iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Jana Helsen @helsenjana.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Looking to do a PhD in evolutionary cell biology, chromosomes & centromeres? 🧬🔬 The winter call for the UNIGE PhD recruitment is open, and my lab is among those recruiting through the Molecular Biosciences program! 🗓️ Apply by Nov 1st: lifesciencesphd.unige.ch

lifesciencesphd.unige.ch

University of Geneva - PhD School of Life Sciences | Welcome to the PhD School in Life Sciences at the Faculties of Medicine and Science

The University of Geneva Faculties of Medicine and Science join their forces to offer an outstanding study and research environment in Life Sciences. Highly motivated students with a Master’s degree o...

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Javier del Campo @fonamental.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

An atlas of eukaryotic centromere architecture reveals recurrent evolutionary dynamics #protists www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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onishilab.bsky.social @onishilab.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Just last week, I taught my Cell Biology class about light-gated channels and the origin of optogenetic tools. I told my students how this formal recognition was overdue. Time to update my slides for tomorrow's class with this fantastic news.

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Reyes-Lamothe lab @reyes-lab.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Happy to share that our paper, where we used single-molecule microscopy to study cell size control in budding yeast, is out in PNAS! This work was led by Huan in my group, in collaboration with Jan Skotheim, @mpswaffer.bsky.social, and Maria Vera. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2607883123

pnas.org

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Thank you! I’m so excited to see a search from UNC. A question I have never quite figured out: does a research statement “less than or equal to 3 pages” include references? Sometimes references are explicitly mentioned but generally not. Thanks!

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Katrina Velle @katrinavelle.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

(6/6) To wrap up the thread, a favor! The paper I used for cell division last year was a swing and a miss. Anyone have good recs for an undergrad journal club? Something with kymographs and coimmunoprecipitations would be ideal to link class concepts. Thanks!

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Jenn Kong @jennkong.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It's the beginning of the school year for us. I don't know about you, but my inbox is full of undergrad requests to join the lab. I can't offer them all positions, so instead I wrote a bit of advice on the process. Feel free to share if you find it helpful. www.thekonglab.org/blog/looking...

thekonglab.org

Looking for an undergraduate research position? A PI’s advice — Kong Lab

One of the greatest joys of being a PI is mentoring the next generation of scientists. At a large public university (Woohoo… Go Dawgs!), I have the amazing luxury of hearing from many enthusiastic stu...

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BWJones @bwjones.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Science peeps: Looks like SciENcv updated the digital certificate used to sign Biosketch and Current & Pending documents without notification. The old certificate expires Saturday, September 26, 2026. SciENcv docs before that date may fail validation in eRA Commons delaying or blocking submission.

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Song Kim @songk.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Excited to share my first preprint from my PhD work in the Bement lab 🥳 💝 We discovered a previously unrecognized function of the RhoGAP RGA-3/4: RGA-3/4 directly and cooperatively binds to F-actin and reorganizes it by crosslinking actin filaments www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

Molecular and cellular characterization of the interaction between the Rho GAP RGA-3/4 and F-actin

During cytokinesis in amphibian and echinoderm embryos, propagating waves of Rho activity and F-actin assembly - cortical excitability - are amplified and focused at the equatorial cortex by the mitot...

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Maksim Kalutskii @maksimkalutskii.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Excited to share our new preprint! 📜 Here, we used CALVADOS and ultra-CG models to show how the kinetochore establishes a robust attachment to the dynamic microtubule end. Spoiler: IDRs 🧵 1/n www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

What happened to the inversions and translocations? Looks like they could mostly reflect ambiguity around centromere/telomere alignment—is there a different choice of some parameter that filters them out? I’m not a genomicist so not sure how much weight to assign to those features.

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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 22/09/2026

this is excellent

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WeberLab@McGill @weber-lab.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

🚨We're hiring!!🚨 @biomcgill.bsky.social is looking for a Quantitative Cell Biologist to join our diverse and interdisciplinary community. Please share this ad broadly, and reach out if you have any questions. mcgill.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/McGill...

mcgill.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com

Assistant Professor in Quantitative Cell Biology - Department of Biology

Please refer to the How to Apply for a Job (for External Candidates) job aid for instructions on how to apply. If you are an active McGill employee (ie: currently in an active contract or position at ...

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Yeah I was wondering about virtual staining, too (if so it should be explicitly stated!) Folks have also been puzzled by the length and number of cilia rel. to the cell bodies. The caption says it’s a mutant, but idk what sorts of mutant phenotypes are reasonable.

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Rikki Garner @rikkigarner.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

We are also excited to hire postdocs to take the lab’s research in new and interesting directions! If you have exciting ideas for how to investigate tissue fluidity in your favorite 3D tissue (or your favorite AI/ML/Biophysical model!), please reach out to me directly. 6/n

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Rikki Garner @rikkigarner.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Excited to announce that the Rikki Garner lab has opened its doors in beautiful Austin, TX! Our interdisciplinary lab @utaustin.bsky.social MBS investigates tissue fluidity as a universal physical regulator of multicellular patterning in health and disease. www.rikkigarnerlab.org 1/n

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Andrew Savinov @biosavinov.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Thrilled to announce that the Savinov lab is now live at UT Austin @utaustin.bsky.social! Our lab employs massively parallel experimental and AI methods to discover and design protein fragments as universal regulators of protein interactions in health and disease. www.savinovlab.com (1/n)

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

New preprint from the lab. We developed the first protein depletion method in Diplonema papillatum!

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Meanwhile amoeba with glycostyles are out there waiting for us… from A. Smirnov (2009) “Amoeba, Lobose” in Eukaryotic Microbes, ed. Moselio Schaechter. ISBN: 9780128103661

from Smirnov et al 2009. Electron micrographs of amoeba cell surfaces.

Figure 5 Variety of cell surface structures in amoeba. (a) Amorphous glycocalyx of Thecamoeba; (b) filamentous cell something of Amoeba proteus; (c) fine filaments in the glycocalyx of Polychaos annulatum; (d) cuticle of Mayorella vespertilloides; (e) glycostyles of Paradermamoeba valamo; (f) glycostyles of Vanella (arrowed); (g) cell coat of Pellita catalonica; (h) scales of Koro… nivo. Asterisks mark the cytoplasm of the cell, which is not perfectly fixed in order to achieve the best view of the glycocalyx. Scale bar = 100 nm.

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Very cool! I was talking to a neurobiologist this summer, and I had no idea how many cheap and molecularly specific lectins are available. Apparently it’s pretty routine to do whole lectin panels by IF to look for specific glycosylation types www.glycomatrix.com/collections/...

glycomatrix.com

FITC (Fluorescein) Conjugated Lectins

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Molly Schumer @mollyschumer.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

If anyone looking for a postdoc with fantastic genomics/bioinformatics skills + strong intellect + great energy, please let me know! Preferably West Coast or remote/hybrid options & the candidate is open to a short (1 year) or longer term appointment

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Trends in Genetics @cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

"The Study of Evolvability in Gene Regulatory Networks" by Alger Jorritsma, Aaron Kiggen, Steven Van Belleghem, & Pieter van den Berg FREE till Oct 27th at authors.elsevier.com/a/1nkTMcQbJI...

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Mariana Romeiro Motta @mromeiromotta.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

PhD position available (start 2027) in my group at TUM! We study how mechanical stress controls cell cycle progression and cytoskeletal dynamics in plants, combining cell biology, biochemistry and biophysics. CV + cover letter to mariana.romeiro-motta@tum.de. RTs welcome! #PlantSciJobs

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Katrina Velle @katrinavelle.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Teaching advanced cell bio this morning and including a cautionary note about using AI. So I asked AI to draw a microtubule, thinking it would have subtle but important errors. But wow. I think dissecting everything wrong here could take all semester! Maybe a fun exam question?

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Darcy James Argue @darcyjamesargue.com · 01/09/2026

As the academic year kicks off, I want to highlight an important issue that many folks, including some of my colleagues, are not aware of: the new earnings test imposed by the U.S. Department of Education as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

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Joachim Fuchs @joachimfuchs.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I always find it amazing how much review figures or graphical abstracts change over time and with more understanding of the subject. If one slow-cooks instead of AI-generates figures that is.. 🧪🎨

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Marine Biological Laboratory @mblscience.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Many students come to the Marine Biological Laboratory for a course, and often, they find their way back. That was the case for John Spear, who took the Microbial Diversity course in 1998 and now returns as a course director. 🔗 Read more here: go.mbl.edu/take5-spear

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 24/08/2026

If you just happened to pick this week to start yelling about the importance of academic freedom, I sure hope you did more than watch silently for the past 18 months as the Trump administration assaulted everything from mRNA vaccine research to gender studies to the very idea of having universities.

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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

My uploaded comment on proposed changes to National Science Foundation policy that would preemptively align decision making with OMB's plan to politicize grant making, despite widespread public rejection of this plan.... Still time to comment, last day 8/24: www.regulations.gov/document/NSF...

Comment on NSF-2026-OTR-0001 by Joshua S. Weitz
I am a quantitative biologist whose research focuses on how virus infections transform human and environmental health. I am a prior recipient of a NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship, have led and co-led multiple NSF grants as academic faculty, and have served as an ad hoc reviewer and on multiple review panels for NSF. I am also the co-founder of the Science and Community Impacts Mapping Project (SCIMaP) whose mission is to assess how changes to federal science funding impact research, health, jobs, and economic activity across the United States. I am writing in my personal capacity to recommend that the proposed repackaging of the National Science Foundation ‘Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide’ (PAPPG) into a newly constituted ‘Guidance on Financial Assistance’ (GFA) should be withdrawn in full.

(full comment in image - beyond character limit)

full comment in image (beyond character limit)

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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 23/08/2026

I guess it's kind of hard to view the dismissal of one grublike phrenologist as a major hit to free speech after major American universities have in the past year banned the use of words and eliminated entire departments in the hopes of pleasing the senile president

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amulya.bsky.social @amulya.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

My husband Drew wrote this at breakneck speed while moving cross-country and caring for an 8 month old, bc he felt it was necessary, ethically and politically, to correct the record. If you read Tyler Austin Harper's piece, I hope you'll read this.

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

A huge thank you to Emily, Britannia, and other coauthors, and to @iaincheeseman.bsky.social for initial enthusiasm about Naegleria kinetochores (and help with the antibodies) that set us on this path. Excited to see what comes next! 12/12

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Moving forward, I want to see how sequence variation in Ndc80C may impact higher order properties like oligomerization (cf PMID: 41880487), which could diversify kinetochore mechanics across eukaryotes. Here, Naegleria’s especially divergent Ndc80C and microtubules may be illuminating 11/12

Diagrams of Ndc80 complex structures from human and yeast showing oligomerization patterns, adapted from Niu et al PMID: 42079292. The left diagram is labeled “Homo sapiens” in bold black text, and cryo-EM density microtubules are shown below it, colored in gray, with the microtubule oriented vertically and individual tubulin subunits in a repeating pattern. On top of the microtubule cryoEM density are superimposed structural models of Ndc80 and Nuf2, in a cartoon style with thin black outlines around each structure. Ndc80 is colored in blue, with density from the disordered N-terminal tail shown in purple/pink. Nuf2 is shown in yellow. These colors are indicated with text of the same color at the right. Four Ndc80/Nuf2 dimers are stacked longitudinally along with microtubule, with pink density of the Ndc80 tail interleaved between adjacent dimers. Their long coiled-coils extend down toward the bottom of the image. Black double-sided arrows are shown pointing up-and-down and left-to-right next to the microtubule to indicate orientation: up-and-down arrows are labeld “Longitudinal” and left-to-right arrows are labeled “lateral”. Below this model is gray text that reads “Adapted from Niu Y et al (2026). PMID: 42079292”. On the right is a similar model of Ndc80 oligomerization from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, with similar visual aesthetics: the microtubule cryoEM density is shown in gray, and models of Ndc80 and Nuf2 are shown in blue and yellow, respectively. The Dam1 complex is shown in green, orange, and pink near the bottom of the image, forming a ring around the microtubule. There are three Ndc80/Nuf2 dimers arranged laterally on the microtubule, spaced out more than the longitudinal array of human Ndc80/Nuf2 dimers. Pink density corresponding to the Dam1 C-terminus is associated with each Ndc80/Nuf2 dimer. A red circle highlights the Dam1 N-terminus above and the Dam1 C-terminus below, both marked with purple text. Black text at the bottom reads “Dam1 complex”.

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

In this way the biophysical requirement for bulk electrostatic interaction may widen the allowable sequence space for Ndc80C, facilitating its evolution. We think this is a powerful way to understand how the kinetochore is able to vary so substantially while conserving function 10/12

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

What does this mean? We think this suggests a link between kinetochore mechanics and evolution. Ndc80C needs to grip microtubules tightly while still following their dynamic tips. This is facilitated by bulk electrostatic interactions, which can be made by many possible Ndc80C sequences 9/12

Diagram of the kinetochore interacting with a microtubule, adapted from a publication (Torvi et al. PMID: 35791811). The kinetochore is at the left, and consists of many colored blobs corresponding to different complexes. At the right-hand side is a set of elongated, rod-like red blobs which correspond to the Ndc80 complex (marked with text). These elongated red blobs touch the microtubule, which is made of alternating light- and dark-gray spheres arranged in a cylindrical pattern. Dashed arrows on either side of the Ndc80 complex indicate dynamic motion of this complex on the microtubule, while a large blue arrow pointing right at the top of the picture indicates the net direction in which kinetochores will be displaced through harnessing microtubule depolymerization to generate force. Gray text at the bottom left says “Adapted from Torvi JR et al. (2022). PMID: 35791811”.

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

This suggests that Ndc80C-microtubule interactions are constrained not by residue-specific interactions, but by bulk electrostatics. Zooming out, we saw lots of variability in charged residue positioning outside of the yeast-human lineage, even in species with conserved microtubules. 8/12

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Looking more closely at the microtubule binding region, we found enriched positively charged residues, which we know are important for human Ndc80C to bind to negatively charged microtubules. BUT the arrangement of these charges varied between human and Naegleria. 7/12

Renderings from ChimeraX software of the electrostatic surface charge of the CH domains of Ndc80/Nuf2 dimers from human (left) and Naegleria (right). These surface maps appear as blobs with protrusions for different surface residues in these structures. On these surface maps the electrostatic potential has been calculated, and is displayed from blue to red. Most of the maps are white, but there are patches of red and blue, with a number of blue patches on the surface facing the viewer. Both predicted structures have many blue patches, but the positions of the blue patches within the overall surface is different for each model. The extra loop in Naegleria Ndc80 is also highlighted with a yellow glow.

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

With AlphaFold we confirmed Naegleria Ndc80C shares major structural hallmarks with human Ndc80C. But there were lots of intriguing differences, including a previously undetected extra loop in the microtubule-binding region that is restricted to Naegleria and close relatives. 6/12

Renderings from ChimeraX software of predicted protein structures for Ndc80 complexes from human and Naegleria. These predictions (from AlphaFold) are colored based on the per-residue confidence in the structural prediction (pLDDT metric) ranging from red (low confidence) to dark blue (high confidence); a rectangular scale is included in the diagram. The predicted models are both long coiled-coil proteins that extend from left to right, with globular protein domains on either side of each prediction. Naegleria Ndc80C is shown above human. Gray dashed lines outline a box around the CH domains of each Ndc80 complex, which are shown at higher magnification in two panels at the bottom of the image. These insets show that the Naegleria Ndc80 complex has an additional loop within the CH domain that is highlighted using a yellow shading and the word “loop” with an arrow pointing to it.

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

What else is in the kinetochore? Using RNA-Seq of dividing cells to find upregulated kinetochore genes, we found a strikingly minimal kinetochore “parts list” lacking major kinetochore modules. BUT we found homologs of the Ndc80 complex, a key microtubule binding complex. 5/12

Two schematic diagrams of kinetochore components, used to indicate the kinetochore repertoire of Naegleria gruberi. The left hand diagram consists of a series of rounded boxes with the names of kinetochore components in each box. The boxes are grouped so as to reflect the biochemical associations between components (as determined in animal and yeast). Boxes near the bottom reflect inner kinetochore components that associate with the centromere (e.g. CENP-A) and boxes near the top of the diagram are from components that interact with microtubules (outer kinetochore). The boxes are shaded different shades of yellow based on whether homologs were identified by sequence similarity in the Naegleria genome. Dark yellow (5 boxes) indicates components that were newly identified in this preprint, and light yellow boxes indicate components that were previously identified. Components without a detected homolog in Naegleria are left white with gray text. In the second diagram on the right, the same set of boxes is re-colored based on whether each detected homolog is upregulated in mitosis (dark blue), constitutively expressed (light blue), downregulated in mitosis (dark gray) or not expressed (light gray). Boxes for components that were not found in the genome are white with no text.

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

But we know almost nothing about Naegleria kinetochores! We set out to fix that. Brittania Moodie developed custom antibodies against Naegleria kinetochore components (CENP-A and CENP-C). An amazing postbac Emily Larkin used these Abs to get the first glimpse of Naegleria kinetochores. 4/12

Fluorescence images of Naegleria nuclei immunostained with antibodies against tubulin, kinetochore component CENP-A, and with DAPI dye to stain DNA. A grid of images is shown, with each row showing a different stain in grayscale, and in the lowest row the images are merged together in color. Each column in the grid indicates a different stage of mitosis: interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase. The CENP-A immunostain shows up as many dots that appear in the same area as DNA and as spindle microtubules.

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

To address this, we turned to Naegleria, an amoeba with highly divergent tubulins. We previously found that these tubulins likely diverged due to their exclusive use in mitosis, making this a great system to trace microtubule influence on kinetochore evolution. 3/12 bsky.app/profile/aske...

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

The kinetochore links chromosomes to spindle microtubules. Different species use very different mechanisms for kinetochores to bind to highly conserved microtubules. How can such asymmetric variation arise, and would kinetochore evolution be different if microtubules were more variable? 2/12

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Andrew Kennard @askennard.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

The kinetochore is essential for cell division across species, but its components and organization evolve dramatically. How can that be? Our first foray into this fascinating question is up now on biorxiv: 🧪 1/12 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

Kinetochore diversification in Naegleria reveals plasticity in the kinetochore-microtubule interface

The kinetochore--the molecular machine that couples chromosomes to spindle microtubules--performs an essential, tightly regulated function, yet varies dramatically across eukaryotes. Microtubules are ...

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Isabella Backman @izzybackman.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

For @science.org , I wrote about brain-eating amoeba 🦠 and fascinating new research led by @katrinavelle.bsky.social which could help explain how the usually harmless pond-dweller ends up in the brain. www.science.org/content/arti...

science.org

‘Brain-eating amoeba’ appears to love crawling into narrow spaces

Claustrophilic behavior may help Naegleria fowleri find food—and accidentally travel up the human nasal cavity

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Sue Biggins @suebiggins.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Junior faculty position in Basic Sciences @fredhutch.org! Please repost!

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