Academia in a nutshell

Big congratulations to Aleksandra Panfilova who defended her PhD last week! Aleks has been teasing apart models of protein interactions and consequences of mutations on these, preprint coming soon! She’s now looking for new opportunities in Estonia, so reach out to hear if you’re hiring 😊

Annika raises many good points about the challenges with (not) “just putting the slides online”

So looking forward to this meeting!

Junior professor position at the University of Kaiserslautern! Our Department of Biology is seeking a colleague working with microalgae. This is a wonderful place to do wonderful science with great people! Please, repost :)
Further details:
jobs.rptu.de/jobposting/1...

Bike saddle covered in thousands of frozen droplets. Green grass and brown leaves in the background.

T’is the season
When I scrape ice
Off my saddle

spongebob is writing on a piece of paper with a pen . ALT: spongebob is writing on a piece of paper with a pen .

🧵 Thread👇
Heute Nachmittag im Fokus:

Wissenschaftliche Karrierewege

An der Uni wird oft nur das Karriereziel Professur diskutiert, aber der Weg dahin ist schwer, wenig planbar und die anderen Berufsoptionen sehr vielfältig (und zumeist sogar besser).

I lament all the research and writing I never got to do because I was too busy fighting sex pests and institutionalized misogyny

Adding citations of people who might review the paper

🤩

439K views · 15K reactions | Harvard researcher Joan Brugge says her work has the potential to prevent breast cancer, but she was notified last spring that her federal funding was terminated. “It was ... Harvard researcher Joan Brugge says her work has the potential to prevent breast cancer, but she was notified last spring that her federal funding was terminated. “It was just like a gut punch. My...

One of my science heroes, Joan Brugge, talks about how science funding cuts are slowing their work on breast cancer prevention--share this widely
www.facebook.com/60minutes/vi...

Very true 😞
Thank you!

Why is she referred to as Miss Franklin? Was that customary at the time also for male scientists?

🤩

Path by a creek strewn with leaves

Ducks on the creek

Fall is beautiful, even on gray days 🍂 🍁

My 11yo chose Rosalind Franklin for her school project on „a person everyone should know“ and I’m having a hard time not pushing all the terrible stories that tend to get swept under a rug on her.

Rosalind Franklin and the damage of gender harassment Spurred by a recent report on sexual harassment in academia, our columnist revisits a historical case and reflects on what has changed—and what hasn’t

Thinking only of Rosalind Franklin today, and what was stolen from her (and so many other female scientists alongside her).

My 11yo is more active in her Teams chats than I am in mine.

Royal Copenhagen cup filled with Lego

Danish design cup

GitHub - aqlaboratory/openfold-3: OpenFold3: A fully open source biomolecular structure prediction model based on AlphaFold3 OpenFold3: A fully open source biomolecular structure prediction model based on AlphaFold3 - aqlaboratory/openfold-3

Looks like OpenFold3 has been formally released in a public "preview". Not quite on parity with AlphaFold3 on a few benchmarks shown, in particular for antibody interactions. All info on the github link. I am sure we will hear more about this from the developers github.com/aqlaboratory...

The UNC Department of Biology is seeking a Director of Biology Teaching Labs, a key leadership role overseeing our undergraduate laboratory program. 1/n
Learn more and apply here: unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/308...

I have a very bad feeling about this...

Alternatively, lads, might be worth thinking about supporting the German car industry to remain viable in the future rather than locking them into a dying business model.
But sure, you go off...

Hotel banquet room with lots of round tables, lots of protein design aficionados, and an ongoing presentation on protein walkers

Fittingly, I arrived just in time for a talk from the organiser’s group @ajasjaljubetic.bsky.social 🚶‍♀️

Blazing colourful sunrise seen through an airplane window

Airplane sunrise is the reward for early departures.
Looking forward to European RosettaCon 2025!

Kiel Marina, sail boats

Planters along the marina

Threemaster behind a large tree

Kiel

Very similar experience moving to Spain 🇪🇸 (20 years ago, might have changed)

I maintain that the most important is the coffee machine

Ah, a classic moment of @nature.com recognizing the scientific contributions of both genders: man and machine.

You can get MSAs directly from AlphaFold DB now (alphafold.ebi.ac.uk). I also missed the FoldSeek implementation, which lets you search for structurally similar proteins direktly.

This saves some clicking around. Neat!