Recruitment for the EMBL International PhD Programme is officially open! 🔊

At EMBL, we train young scientists to become skilled and creative future leaders in academia, industry and other sectors. Start your career in the life sciences with us!

🔎 Read more here:
tinyurl.com/4jdt2ra5

Methods should be used as widely as possible, so here is our detailed lipid imaging protocol, written with @martinba99.bsky.social and Chia-Yi (Christine) Chou authors.elsevier.com/a/1mU4XHRzCb... in Methods in Enzymology. Everything you need to know to do it yourself is in there -

I’m stoked to share my postdoc work with @sunnyshinlab.bsky.social, a collaborative effort with @metabailism.bsky.social & Brian Goldspiel, aided by many valued collaborators: Environmental Amino Acid Sensing Regulates the Rate of ASC Translation and NLRP3 Inflammasome Assembly. Some big takeaways:

Poxvirus dsDNA genomes differentially activate AIM2 or NLRP3 inflammasomes in human primary cells - The EMBO Journal The innate immune system is known for its ability to recognize cytosolic DNA as evidence of infection, but detailed studies of this process have been mostly limited to mice and cell lines. To investig...

Ever wondered how you can specifically inhibit #AIM2 #inflammasomes? @y-m-tesfamariam.bsky.social generated inhibitory AIM2 #nanobodies to ‬dissect inflammasome responses to #poxvirus infections in human #PrimaryCells
@unibonn.bsky.social @immunosens.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

If you are looking to build your lab, take a listen to these interviews on @lonelypipette.bsky.social!

www.buzzsprout.com/1356877/epis...

Hi Bluesky! I’m a molecular virologist studying how innate immune defences restrict cross-species transmission and shape disease severity.

I just joined, so reposts appreciated to help me reconnect with virology, immunology, and host–pathogen interaction folks.

(whiteboard art from Zhuonan Li)

We know that diet and lifestyle are strong modulators of inflammatory response, but the exact mechanisms are still elusive. Now the study below adds a piece to this puzzle:

Thanks a lot, good to know about your experience with ABclonal!

10 days left to apply! 👇