Deltaviruses spread through a viral Trojan Horse Hepatitis D-like satellite viruses, known as deltaviruses, have been recently discovered in a wide range of animals. These viruses are thought to expr…

We found a viral Trojan Horse: a virus can hide inside another virus.This one surprised us: deltaviruses don’t just borrow a helper virus. They can travel inside it.
A literal Trojan Horse “virus-in-a-virus” route into cells. 🤯 Kudos to 1st author @viroscope.bsky.social and co-authors !

Co-Translational Incorporation of (R)- and (S)-β2-Hydroxy Acids In Vitro: A Structural and Biochemical Study on the E. coli Ribosome Engineering the translation apparatus to accept backbone-modified amino acid analogues would enable the programmed synthesis of sequence-defined biopolymers with tunable properties. β-Hydroxy acids ar...

A back-to-back paper from Alanna Schepartz and @jhdcate.bsky.social groups shows how the E. coli ribosome supports the incorporation of the non-α-amino acid monomers! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Co-Translational Incorporation of (R)- and (S)-β2-Hydroxyacids In Vivo: Directed Evolution of Efficient Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases Expanding the genetic code of living cells with noncanonical monomers (ncMs) relies on engineered aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRS) and their cognate tRNAs. Conventional aaRS engineering strategies rely on translation-dependent selection systems, limiting their utility for ncMs that are poorly accommodated by the native translational machinery. To address this limitation, we recently developed START, a translation-independent platform that selects Methanomethylophilus alvus pyrrolysyl-synthetase (MaPylRS) mutants based on their ability to acylate cognate tRNAMaPyl. START uses barcoded tRNAs to encode the identity of distinct aaRS mutants in a library. Acylation by active aaRS mutants protects the corresponding tRNAs from periodate oxidation, and their identity is retrieved subsequently through sequencing. START was previously applied to genetically encode noncanonical α-amino acids. Here, we successfully applied START to engineer MaPylRS mutants capable of acylating tRNAMaPyl with diverse non-α-amino acid substrates with good efficiency and fidelity, including (R) and (S) enantiomers of a β2-hydroxy acid, a β2-amino acids, and a malonate. Several mutants exhibit notable polyspecificity across noncanonical backbones while maintaining selectivity against their α-amino acid counterparts. Using these novel enzymes, we demonstrate the ribosomal incorporation of both (R)- and (S)-β2-hydroxy acids into a luciferase reporter protein expressed in Escherichia coli with good efficiency and fidelity. These results imply that highly active engineered aaRS/tRNA pairs can overcome the recently established limitations of EF-Tu with respect to non-α-amino acid substrates. The engineered MaPylRS mutants also enabled the successful incorporation of both (R)- and (S)-β2-hydroxy acids into a protein expressed in mammalian cells, demonstrating for the first time that eukaryotic translation can accommodate non-α-backbones.

Chintan's work demonstrating the efficient incorporation of non-α-amino acid backbones into proteins expressed in both E. coli and mammalian cells just came out! A great collaborative effort from @cgemcci.bsky.social! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

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...

A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural ...

👀 A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

E. coli Cells Explode YouTube video by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)

and they explode when treated with cell-wall-weakening antibiotics :) www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlyy...

An Expanded Toolbox for Versatile Chemical Editing of Adeno‐Associated Virus We describe technology to introduce diverse non-natural chemical functionalities site-specifically into the capsid of adeno-associated virus through genetic code expansion, and using them to engineer...

Starting 2026 with Quan Pham's paper expanding the chemical toolbox for engineering AAV
- New bioorthogonal labeling, including IEDDA, for efficient macromolecule attachment
- Incorporation of two different chemistries for dual capsid labeling & much more:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Nice work from the Deliz Liang lab @lab-adl.bsky.social on genetically encoding diverse His analogs

Congratulations! Great to see this finally out!

Hijacking a bacterial ABC transporter for genetic code expansion - Nature Bacterial ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters can be utilized and engineered to transport non-canonical amino acids into Escherichia coli for highly efficient synthesis of proteins with novel func...

🚨Our paper is out! 🥳
Hijacking a bacterial ABC transporter for efficient genetic code expansion.
Many congrats to everyone involved - a multi-year effort led by @taruniype.bsky.social @maxfottner.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

it all started years ago with a failed experiment
🧵👇 1/9

Mapping the diverse topologies of protein-protein interaction fitness landscapes De novo binder discovery is unpredictable and inefficient due to a lack of quantitative understanding of protein-protein interaction (PPI) sequence-function landscapes. Here, we use our PANCS-Binder t...

Our latest work seeks to answer a longstanding question: why is discovering new protein binders seemingly unpredictable – and can we better quantify and understand the de novo binder discover process? 1/12

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

Thanks, André!

Cell-selective multiplexed bioorthogonal noncanonical amino acid tagging for nascent proteomics Nature Chemical Biology - Engineered aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (aaRS) mutants have been developed that facilitate ultrafast bioorthogonal noncanonical amino acid tagging (BONCAT) of newly...

Excited to share our work with Eranthie Weerapana and Tim van Opijnen, co-led by Conor Loynd, Soumya Roy, and Sarah Canarelli! We introduce a new generation of BONCAT tools for the versatile characterization of newly synthesized proteins in pathogenic bacteria. rdcu.be/eI4M5

🚀 Our new paper is out @natmethods.nature.com!

Kuffer & Marzilli engineered conditionally stable MS2 & PP7 coat proteins (dMCP & dPCP) that degrade unless bound to RNA, enabling ultra–low-background, single-mRNA imaging in live cells.

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
🧬 www.addgene.org/John_Ngo/

Faculty opening in Cornell Chemistry at the Assistant Professor level in the area of chemical biology, broadly defined! academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30338 #chemjobs

Thrilled to see this in print! Co-translational incorporation of a noncanonical monomer into a protein, followed by its triggered post-translational chemical rearrangement, yields novel backbone modifications. One step closer to novel genetically encoded biopolymers!

An orthogonal T7 replisome for continuous hypermutation and accelerated evolution in E. coli Systems that perform continuous hypermutation of designated genes without compromising the integrity of the host genome can substantially accelerate the evolution of new or enhanced protein functions....

Continuous evolution in E. coli using an orthogonal replisome www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Cool technology from the @chembiobryan.bsky.social lab for high-throughput discovery of protein binders

Congratulations, Rita!

SNAP-tag2 for faster and brighter protein labeling - Nature Chemical Biology SNAP-tag is a widespread tool for labeling protein for bioimaging. Now, Kühn et al. report SNAP-tag2 with increased labeling kinetics and brightness, which translates into a better performance in live...

Finally out in Nature Chem Bio:
SNAP-tag2 for faster and brighter protein labeling
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Thank you Steffi and Veselin.

Congratulations, Simon!

Shifting research focus comes with the risk of reduced impact An analysis of millions of scientific papers and patents shows that the further a researcher or inventor moves from their previous work, the less cited their latest work will be.

The further a researcher or inventor moves from their previous work, the less cited their latest work will be

https://go.nature.com/44VjEW9

Breakthrough Prize-Winning Biochemist on the Deadly Cost of Funding Cuts | Amanpour and Company YouTube video by Amanpour and Company

David Liu @harvard.edu beautifully articulates the criticality of basic science funding for developing revolutionary therapeutics like life-saving base editors 👏

youtu.be/8YhJM6zxYDw?...

I am a big believe of doing your own research and checking facts and sources.

BUT THE BIG PROBLEM IS THAT A POST FROM SOME DUDE ON THE INTERNET SHOULD NOT BE WEIGHTED THE SAME AS INFORMATION FROM SOMEONE WHO HAS SPENT DECADES STUDYING AN ISSUE.

2025 Welch Award honors chemical biologists Recipients Schreiber and Schultz will each receive $500K prize for work on chemical probes, unnatural amino acids, and new therapeutics

Chemists Stuart Schreiber of Harvard University and Arena BioWorks and Peter Schultz of @scripps.edu will split the 2025 Welch Award in Chemistry for their work in the field of chemical biology. cen.acs.org/people/award... #chemsky🧪

Skilled immigration on the chopping block? Effects of eliminating "Optional Practical Training" in the US The White House has taken numerous steps to sharply reduce the number of immigrant workers, with or without legal status, in the US economy. These policies, so far, typically target immigrants with le...

They're terminating OPT.

Today the nominee to head USCIS stated directly: he will end Optional Practical Training, the single largest channel for high-skill immigrants to work in the US.

6 weeks ago I warned about this & summarized the research on impacts of this drastic action—> @piie.com

MapID-based quantitative mapping of chemical modifications and expression of human transfer RNA tRNA chemical modifications play critical roles in biology and diseases. Tepe et al. report MapID-tRNA-seq to map m1A, m3C, and multiple bulky modifications in tRNAs from HEK293T and breast cancer-rel...

Happy to share a paper from our group on "MapID-tRNA-seq" for confidently identifying modifications by RT mutation signatures in human tRNAs. This method will enable future discoveries of modifications' occurrence and functions in tRNA biology and diseases. www.cell.com/cell-chemica...

A chocolate cake with red and white decorations and lit candles shaped as the number 75. Bold text reads: ‘The NSF Turns 75 Today. What has it done over the past 7 decades?’ The background is a celebratory red with a spray-paint texture.

HAPPY 75th, NSF!

We’re celebrating this milestone by highlighting some of NSF’s most transformative accomplishments—innovations that have shaped our world and continue to drive progress in health, technology, the environment, and beyond.

Read on 🧵(1/11):

🧪 Though a doubling of NSF's budget might seem far-fetched, that's exactly what Congress said what's needed to maintain national competitiveness in science & tech.

From the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022: