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Keri Backus

@keribackus.bsky.social
2K followers 1K following 33 posts

Associate Professor at UCLA, all things chemical biology, chemoproteomic-, covalent-, cysteine- and redox-related

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Reposted by Keri Backus
Lindsay K Pino @lindsaykpino.com · 28/05/2026
Once again, @keribackus.bsky.social and I are coordinating the chemoproteomics evening workshop at #ASMS2026. And being in San Diego, we have quite the panel depth! Join us Tuesday June 2 at 5:45pm! 🧪💊
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Devin Schweppe @dschweppe.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
With a few days since it's been out @keribackus.bsky.social @oligopain.bsky.social and I wanted to highlight a few of our favorite aspects of POCA for photocatalytic proximity labeling of DNA, RNA or proteins. (1) POCA builds on standard in situ hybridization and immunofluorescence workflows.
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Super excited to launch POCAxOMAP with @dschweppe.bsky.social and @oligopain.bsky.social and led by Eli Biletch, Conor Herlihy and Lidan Li. If you’ve ever wanted to do proximity labeling on DNA, RNA, or protein without genetic engineering, look no further. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Congrats to all award recipients and special recognition to our lab’s own Caroline Canavan!
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Super excited that our SEE-CITE photoaffinity labeling method is now out in @natchem.nature.com rdcu.be/ffBSC. Here we introduce a custom silyl ether cleavable linker between a diazirine photocrosslinker handle and molecules of interest to streamline site-of-labeling analysis for PAL chemoproteomics
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Devin Schweppe @dschweppe.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
The next iteration of O-MAP targeting genomic loci is now at eLife!! DNA O-MAP enables proximity labeling at specific DNA loci took a ton of work from many lab members and collaborators, so it's really exciting to wrap up this paper with @oligopain.bsky.social! elifesciences.org/articles/102...
elifesciences.org
DNA O-MAP uncovers the molecular neighborhoods associated with specific genomic loci
DNA O-MAP enables proximity labeling at specific genomic loci in fixed cells using programmable oligonucleotides, revealing locus-proximal proteomes and chromatin interactions without genetic modifica...
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Excited to share our new paper and lipid- and protein-directed photocatalytic labeling method (POCA) just out in @natchembio.nature.com. tinyurl.com/2kcxuvvv. Big congrats to first author Andrew Becker and the whole team for launching our lab into the wild world of singlet oxygen interactomics.
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Jeremy Baskin @jeremybaskin.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
New paper in @jcb.org! We found a new regulator of p62 phase separation, autophagy, and antioxidant signaling. It is an E3 ligase adaptor called SHKBP1, but the effect is via direct p62 binding, not ubiquitination. Congrats to Lin Luan & team! @weillinstitute.bsky.social
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Nature Chemical Biology @natchembio.nature.com · 13/01/2026
LipoID profiles lipid droplet interactions and identifies interorganelle regulators www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Graphical abstract on LipoID workflow
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Stephan Hacker @stephanhacker2.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
How can we study target engagement and selectivity of covalent inhibitors? Which electrophilic probes are best suited to study a certain amino acid? Our study on "Profiling the proteome-wide selectivity of diverse electrophiles" is published in Nature Chemistry.(1/7) www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Profiling the proteome-wide selectivity of diverse electrophiles - Nature Chemistry
Covalent inhibitors are powerful entities in drug discovery. Now the amino acid selectivity and reactivity of a diverse electrophile library have been assessed proteome-wide using an unbiased workflow...
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Devin Schweppe @dschweppe.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
Real-time API control of mass specs has been hard to get started (C#, VS, etc). Mike Hoopmann's recent work makes dev easier & more open!: Nova - lightweight dev library schweppelab.github.io/Nova/ pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.... Helios - a unified instrument API now @ JPR github.com/SchweppeLab/...
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George Burslem @gburslem.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Congratulations to my great friend and colleague @bradylabupenn.bsky.social for this well deserved award! @pennmedcso.bsky.social @penncancer.bsky.social
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Dmitry Eremin @dmeremin.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
🚨 Save the date! 🚨 2nd LA Mass Spec Day: Oct 17, 2025 @ UCLA South Bay 🎉 Talks, posters, networking + plenaries by Jennifer Van Eyk & Melissa Hoffman! Register 👉 forms.gle/e6A9XWxiRF6K... Submit abstracts 👉 forms.gle/RCf5v3Gab5V8... More info to follow soon
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
Daily Bruin article about the ~800 frozen grants at UCLA including some from my lab dailybruin.com/2025/08/02/a...
dailybruin.com
About 800 NIH, NSF research grants suspended following UCLA federal funding cuts - Daily Bruin
About 800 research grants have been suspended at UCLA, according to a Friday email from Vice Chancellor for Research and Creative Activities Roger Wakimoto. Wakimoto said in the email, which was sent ...
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Alicia Izquierdo @aliciaizquierdo.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Suspension of all grants to UCLA www.latimes.com/california/s...
latimes.com
Trump freezes $200 million in UCLA science and medical research funding, citing antisemitism
The Trump administration has frozen roughly $200 million in National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and other federal agency-funded research at UCLA, citing allegations the school d...
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Joe Loo @joelooucla.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Consider signing the letter to support NIH and the "Bethesda Declaration" (www.standupforscience.net/bethesda-dec...) #ASMS2025 @asms.org
standupforscience.net
Bethesda Declaration — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE
Support NIH Staff Now!
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 31/05/2025
ASSIGNMENT: COMMENT ON SCHEDULE F 1 week left to comment about Schedule F, potentially making NIH institute and center director essentially political appointees. www.regulations.gov/commenton/OP... 1/n
regulations.gov
Regulations.gov
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 31/05/2025
Join @lindsaykpino.com, me, and our amazing panelists for the #ASMS2025 #Chemoproteomics workshop on Monday!
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Anyone else notice that ART is now giving different study section assignments compared to earlier in the week? Same title and abstract last night and today, different strong and possible matches...?
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ONO PHARMA FOUNDATION @onoinitiative.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
We will be hosting the 2025 ONO Pharma Foundation Annual Symposium on June 23 at the Royal Sonesta Boston. This event offers an opportunity to explore the latest breakthroughs presented by ONO INITIATIVE awardees and to discuss groundbreaking science in chemical biology. (1/2)
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
New paper from our lab joint with Val Arboleda @val-arboleda.bsky.social
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Laura Edgington-Mitchell @lauraem-lab.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
The 13th General Meeting of the International Proteolysis Society will be held in Búsios, Brazil Oct 26-30, 2025. Training workshops will be held at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz Oct 23-23. Register now! Links below. 1/3
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
The fantastically successful NIGMS MIRA R35 "expired" on May 17, after the most recent deadline--these removals are the most aggressive attack on American science in the current series of devastating actions 🧪
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George Burslem @gburslem.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Excited to see this out in @science.org today!! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Intracellular protein editing enables incorporation of noncanonical residues in endogenous proteins
The ability to study proteins in their native cellular context is crucial to our understanding of biology. In this work, we report a technology for intracellular protein editing, drawing from split in...
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Jordan Meier @doc-jlmeier.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Great news: NIH postbac program is recruiting again! If your grad school plans were affected by program cutbacks or admissions freezes this year I highly encourage you to apply, this could be a perfect opportunity. Please repost. www.training.nih.gov/research-tra...
training.nih.gov
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Congrats to all the award winners and especially to Backus Lab PhD student Flowreen Shikwana and undergrad Joelle Darrouj!
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Kalev Freeman @uvmtraumalab.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
U of Michigan @umich.edu set aside funds from central to support researchers with unexpected disruption in federal funding for up to 6 months. Are any other institutions doing this? Seems like a good move. #Medsky #NIH #federalfunding #researchfunding 🧪 record.umich.edu/articles/uni...
record.umich.edu
University launches new research support program | The University Record
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
Bluetorial: Women, courage, and leadership What follows will include some generalizations based on population averages of what I have experienced over the course of my career. There are, of course, exceptions in every group who are substantially more to one extreme or the other.
media.tenor.com
a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
ALT: a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
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Alexey Nesvizhskii @nesvilab.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
One of the most significant and challenging projects of my career so far. PepCentric: a scalable computational platform utilizing novel 2-D fragment indexing for rapid peptide-centric searches, enabling proteogenomics searches against billions of spectra in seconds. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
Extending my grant update this morning. Here are data limited to new and competitive renewal applications. The Pause is dead, Long live the Pause...
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Blake Wilde @brwilde.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
📢 Postdoc Opening – Metabolism & Cancer! 📢 Looking for a motivated postdoc to explore how metabolism regulates tumor initiation at Roswell Park in Buffalo, NY! Join us to tackle big questions with cool science in a collaborative environment. Interested? DM me! #PostdocJobs #CancerMetabolism
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
@standupforscience.bsky.social Los Angeles 3/7 noon at the Federal building docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
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ChemKritzer @chemkritzer.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
🚨 Chemical Biology & Probes study section (formerly SBCB, one of two NIH panels that reviews chemistry #chemsky 🧪) was abruptly POSTPONED w/no specific plans for rescheduling, less than 24h before start. If this affects you call your reps & senators, talk to local news, make your voice heard 📢 👩‍🔬
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Brian Liau @brianliau.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
Today in @nature.com we share our back-to-back stories with Ning Zheng’s lab revealing chemical-genetic convergence between a molecular glue degrader & E3 ligase cancer mutations. 1/5
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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
Biopharma companies and CEOs are keeping their heads down at their own peril. They should speak up about what’s happening to the NIH and other science agencies before it’s too late. Silence gives consent. And no one should consent to this.
science.org
Stand Up And Be Counted
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Laura White @laurakwhite.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
8 years ago @asbmb.bsky.social gave me +18 more trainees a crash course in advocacy for their DC Hill Day. With NIH slashing indirect costs effective immediately, university Govt Affairs teams will be swamped. Here's 10 tips for scientists contacting lawmakers +pics from Denver's 2017 Science March.
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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
A long post about what’s happening to the science funding agencies in the US and why. As mentioned, this one just kept getting longer even as I kept stripping curse words from it. www.science.org/content/blog...
science.org
What's Happening Inside the NIH and NSF
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Soragni:Lab @alice.soragnilab.com · 04/02/2025
Would love to hear if anyone has personally taken part to a study section meeting yet since this started. I know that we are told that all is moving on as usual, but is it?
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Nick Riley @nmriley.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
Actual picture from a @riley-research.bsky.social group meeting this week
Iteration on a popular cartoon meme showing a weary man saying "What a year, huh" and a colleague replying, "Captain, it's January."
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Carolyn Bertozzi @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social · 24/01/2025
Excellent perspective by @lisamjarvis.bsky.social @bloomberg.com on the deep freeze at NIH
bloomberg.com
Trump's NIH Freeze Puts Scientific Research at Risk
America’s best scientific minds are scrambling to determine the impact of the disruption.
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
First lab #Chemrxiv preprint of 2025 and first foray into AI-based discovery of reactive cysteines! Congrats to First author Lisa Boatner and thanks to @forlilab.bsky.social, @jeeberhardt.bsky.social, and the rest of the team for the stellar collaboration! chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...
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Stephan Hacker @stephanhacker2.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
If you are interested in 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆-𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗶𝗻 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴, definitely consider the #ABPP2025 conference on March 30th to April 2nd, 2025, at The Francis Crick Institute. Registration deadlines have been updated. www.linkedin.com/posts/14th-i...
linkedin.com
14th International Activity Based Protein Profiling (ABPP) Meeting on LinkedIn: REGISTRATIONS DEADLINES UPDATE! Early Bird registration (🐣) has been…
REGISTRATIONS DEADLINES UPDATE! Early Bird registration (🐣) has been extended to the 30th of January and Late Registrations (🦉) end on the 28th of February…
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Bryan Dickinson @chembiobryan.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
Super excited to finally share PANCS-Binders: our group's decade-long quest to accelerate protein binder discovery. TLDR: PANCS-binders is fast (2 days), cheap (pennies), has extremely high fidelity (low false positive and negatives), and high-throughput. 1/n
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US HUPO @us-hupo.org · 19/12/2024
🧪 Read the Special Issue of Journal of Proteome Research celebrating the essential contributions that women scientists have made, and are making, in the fields of Proteomics and Metabolomics. ow.ly/OcSl50TWOpU
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
First Bsky preprint from our lab--super proud of one of my first PhD students Jose Castellon on pushing hard to wrap up what turned out to be a really neat HTS screen of procapase-10. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
An activation-based high throughput screen identifies caspase-10 inhibitors
Caspases are a family of highly homologous cysteine proteases that play critical roles in inflammation and apoptosis. Small molecule inhibitors are useful tools for studying caspase biology, complemen...
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Females in Mass Spectrometry (FeMS+) @femalesinms.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
Hi #TeamMassSpec! #FeMS+ has joined BlueSky! Please share and get the word out so we can build up a base here.
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Ingo Hartung @hartungingo.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
There are no shortcuts in drug discovery. And it takes incredible efforts to make sense of what you can find in the scientific literature. This is an excellent piece of work to quality check what has been claimed as a new avenue in targeted protein degradation (TPD). www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Critical assessment of LC3/GABARAP ligands used for degrader development and ligandability of LC3/GABARAP binding pockets - Nature Communications
Autophagosome tethering compounds (ATTECs) are small molecule degraders hijacking the autophagy system. Here, the authors show that current ATTEC ligands did not bind to their designated targets but e...
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Johanna Joyce @johannajoyce.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Women are under-represented at senior levels in #academia globally, & across all #science 🧪 disciplines, as shown by these "scissor-shaped curves" ✂️ So how can we ever achieve #gender #equality? We discuss various strategies in this #Cell Commentary #WomeninSTEM www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... 🧵 1/
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Keri Backus @keribackus.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Chemoproteomics starter pack, thanks mostly to @stephanhacker2.bsky.social's strong network go.bsky.app/JKJ1ZHt
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Brian Beliveau @oligopain.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
The pSABER paper is now online! pSABER is a new method for amplifying in situ hybridization signals This work was driven by Sahar Attar and co-led by Ram Akliesh ([at] podocytes on the other app) with help from @shechnerlab.bsky.social @dschweppe.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s415... 🧵 1/12
doi.org
Efficient and highly amplified imaging of nucleic acid targets in cellular and histopathological samples with pSABER - Nature Methods
pSABER combines the power of signal amplification by exchange reaction (SABER) with the deposition of fluorescent or colorimetric substrates by horseradish peroxidase to enable enhanced signals for in...
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