iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

GERG @gerg77.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Let's see some media coverage for the heroic... Miscellaneous agriculture workers

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Reposted by GERG

Nat Clarke @natclarke.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

🚨 My lab is hiring at all levels! Interested in animal origins & evolutionary cell biology? I'm recruiting a postdoc, PhD students & a research assistant to study the molecular evolution of cell adhesion using marine invertebrates + comparative genomics. 🔗: clarkelab.com/join/ Please repost!

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GERG @gerg77.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

QOTSA Boston night two was WILD #QOTSA #boston

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GERG @gerg77.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Honestly the only reason I noticed was I went to tweak my seat height! Never used anything other than a torque wrench either 😔

GERG @gerg77.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Well that's not great 💀

GERG @gerg77.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Honestly jealous of Ashley's new Seigla 🤩 #gravelbike #lauf

GERG @gerg77.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

This guy was collecting tolls on the morning ride #gravelbike #biking #massachusetts #boston

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GERG @gerg77.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Shieeet. Well hopefully tweaking contact points can get you out there shredding

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GERG @gerg77.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Biggest tires you can, tubeless at lowish pressure. Made a huge difference for me (herniated disc + sciatica)

Huge thanks to co-authors Hayley Knox @basicchemist.bsky.social & Brian Cho, mentors Barbara Imperiali & Karen Allen, and everyone who made this possible! Still amazed this worked so well. Check out the full preprint and let me know what you think! #StructuralBiology #YeastDisplay #Science

Why should you care? This enables: 🔬 CryoEM of challenging membrane proteins 💊 Better membrane protein therapeutics 🧪 Fluorescent probes for cell biology 📊 Structure-based drug design All without detergent artifacts!

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We also demonstrated our nanobodies could be functionalized via sortase mediated ligation, allowing for the design of bespoke molecular probes!

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We validated binding through multiple methods: - Biolayer interferometry - Size exclusion chromatography - Native SMA-PAGE The Nb-protein complexes remained stable even through SEC - perfect for structural studies! 💪

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What makes this special? ✅ Proteins stay in native-like lipid environment ✅ Works with picomole amounts of protein ✅ No fluorescent labeling artifacts ✅ Produces stable, high-affinity binders

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But here's the real beauty - the binding curves! Our selected nanobodies show high affinity binding with KD values from 15-200 nM. 🎯

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The magic happens during selection! Look at this beautiful enrichment of WbaP binders over successive rounds: From 0.7% → 18% positive binders! Even protein concentrations as low as 100 nM

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First, we proved the purification method is generalizable. We successfully purified 5 different bacterial membrane proteins in SMALPs: - Different sizes (26-94 kDa) - Various topologies - Different oligomeric states All worked! 💪

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Here's our selection strategy! We use the same dual-Strep tag for both purification AND magnetic bead capture. No protein modification needed! The workflow: Negative sorts → Positive selection → Amplify → Repeat 🔄

A workflow for selecting binders against membrane proteins in liponanoparticles

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The challenge: Traditional nanobody selection requires either llama immunization 🦙 or detergent-solubilized proteins. But detergents can distort membrane protein structure! Our solution? Keep proteins in polymer-stabilized liponanoparticles (SMALPs) throughout selection

GERG @gerg77.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Huh, I thought they were out of iceland?

GERG @gerg77.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Got it for an absolute steal when GT announced the "production pause". Its such a fun ride!