iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 26/09/2026

Now with proper replisome structure.

Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 26/09/2026

Some of the AI slop is impressive. Check out the video. My Claude prompt: "Make a dynamic 15-second motion graphics video that highlights my research (farnunglab.com) with incredible motion design. It's the showreel for my lab. Go all out."

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 15/04/2026

Next BenchOS update: BenchOS contains an equipment booking system. E Ink displays automatically update and show the current equipment booking status of our instruments. Check out how this looks like for our AKTA Atlanta.

BenchOS drives E Ink paper displays to show equipment bookings.

Rendered E Ink paper display of AKTA ATLANTA equipment booking status.

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 31/03/2026

BenchOS is taking shape. Today, our cryo-EM storage tracker.

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 09/02/2026

One example where BenchAid really excels is the automatic checking of @plasmidsaurus.bsky.social sequencing results early in the morning:

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 09/02/2026

🧪✨ Introducing BenchAid🧪! Our new molecular biology AI agent is live at benchaid.farnunglab.com. Over the last months, we built BenchAid🧪 to streamline many of our bench workflows to help move our lab faster. Try it out!

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 09/02/2026

🚨Preprint alert🚨 How does chromatin “architecture” form at CTCF sites? Our new preprint with @voslab.org and @andersshansen.bsky.social shows CTCF dimerization promotes nucleosome oligomerization on chromatin. tinyurl.com/CTCF-nucleos...

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 02/02/2026

🧬📄 Preprint update (v2): We added new biochemical experiments that clarify how IWS1 associates with the transcription elongation complex and further define competition between IWS1 and RECQL5. 🧪⚙️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Structural model is already available in the PDB (9MLC).

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 13/01/2026

Honored to receive The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research 2026 Emerging Leader Award. Grateful to my lab and all who support the Farnung Lab—thank you!

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 13/01/2026

Benchmate🧪 and its LabBook are making good UI progress.

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 12/01/2026

Benchmate🧪 has its own custom-written ELN now.

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 07/01/2026

Benchmate gonna benchmate...

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 30/12/2025

It's similarly easy to setup a complex formation with Benchmate🧪.

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 30/12/2025

"Benchmate, generate LICv1 primers for Midnolin." Benchmate🧪: ✅

Benchmate generates LICv1 primers for Midnolin.

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 13/12/2025

Happy Holidays from the Farnung lab!

Picture of the Farnung Lab at the annual holiday party.

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 26/11/2025

The Richard and Susan Smith Family Foundation, which supports our work, has produced a short film about our research:

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 09/10/2025

Della Syau successfully defended her PhD thesis today. Congrats, Dr. Syau. Strike #3!

Farnung Lab with newly minted Dr. Della Syau!

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 29/09/2025

New week, new tool: Find our Protein Domain Designer tool to generate publication-ready protein domain diagrams here: domaindesigner.farnunglab.com

Protein Domain Designer tool for the generation of publication-ready protein domain diagrams

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 26/09/2025

🚀 Ordering lab supplies just got way easier in our lab. We built a workflow (github.com/farnunglab/N...) where tapping an NFC tag on a reagent bottle automatically triggers an order request in Quartzy. No more scribbling notes or hunting for a computer. Here’s how 👇

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 04/09/2025

Martin Filipovski successfully defended his PhD thesis today! Congrats, Dr. Filipovski.

The Farnung Lab celebrates Martin Filipovski's thesis defense.

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 03/09/2025

In our IWS1 story, we also visualize the histone reader LEDGF PWWP domain on a transcribed downstream nucleosome. Because the PWWP requires both DNA gyres for binding, it binds to the promoter-distal side of the nucleosome during transcription through the nucleosome.

LEDGF PWWP (pink) binds the transcribed downstream nucleosome. A cryo-EM map (grey) verifies the positioning of the activated transcription elongation complex in relation to the downstream nucleosome.

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 29/08/2025

🧬 Transcription elongation by RNA polymerase II relies on a web of elongation factors. Our new work shows how IWS1 acts as a modular scaffold to stabilize & stimulate elongation. Fantastic work by Della Syau! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 25/07/2025

Congratulations to our own @sophiero.bsky.social and team for achieving 3rd place 🥉 in the Merck Innovation Cup 2025. The entire lab is very proud of Sophie's achievement!

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 16/06/2025

First PhD candidate (congrats, Dr. James!) to graduate today and check out this beautiful nucleosome/ocean cake made by PhD candidate Della Syau:

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 16/06/2025

Congratulations to 🎓 Dr. Allison James 🎉. Allison is the first PhD candidate to graduate from the Farnung Lab!

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 06/05/2025

🧬🎉Thrilled to share our new chromatin remodeling study! We reveal three states of human CHD1 and identify a novel "anchor element" that interacts with the acidic patch—conserved among remodelers. Our structures clarify mechanisms of remodeler recruitment! Link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1l2ik3vVUP...

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 06/04/2025

🔬 New from the Farnung Lab: We established a fully in vitro reconstituted chromatin replication system and report the first cryo-EM snapshots of the human replisome engaging nucleosomes. Brilliant work by @felixsteinruecke.bsky.social with support from @jonmarkert.bsky.social! tinyurl.com/replisome

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 28/03/2025

🚨New paper🚨Our new study with the lab of Phil Cole uncovers how SIRT6 dynamically adapts structurally and enzymatically to target diverse histone acylations (e.g., H3K27ac) within nucleosomes. @jonmarkert.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.jb... #Chromatin #SIRT6 #CryoEM

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 18/12/2024

Another highlight from our story: @jonmarkert.bsky.social uncovered how SPT6 binds the exposed H2A–H2B dimer during nucleosomal traversal by Pol II. AlphaFold helped tremendously in validating this interaction. tinyurl.com/setd2 Also check out our H2A–H2B screen: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 12/12/2024

In our SETD2 paper, we visualize a novel nucleosome transfer intermediate during txn. It is the earliest intermediate visualized yet. In the intermediate, the histone chaperone FACT coordinates histone binding with a previously uncharacterized RTF1 helix. All details in the paper: tinyurl.com/setd2

A new histone transfer intermediate with FACT (sand and gold) and RTF1 (pink) discovered by visual biochemistry!

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 12/12/2024

Ever wondered how transcription choreographs histone modifications? Our work reveals the basis of co-transcriptional H3K36me3 by SETD2. We visualize how a histone writer coordinates with the transcription machinery! This is the magnus opus of @jonmarkert.bsky.social! tinyurl.com/setd2

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 08/12/2023

Our paper on the structure of the complete Rpd3S-nucleosome complex is now out in Nat Comm: rdcu.be/ds6k1 . Congrats to @jonmarkert.bsky.social and co-corresponding author Seychelle Vos! This is the second HDAC-nucleosome structure from Jon this year. Amazing!

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Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com · 31/10/2023

Doing much better on antibodies:

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