iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Bronte Johnstone

Helen MC @crystallised-cricket.com · 16/08/2026

The #BraggYourPattern project was done very proud at #IUCr2026 by @rosieyoung.bsky.social’s presentation. I got a bit emotional to see all that this group has done over 5 years now! (Picture taken with permission from the speaker)

Image of a women dressed in black with a conference lanyard presenting to an audience on the Bragg Your Pattern project

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

I am extremely excited for the next five years of research to come! 🎉

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

A particularly special thank you goes to my supervisor A/Prof Debnath Ghosal. I am immensely grateful for his support, including encouragement to apply for this fellowship, thoughtful feedback on my application, and continued support and guidance as I begin this exciting next chapter of my career.

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Whether you have contributed over minutes, months, or years, each of you have helped shape my journey to enable the fortunate position I find myself in today.

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

This achievement would never have been possible without the generosity, encouragement, and guidance of so many individuals throughout my research career. I am incredibly grateful to all of my supervisors, mentors, colleagues and collaborators for their support along the way.

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Using a multiscale structural biology approach including cryo-ET and cryo-EM, I hope to uncover insights that will help address the current lack of vaccines or effective treatments against this virus, which can lead to serious complications such as leukaemia and myelopathy.

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

This funding will provide crucial support at a pivotal stage of my career to pursue my research investigating the structural mechanisms of how the human retrovirus HTLV-1, which is highly endemic in Indigenous Australian communities, enters and subsequently spreads throughout our cells.

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

I am delighted and incredibly grateful to share that I have been awarded a NHMRC Emerging Leadership (EL1) Investigator Grant!

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Reposted by Bronte Johnstone

Bragg Your Pattern @braggyourpattern.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

We've raced past 500 schools and now well over 650! Look how spread out those locations are. We're really happy that our Crystal Explorer Kits are reaching remote primary schools all over. #BraggYourPattern

A map of Australia and New Zealand with pins indicating the location of a primary school that have received a Crystal Explorer Kit.

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

And what a fun, rewarding crew to be part of! 😄

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Very humbled to hear such kind words from others in my research community ☺️. I feel lucky to be part of such a supportive community and be able to contribute towards that supportive and collaborative culture myself!

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

As a big fan and sometimes baker of science-themed cakes, this is amazing Rosie! 😍 Perfect way to honour an exciting Nobel Prize!

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Reposted by Bronte Johnstone

CCeMMP Outreach @ccemmp-outreach.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

Seminar time⏲️ We welcome Professor Dimitrios Fotiadis, IBMM, Medical Faculty, University of Bern: “Structural and mechanistic insights into transmembrane glucose transport and light-driven proton pumping” 🥳More info: ccemmp.org/events/ccemm...

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Reposted by Bronte Johnstone

Sepideh Valimehr @sepidehv.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

Join our Cryo-ET workshop and learn sample preparation, grid screening and data collection. 📍Ian Holmes Imaging Centre 🗓️9th-10th September 2025 🔗Register now: rduevents.unimelb.edu.au/event/2271-c... #CryoET #ElectronMicroscopy #StructuralBiology #CCeMMP

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Reposted by Bronte Johnstone

Bragg Your Pattern @braggyourpattern.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Many in the #Crystallography community will remember this (and may have helped put part of it together). Our record breaking diamond structure built at the 2023 IUCr congress in Melbourne [Photo credit Jun Aishima]

An image of a large diamond crystal structure model with a large sign on the top of it

A group of people sat around the giant diamond structure

detail of someone putting together the giant diamond structure

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Cryo-EM was conducted at Ian Holmes Imaging Centre at, with data collected by Hamish Brown, with contributions from @bio21director.bsky.social , @bigfrenchman.bsky.social , Michelle Christie, Riya Joesph, Craig Morton and Rod Tweten and team. #cryoEM

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

This work was part of my PhD at UniMelb and was my first foray into cryo-EM! Admittedly, learning the various steps of cryo-EM on proteoliposome samples felt like jumping in the deep end so I am very happy and proud for all to see how it worked out.

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

These structures reveal how multiple regulatory features, such as proteolytic activation, ensure pore formation. Furthermore, we find features that are not common to the related CDC family of pore-forming toxins. Instead, CDCLs seem show features that straddle the CDC, MACPF and gasdermin families.

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

This includes the crystal structure of the proteolytically-activated form and cryo-EM structures of the inserted pore and prepore-like complex, solved on the surface of liposomes.

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Excited to share that our work on a family of pore-forming proteins is now live in Science Advances! We show structural snapshots across the entire pore-forming pathway for a cholesterol-dependent cytolysin-like (CDCL) bicomponent system.

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Bronte Johnstone @bjohnstone.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Our paper on the structure and evolution of baculovirus is out! Excited to share work I did at Monash in the Coulibaly lab, with big shout outs to co-authors Josh and Jungmin, collaborators Mart and team and everyone else who contributed. Definitely one of the coolest structures I'll ever work on 🤩

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