iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Steven Boeynaems

Iva Tolić @ivatolic.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Very happy to see our work highlighted by @natcellbio.nature.com. A great team effort and a fascinating example of how a simple physical principle can connect mitosis across eukaryotes! @lgudlin.bsky.social, @krunovuk.bsky.social, @kopslab.bsky.social

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WALIIAnhydro @waliianhydro.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Invited Speaker Dr. Olivia Carmo will be giving a talk on “Unfurling Mechanisms of Desiccation Tolerance: An Ultrastructural Perspective” at the 2nd virtual WALII Symposium. Register to hear the talk & submit an abstract to present: walii.science/2nd-virtual-...

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H. B. Beryl Rappaport @hbrappap.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Our description of fire amoeba, 𝘐𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘦𝘣𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴, is now online at Cell! Thanks @oliverio.bsky.social and amazing team for questioning the limits of eukaryotes! 🔥 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

cell.com

A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes

The amoeba Incendiamoeba cascadensis demonstrates that eukaryotic life can withstand temperatures beyond what was thought possible and sheds light on molecular strategies for survival in extreme heat.

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Anita Donlic @anitadonlic.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

🎉 I'm thrilled to announce that the Ðonlić Lab has officially opened this month in the BMB department @wusm-bmb.bsky.social at @washumedicine.bsky.social! The lab will study how condensates shape RNA interactions, therapeutic activity, and disease progression. And - we're hiring! 👇

donliclab.com

Đonlić Lab

Decoding cellular biochemistry from microscopy: chemical tools, RNA biophysics, and machine learning in condensates.

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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 13/09/2026

Ten years ago Tami, Roy, and I released a movie we made of antibiotic resistance evolving in real time. I thought maybe a couple thousand people tops would see it. I couldn't have imagined it would be seen millions of times, and be taught from middle school through the graduate level worldwide

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Nicholas M Tran @nmtranlab.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Our lab is recruiting! If you are interested in learning about retinal ganglion cell resilience and regeneration please see the Research Assistant I position listing below. We are looking for a candidate with experience in either mouse research or stem cell culture. jobs.bcm.edu/job/Research...

jobs.bcm.edu

Research Assistant I - Molecular & Human Genetics

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WALIIAnhydro @waliianhydro.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Meet the speakers of the 2nd Annual WALII Symposium: Exploring Life Without Water, happening Thursday, Nov 12! 💧 To Learn More and Register for the Symposium: walii.science/2nd-virtual-...

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Delarue Research @delarueresearch.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Our collaborative paper, with Daria Bonazzi and @dumenillab.bsky.social is finally out in Nat Comms! Using microfluidic confiners, amazing Laure Leblanc found that confined growth of E. coli uncouples growth and division, as well as pressure and biomass production. tinyurl.com/4zdwrp39

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Our lab has been running on the same machine. Best investment I made

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Josh Riback @superscijew.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

New #RibackLab preprint! The nucleolus's biophysical properties aren't fixed—they're tuned to energy availability. Under nutrient limitation, nucleoli hibernate: stronger interactions, slower rRNA transport, rapid reversal upon refeeding. Led by incredible postdoc @evdokiiap.bsky.social 🧵👇

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Let us know your thoughts and stay tuned for some other work that follows up on this story (including the 3 year-old preprint on polycation poisoning that is being revised by Sophie and @remenecker.bsky.social). 14/14

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

This work took a village. Big shout out to all trainees in the lab, our mentors, colleagues and collaborators. Thanks to ADG for letting me embark on this quest when still in his lab. Thanks to Huda Zoghbi and Brendan Lee for creating an environment where basic research is celebrated. 13/n

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

But infectious protists are different. They require LDL as their main food source. We find that LDL promotes the toxicity of these peptides to brain-eating amoeba! Thus, maybe LDL-bound killer peptides act as a booby trap, allowing us to weaponize the main food source of invading pathogens. 12/n

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

But is any of this relevant for biology? In human plasma, antimicrobial peptides are natively bound by LDL. How does this affect their function? LDL prevents these peptides from killing bacteria as they act as a sink. Not good when 1/4 of US citizens have hyperlipidemia. 11/n

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

In the end, we find strong evidence that these peptides bind to the surface of lipoproteins and then hitchhike into the cell. All peptides we tested were able to do so. We even used cryo-ET and a trick from click chemistry to see single peptides bind LDL. 10/n

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

This proved much more difficult than anticipated, with countless setbacks and us even considering halting the project all together just over a year ago. We were so focused on these peptides hijacking the receptor that we forgot about who normally binds these receptors: lipoproteins. 9/n

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Six years ago, when still in the Gitler lab, I had teamed up with Adam Briner, Garam Kim, Jacob Blum to perform a CRISPRi screen to identify modulators of venom peptide uptake. The top endocytic receptor hit: LDLR. Since starting my own lab, Sophie tried to figure out the mechanism. 8/n

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

So, what is the receptor? Heparin and glycoRNAs have been shown to modulate peptide uptake, but they are not canonical receptors that initiate endocytosis. Rather they are membrane tethers that anchor the peptides and promote them finding a receptor or let them sneak into a budding endosome. 7/n

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

We tested this using 4i multiplex imaging, where we could stain and analyze tens of thousands of endolysosomal vesicles for 26 markers. This took Sophie and Temi almost two years to set up in the lab, with rigorous controls and computational pipelines, but the wait was totally worth it. 6/n

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

We move on to show that they traffic through the endolysosomal cascade and escape the lysosomes to then target the nucleus where they kill cells. Thus, this entry route is functionally relevant, not a dead end towards lysosomal degradation! 5/n

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

We took peptides from 17 animal species, tested them in 15 human cell types and organoids, and in an additional 5 species. We tested them at physiological concentrations and in their physiological contexts (i.e., spider venom in flies, rattlesnake in mice, etc.). They were endocytosed each time! 4/n

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Two mechanisms have been suggested: passive tunneling or endocytosis. There has been an intense debate over which is the predominant mechanism, with often conflicting reports on the same peptide in the same cell type. How can we address this? 3/n

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Cationic killer peptides are everywhere; they are in venoms, innate immune defense systems and repeat expansion disorders (e.g., C9 ALS/FTD). Since the late eighties we know that such peptides spontaneously enter cells AKA cell penetrating. But why? 2/n

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

First preprint from the lab spearheaded by our first grad student @sovannytaylor.bsky.social! We discovered "lipoprotein hitchhiking" as a novel cell penetrance mechanism of killer peptides that has convergently arisen across 600 million years of animal and in human disease. 1/n

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WALIIAnhydro @waliianhydro.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Save the Date! The 2nd Annual WALII Symposium is happening on November 12, 2026! Join us to hear from these four outstanding invited speakers! More details coming soon! #WALIISymposium #Science #LifeWithoutWater #DesiccationTolerance

Four symposium speakers’ portraits with names, affiliations, event date (Nov 12, 2026), and times for the 2nd WALII Symposium are shown against a desert background.

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Jerelle Joseph @jerelleaj.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Out now in #PRXLife “Roadmap for Condensates in Cell Biology” journals.aps.org/prxlife/abst... From our amazing discussions at #KITP last summer!

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Böke Lab @bokelab.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

What does an ovary actually look like as it ages—one oocyte at a time? We mapped >85,000 oocytes in >100 intact mouse ovaries, in 3D, across the reproductive lifespan. And the ovary turned out to be much more organized than we expected. 🧵 1/5 www.nature.com/articles/s43...

nature.com

Three-dimensional mapping of intact ovaries reveals the aging dynamics of the ovarian reserve - Nature Aging

The spatiotemporal dynamics of the depletion of the ovarian reserve remain incompletely understood. Combining whole-ovary imaging, AI and modeling, the authors mapped over 85,000 mouse oocytes and fou...

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Reposted by Steven Boeynaems

Ali Shaib @alishaib.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Exciting new preprint from Ignacio Vega Vásquez, Sauer lab, my team and collaborators: #Mega-ExM. From just ~20 NPCs imaged with a 10× objective on a confocal, we reconstructed the 3D structure at ~33 Å. A step toward optical structural biology in intact cells. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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WALIIAnhydro @waliianhydro.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Mark your calendars!! We are excited to announce the date for this year's WALII Virtual Symposium on November 12, 2026! More details will be shared soon!

A 'Save the Date' graphic for the 2nd annual WALII Symposium. The text is on a brown square background over an image or dry, cracked mud and water.

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André Nadler @nadlerlab.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Lipids build the membranes of all cells, but identifying their precise functions is extremely challenging. Here’s our attempt to change that: How to find and understand lipid-protein interactions, by Katelyn Cook & company. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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D. Allan Drummond @dadrummond.art · 29/07/2026

Got the news today that I've been promoted to Full Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at The University of Chicago. A tremendous honor, one made possible by an incredible group of trainees who I've had the pleasure of working with over the past twenty years. Best is yet to come! 🤓🔬

My bronze sculpture of a budding yeast cell, cutaway to show all the organelles and internal structures, in my open hand against a white background. My research group studies budding yeast and human cells to understand the molecular basis for how cells sense and respond to sudden changes in their environment. Now back to our regularly scheduled bug and sculpture posting!

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Christine Mayr @christinemayr.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Jim Shorter and his postdoc Miriam wrote a beautiful preview about our most recent paper on mRNAs preventing misfolding of IDR-containing proteins. UTR-ly unexpected: RNA chaperones tame intrinsically disordered proteins: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

cell.com

UTR-ly unexpected: RNA chaperones tame intrinsically disordered proteins

How do cells ensure that complex, multidomain proteins fold correctly? Luo et al. reveal a self-contained solution. The 3′UTR of an mRNA co-translationally chaperones the protein it encodes, preventin...

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Steven Boeynaems @boeynaemssteven.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Such beautiful work. Just worth it for the discussion section alone, which is thought-provoking, forward-looking and Linnaeus-quoting.

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Mikko Taipale @miketilapia.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Our evil ORFeome paper is out! In collaboration with @alex-stark.bsky.social, we screened ~4,000 viral proteins and secreted effectors from bacteria and parasites, covering hundreds of diverse pathogens, for phenotypes in human cells.

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Scott Coyle @cellraiser.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

@zjmaggiexu.bsky.social's story on suctorian trap structure adaptation is now online in @currentbiology.bsky.social , with new evolutionary analyses and modeling! This fall, Maggie will keep exploring predatory protists as a PD in @nbellono.bsky.social group; keep an eye out for her she's amazing!

sciencedirect.com

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Martin Jonikas @mjonikas.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

The algal pyrenoid fixes ~1/3 of global carbon, relying on a unique membrane-within-condensate architecture. How is this architecture built? We discovered that the protein MITH1 draws membranes into the pyrenoid condensate by promoting wetting! 🌿💧 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Anita Donlic @anitadonlic.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Thrilled to see our Deep-Phase paper now online in @cellcellpress.bsky.social! 🎉 The final version expands Deep-Phase across labeling modalities, adds dual-condensate imaging to dissect pathway specificity, and shows greater robustness to batch effects than classical image-analysis methods.

cell.com

Deep learning of functional perturbations from condensate morphology

A deep learning method quantitatively decodes nucleolar, nuclear speckle, and viral condensate morphology to reveal underlying biochemical states. Applying this framework reveals a previously unrecogn...

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Kevin Guttenplan @kevinguttenplan.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

We're moving to Boston! Excited to share that I'm starting my own lab in the Neurobiology Department at Harvard Medical School in 2027!

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Kara Marshall @karalmarshall.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Excited to share a new preprint, led by @yasmeen-hamed.bsky.social! It describes a mechanism and potential therapeutic avenue for treating the aging bladder! Thanks to the amazing collab from the Beyder lab, as well as @valeriavasquez.bsky.social, Lichtarge labs! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

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Guo-Teng @gtleung.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Four years of New-Bee, and every year the new faces still get me. New wonder, new questions, new sparks. We keep going. 🐝 Sincere thanks again to @rsb.org.uk — proud to have secured this year's Regional Events Grant on behalf of our committee.

A slide says welcome to New-Bee neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine’s Cullen Auditorium

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Tera Levin @teralevin.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Bacterial immune proteins have repeatedly evolved to become parts of eukaryotic immunity. But how? Our new preprint uncovers a recent horizontal transfer event & shows how eukaryotes co-opted a toxic bacterial immune protein 🦠🧪🧵 1/

Microscopy image showing yeast cells expressing a fluorescently tagged version of the amoeba TirC protein. TirC forms filaments that span the yeast cells.

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Helena Watson @helenawatson.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Preprint 🧵! I’m really excited to introduce BIGSMALL, an interleaved multi-magnification cryo-ET scheme bridging molecular and cellular scales in a single acquisition! BIGSMALL = 𝐁road 𝐈nformation 𝐆athering 𝐒trategy by 𝐌ultiscale 𝐀cquisition of lame𝐋𝐋a www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... (1/6)

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Furqan Fazal @furqanmfazal.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Excited to share our @natprot.nature.com paper on using RNA proximity labeling to map subcellular RNA transcriptomes. We’ve been working in this area for a while and wanted to create a resource paper to guide the uninitiated reader. rdcu.be/fblvI

rdcu.be

APEX-seq maps transcriptome-wide subcellular RNA localization in living cells

Nature Protocols - This Protocol describes the transcriptome-wide labeling of RNAs in a particular subcellular compartment using proximity biotinylation by localized APEX2 enzyme and subsequent...

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Shyamal @shyamalm.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Excited to share this collaborative work with Ward and Petrucelli Labs! We show that two major genetic risk factors for #neurodegeneration and cognitive decline converge on TMEM106B fibrils accumulating within lysosomes. A LOT of work packed in here 🧠🔬 Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Moi Expósito-Alonso (MOILAB) @mexpositoalonso.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Our new experimental evolution study across 30+ locations using the plant Arabidopsis thaliana —— we direct "see" adaptation and extinction to different climates at the genetic as it happens! Read it in Science dx.doi.org/10.1126/scie... @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social @hhmi-science.bsky.social

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Carter Lab @carter-lab.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Excited to share our work on the structure and function of cytoplasmic lattices within mouse embryos. A collaborative effort with @niakanlab.bsky.social and work led by @kashishsingh.bsky.social and @inaharasimov.bsky.social . It is now out on BioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Simon Bullock @simonbullock11.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Delighted to announce the posting of our latest preprint, which links stress-induced relocalisation of multiple organelles by dynein to adaptive changes in gene expression in the nucleus (1/n) 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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