iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Always grateful to be back in Woods Hole and at MBL—a very special place to do science and spend time by the sea. 🌊🌈 4/4

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The consortium was also about community: BBQs, sushi nights, and plenty of time together outside the lab 🍣🔥. Huge thanks to the Isenberg family for supporting the consortium, both this year and over the years. 3/4

We set up a shared lab in the Lillie Laboratory at @mblscience.bsky.social, where working side by side made it easy to move between discussions, troubleshooting, and experiments. 🔬💬 2/4

Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

That’s a wrap on this year’s Chromatin Consortium in Woods Hole! 🧬 The @danielgerlich.bsky.social , @rcollepardo.bsky.social , @vram142.bsky.social, Gibson, and Rosen labs came together to exchange ideas, run experiments, and explore chromatin organisation from different angles. 1/4

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Last month’s Lab Retreat at Gustav Ammerer’s castle 🏰🌿 Hiking, cooking together, personality tests, TED-style talks, and a very intense round of Blood on the Clocktower. A lovely few days of science, reflection, games, food, and getting to know the lab beyond work and the bench.

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Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Congratulations again, Max! 🎉 We’re so proud of you and grateful to have had you in the lab. Wishing you all the best for the exciting next chapter! 👏

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Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Takuya, Mustafa @mualaabo.bsky.social, and Dmitry @dmitrymyl.bsky.social also presented their projects during the poster session. Great to see the lab so well represented and to have many inspiring discussions throughout the meeting. 👏 3/3

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Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Daniel @danielgerlich.bsky.social presented Caelan’s work in a talk titled “An electrostatic repulsion model of centromere organization,” highlighting how electrostatic repulsion helps position centromeres at the chromosome surface during mitosis. 2/3

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Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

The Gerlich lab recently attended the International Symposium on Chromosome Dynamics: from Structure to Cellular Function in Awaji, Japan 🇯🇵 A really nice chance to share our work, exchange ideas, and catch up with the chromosome dynamics community. 1/3

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Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

A very well-deserved pop for a big milestone 🥂🎉

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Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Max’s work showed that histone tail deacetylation drives chromatin compaction during apoptosis, helping prevent DNA release into apoptotic extracellular vesicles. This work was also a collaboration with @rcollepardo.bsky.social and the Rosen labs. More in our thread here: 2/2

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Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Congratulations to Max @mfdspicer.bsky.social on completing his PhD! 🎉 Yesterday, he successfully defended his thesis, “Electrostatic control of apoptotic chromatin compaction.” The lab is very proud of you, Max! 👏 1/2

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Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Welcome to the Gerlich Lab, Valerio! 🎉 We’re excited to have you on board and look forward to the great science ahead together. 🧬

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This work was a joint effort from the Gerlich and Goloborodko labs at @imbavienna.bsky.social. Funded by ERC @erc.europa.eu, FWF @fwf-at.bsky.social, WWTF @wwtf.at, ÖAW @oeaw.bsky.social, & BIF. Read the full preprint here: 🔗 doi.org/10.64898/2026.05.02.722390 6/6

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Curious how loop extrusion and CTCF clusters act together to build cohesion zones? Read the preprint to find out! 👀 🔗 doi.org/10.64898/2026.05.02.722390 4/6

doi.org

This creates a nested hierarchy: top-level boundaries act as discrete "cohesion zones" linking sisters for repair, while smaller, nested domains loop independently for gene regulation. 3/6

Alt text for the pic: Model depicting sister chromatid organization as defined by TAD hierarchy.

Using sister-chromatid-sensitive Hi-C & ChIP-seq, we found these two functions are spatially partitioned! Total cohesin (RAD21) anchors across all TAD boundaries, but the specific cohesive subset (Sororin) is enriched primarily at high-level boundaries. 2/6

Left: average profiles of Sororin (upper panel) and RAD21 (lower panel) ChIP-Seq signal (1 kb resolution) at ±100 kb regions centered at high-, mid- and low-level boundaries. Right: average maps of trans sister (upper row) and cis sister (lower row) scsHi-C contacts (10 kb resolution) at ±1 Mb regions centered at high-, mid-, and low-level boundaries, normalized to genome-wide expected contact frequencies.

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Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

New preprint out!🧬 How do cells keep replicated sister chromatids linked for DNA repair while folding 3D loops for gene expression? Extrusion folds DNA but separates sisters, while cohesion connects them, risking mutual interference. How do they coexist?🧵👇 🔗 doi.org/10.64898/2026.05.02.722390 1/6

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A well-deserved celebration for a big milestone 🥂🎉

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Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Caelan’s work is also part of a recent preprint from a collaboration between the Rosen, Redding, Collepardo-Guevara, and Gerlich labs, showing that electrostatic repulsion positions centromeres at the chromosome surface during mitosis. More in our thread here: 2/2

Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Congratulations to Caelan on completing their PhD! 🎉 Last week, they defended their thesis, “Unravelling the Surface Localisation of Centromeres on Vertebrate Chromosomes in Mitosis.” The lab is very proud of you, Caelan! 👏 1/2

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Huge thanks to Iain Patten for leading the retreat and guiding us through the process. Check out his work here: thinkingaboutresearch.com And thanks as well to Kathi (www.instagram.com/vinzi_rast) for the wonderful food and to Gustav Ammerer for hosting us. 4/4

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The retreat included group discussions, focused thinking and writing time, amazing food, evenings by the bonfire, and a beautiful setting surrounded by nature 🌿🐦 A really nice mix of science, reflection, and time together. 3/4

The goal was to think beyond individual results: What is the bigger question? What is the core message? Why does it matter? And how do the different pieces of a project come together into a compelling scientific story? 💬📝 2/4

Last week, the Gerlich lab went to Prein an der Rax for a writing retreat, or as we liked to call it, a “storython” ✍️🏔️ Led by Iain Patten, it was a chance to step away from day-to-day experiments and focus on building clearer, more coherent stories around our research. 1/4

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10/Enormous congratulations to all contributors, including first author @mfdspicer.bsky.social on his PhD work here at @imbavienna.bsky.social @viennabiocenter.bsky.social 🎓🎉 Read the full pre-print here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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9/Our results show apoptotic chromatin compaction, driven by histone deacetylation, sequesters DNA fragments produced during genome destruction. Synthetic perturbations suggest charge alone is enough to induce compaction, which may help us to better understand and alter chromatin in living cells

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8/These charge manipulations also affected chromatin compaction in apoptotic cells: In the presence of positive nanobodies, chromatin compacted despite blocked histone deacetylation; while the negative nanobody caused the same decompaction phenotype as HDAC inhibition

7/Expression of the positively charged nanobody in live cells caused chromatin hypercompaction, while the negatively charged nanobody induced a homogenous phenotype reminiscent of HDAC inhibition. In vitro & in silico, nanobody addition alone caused similar changes in chromatin structure

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6/Histone deacetylation leads to chromatin compaction in living & dying cells, potentially by a direct electrostatic effect. To understand the role of charge in apoptotic chromatin, we created nucleosome-binding nanobodies fused to GFP mutants of opposing charge

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5/We wondered if compaction might also prevent DNA from entering apoptotic extracellular vesicles, which are shed from the plasma membrane of the dying cell. ApoEVs are usually devoid of DNA, but became filled with chromatin fragments when we inhibited histone deacetylation

4/This decompacted phenotype was less dense than interphase nuclei & resembled chromatin fragments mixing with cytosol. To test this, we blocked deacetylation in cells lacking the apoptotic endonuclease CAD. Without fragmentation, hyperacetylation induced chromosome swelling but no dispersion of DNA

3/Chromatin is compacted in apoptosis, might this sequester fragments? Histone deacetylation, which drives compaction in living cells, has been observed in apoptosis, but a role in apoptotic compaction was unknown. We inhibited apoptotic deacetylation which resulted in drastic chromatin decompaction

2/Apoptosis happens billions of times each day in the human body, during which the genome is destroyed by fragmentation. Despite being cut into short stretches, chromatin remains sequestered within a single cell corpse. How is fragmented DNA prevented from escaping the dying cell?

Vienna BioCenter Scientific Training @vbcscitraining.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

1/New preprint just dropped! 🔥🔥 We investigate how the genome is destroyed in apoptotic cells in a way that prevents DNA fragments from spreading beyond the dying cell 🧬⚰ Done here at @imbavienna.bsky.social & in the super @rcollepardo.bsky.social & Rosen labs: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Reposted by Gerlich Lab

The Vienna BioCenter Summer School 2026 call is now open for talented undergrads, it's a great for those interested in graduate study in the life sciences. Daniel Gerlich from Institute of Molecular Biotechnology is recruiting! Please share training.vbc.ac.at/summer-school

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Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

And don’t miss the insightful Science Perspective by Jiazhi Hu, placing both studies in context: 🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

A tale of two forms of cohesin in DNA repair

Extrusive and cohesive cohesin cooperate to repair double-strand breaks in DNA

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Gerlich Lab @gerlichlab.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

A big thank you to everyone at @imbavienna.bsky.social and across the @viennabiocenter.bsky.social for their support throughout this project: from the outstanding facilities to the collaborative campus environment that made this work possible.