iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Kelly Dawe @corncolors.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The UGA Genetics Department is hiring! Please help spread the word. We have an opening for an Associate Professor/Professor in Genetics, Synthetic Biology, and Biological Engineering. See ad for details – and join us here in Athens, GA!

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Snezhka Oliferenko @alebenoit.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

People!!! This workshop will be ACE - please share, please apply!

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bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

H2A.Z-H2B.V nucleosomes form a specialised scaffold for transcription initiation in Trypanosoma brucei www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…

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Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

$3.7 billion spent on APCs in 2025. That's ~1000X more than it costs to run bioRxiv/medRxiv. Worth thinking about as we consider how to fund infrastructure... arxiv.org/pdf/2608.16322

arxiv.org

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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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Laura Ross @laurarossevo.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

My lab @ Edinburgh university is recruiting a postdoc to work on the weird and wonderful germline-specific chromosomes of flies. elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid... collaboration with @germline.bsky.social and yukiko yamashita funded by @novonordisk.bsky.social please repost!

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Absolutely. The first thing I did as a PI was to make inventories for various reagents (cell lines, plasmid, primers, etc etc)

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I still get questions about yeast kinetochore purification methods published in 2009/2010 (I was the first author but not corresponding). Good to hear that people are using the protocol, although I don't know why they do not contact the corresponding author. Anyway I just send my protocol dated 2010

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

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

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I cannot schedule a Zoom meeting any more??? Time to use Teams...

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

New preprint from the lab! One reason why I chose work on trypanosomes is to address this question "How do they determine kinetochore position without a centromeric histone H3 variant, CENP-A/CenH3?" After working on this question for 16 years, we finally got a clue

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kinetoplastids papers @kinetoplastpapers.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Degrade Green Fluorescent Protein (deGradFP) Method in Trypanosoma brucei pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42573699/

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kinetoplastids papers @kinetoplastpapers.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

An Auxin-Inducible Degron System for Trypanosomes pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42573698/

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Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Come be our colleague. I have been in this Division for 27 years (4 as a postdoc and 23 as a PI). It is an amazing place to work, collaborate, and be inspired. If you are applying to be an Assistant or Associate Professor this Fall, don't miss this deadline.

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bioRxiv Cell Biology @biorxiv-cellbio.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

ZATELLITE: a toolkit to visualize and manipulate human centromeres in live cells using synthetic zinc fingers www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Finally back to Edinburgh (is summer gone?). In this trip, I had a chance to talk to various people (scientists and non-scientists). A highlight was to visit a rice farmer. Reminded me of the importance of meeting new people and communications in general

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Aaron Straight @astraight.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

@currentbiology.bsky.social has done it again! What a great interview with one of my favorite scientists www.cell.com/current-biol.... Linda Wordeman @mtwonderland.bsky.social. She taught me everything I know about guinea pigs and a lot about mitosis too!

cell.com

Linda Wordeman

Interview with Linda Wordeman, who studies microtubule dynamics and cell division at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

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Biochemical Society @biochemsoc.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Congratulations to Tom Deegan who receives the Colworth Medal in 2027! Pioneering work from the Deegan Lab has redefined our understanding of eukaryotic DNA replication and provided conceptual and technical frameworks that continue to drive new discoveries across molecular biology.

Dr Tom Deegan from University of Edinburgh awarded The Colworth Medal by The Biochemical Society 2027 Awards.

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Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

I was interviewed by @katiepickup.bsky.social recently for @dmmjournal.bsky.social. This has a little bit of my background, a little bit on science and mentoring, and a little bit (ok, more than a little bit) on funding in science. Check it out at: journals.biologists.com/dmm/article/...

How important do you feel discovery research and ‘basic’ science is for understanding disease?

Well, I have a little bit of a biased view on the topic, since I'm a basic scientist myself. The lab has made more and more discoveries with very strong therapeutic implications, and often people ask me why we are not pursuing these further ourselves. Part of it is that I think about this very much as an ecosystem. People have different skills – I have colleagues who are very good at the application side of things and I have other colleagues, including people in my lab, who are very good at the basic science. There are a lot of very smart people at every stage in the ecosystem and, sometimes, we have to acknowledge that we can't all be experts in every step. A lot of basic science discoveries will end up having profound implications in the clinic – if you don't have the full imagination about how to get it there, that's okay, because you're still a very important piece of the jigsaw puzzle and other people can help. If the basic science discoveries didn't exist, then it's quite possible that the well would run dry. We cannot simply rely on the idea that the therapies currently in clinical trials are going to be enough because we already know that – for diseases, such as cancer, and with rapidly evolving viruses – there needs to be a constant influx of new ideas to stay ahead of the arms race. I'd also make a plug for the fact that, ultimately, we are all interested in human disease, but disease research in humans is not ethical or possible. This is why creating and studying model organisms in a high-throughput, low-investment context is incredibly important. We cannot just say ‘okay, we're going to stop work on anything that is not related to human research’, because – actually – it's all relevant to humans.

Do you think basic science is particularly threatened by cuts to funding?

Science itself is quite uncertain. We do experiments wondering if they will even work. It's discovery, and you don't know where it's going to lead. It could lead to a billion-dollar company, something like mRNA vaccines or CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, or it could simply be something that interests you. Sometimes it might appear esoteric from the outside, but there are very smart people dedicated to this work. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that most of this work is paid for by taxpayers, but funding uncertainty creates a very unstable foundation. If the foundations are weak, people are going to get much more conservative about the science that they're doing and worry that ‘blue-skies research’ is not worth pursuing because it won't get funded. And that would be a mistake because all innovation in science really originates from blue-skies, basic research. The second thing that uncertainty does is send a message to our young trainees – who are our future – that this is not a career option that will provide professional and personal stability. I worry that this kind of uncertainty will mean we lose an entire generation of people, and that would be a loss we might not be able to overcome.

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André Schneider, University of Bern @schneian.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

🆕T. brucei Kozak sequences are unusual, hard to detect, but important for translation regulation - Check out the work conceived💡, carried out🔬and written up ✍️ by Philip Stettler, with only a minor contributions from me and the Polacek group - CONGRATULATIONS🎉👏 academic.oup.com/nar/article-...

academic.oup.com

Kozak sequences regulate gene expression in Trypanosoma brucei

Abstract. The Kozak consensus sequence around the AUG start codon of mRNAs allows efficient cytosolic translation initiation in eukaryotes. It has not yet

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Dr Joanne Power @hanniepower.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Thank you so much to everyone who made it to #BSP2026 in beautiful, sunny Glasgow!!! (We asked the weather to behave while everyone was around)! The @bspparasitology.bsky.social 2027 meeting will be in Cardiff! I hope everyone enjoyed themselves! Like Glasgow, People Make #Parasitology! 🥳🧬🧫🔬

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Ryuji Yanase @ryanase.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I have officially started my new position as a Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) 🇯🇵. My new research group will focus on the cell/molecular biology of parasitic Excavata & amoebae (incl. Trypanosoma, Naegleria, Acanthamoeba, & more) (1/3)

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Helen Price @helenpprice.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Our Spring meeting starts today in Glasgow! All the best to all those presenting @bspparasitology.bsky.social

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

New preprint! We identified many components that localize to the structure involved in "eating" in a marine organism. #ProtistOnSky #diplonemid www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

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bioRxiv Cell Biology @biorxiv-cellbio.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Identification of feeding apparatus components in a heterotrophic marine flagellate www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…

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Oded Rechavi @odedrechavi.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Do we grow wiser as we age? I spent 15+ years chasing glam journals, wasting time and energy (and frustrating my team and co-authors). I don’t want to wake up at 70 and realize my life went into convincing a few editors my work was trendy enough. Enough. I’ll try to be smarter.

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Waiting for a PDF-to-PDF conversion to finish

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Rob Klose @robklose.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

We are excited to be recruiting into 3 Associate Professorship's in @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social. Come join us as a colleague and benefit from our vibrant and multidisciplinary environment. Reach out to me if you have any questions. Please repost! (tinyurl.com/48deybuu) (tinyurl.com/4pdvjaft).

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Andrew Roger @andrewjroger.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Before he passed away in 2021, Tom Cavalier-Smith had drafted parts of his autobiography. It's now 'published' because Gáspár Jékely put a lot of effort in! Please enjoy and share: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

doi.org

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Edward Wallace @ewjwallace.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

I am learning a lot from this debate about the last eukaryotic common ancestor. It's thought-provoking to have competing hypotheses and perspectives argued out there in the open. Here, the two arguments are internally consistent, yet different conclusions... so where's the wrong assumption?

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

What I have been arguing is that without knowing the root position, one cannot conclude that Euglenozoa (or any group) are monophyletic. You make an assumption that the root is not within Euglenozoa when you say Euglenozoa are monophyletic.

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kinetoplastids papers @kinetoplastpapers.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Trypanosome histone variants H3.V and H4.V promote nucleosome plasticity in repressed chromatin pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41709455/

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Andrea Musacchio @andrea-musacchio.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

If I claimed this liquid-to-solid phase transition assay on a pure protein in vitro predicts the same transition to happen in cells, what counterarguments would you raise? Would the same counterarguments apply to a liquid-to-liquid phase transition assay on the same pure protein in vitro?

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Armando Rubio Ramos @bioarm.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Hey Bungo. I don't know if you figure it out but look at this one. From this paper: shorturl.at/Og2tn They identify this blue light receptor only in one the posterior flagelum!

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Michael Way @drmichaelway.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Closing date is 19th Feb so why not go for it to enjoy the rain in London!

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

I understand that using bacterial-origin genes clearly is clearly less prone to LBA. However, I am doubting the approach itself as I detailed in the paper.

A paragraph from the paper. https://journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/139/3/jcs264522/370688/Euglenozoa-are-paraphyletic-if-the-eukaryotic-root

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

I am fully aware of that. Yet, I do not consider it problematic because (with respect) I do not feel that the current protein-sequence-based phylogenetic approaches can solve the root position. In my paper, I wrote my reasonings including my criticism on your Williamson 2025 Nature paper.

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Our views are totally different. I think my approach is more valid, and you think your approach is better. A critical issue I have with those phylogenetic papers is that they all say their root is fully supported by their statistical analysis, yet reaching different conclusions. What can I trust?

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Journal of Cell Biology @jcb.org · 13/02/2026

#InMemoriam: Dr. Robert Bruce Nicklas, who spent over 50 years unraveling the mysteries of how #chromosomes move during #CellDivision, died on February 19, 2025, at the age of 92. Leocadia Paliulis commemorates his life and work. rupress.org/jcb/article/...

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

I appreciate the comments by Max Raas, Eelco Tromer and others on my paper published last year "Hypothesis that ancestral eukaryotes sexually proliferated without kinetochores or mitosis". However, I do not think their critiques can reject my hypothesis. For details, please read the paper. 1/n

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bioRxiv Cell Biology @biorxiv-cellbio.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Restoring Shugoshin 1 reduces chromosome errors in human eggs www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…

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Bungo Akiyoshi @bungoakiyoshi.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

The discovery of the first kinetochore proteins (CENP-A, CENP-B, CENP-C) was reported by Bill Earnshaw and Naomi Rothfield in 1985 in Chromosoma. Forty years later, Chromosoma/Chromosome Research has published a special issue (most articles are open access) link.springer.com/collections/...

link.springer.com

40 years of CENP-A

In 1985, Earnshaw and Rothfield published in Chromosoma a landmark discovery of the centromere-specific protein CENP-A. Subsequent research has shown that ...

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