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Max Fürst

@maxfus.bsky.social
2K followers 1.1K following 497 posts

Asst. Prof. Uni Groningen 🇳🇱 Comp & Exp Biochemist, Protein Engineer, 'Would-be designer' (F. Arnold) | SynBio | HT Screens & Selections | Nucleic Acid Enzymes | Biocatalysis | Rstats & Datavis www.fuerstlab.com orcid.org/0000-0001-7720-9

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Reposted by Max Fürst
Matt Henderson @matthen.com · 03/10/2026
Visualising the distribution of substrings in the genomes of different organisms. Going up to depth eight by recursively splitting into quadrants, we get these fractal-like pictures.
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Nice work! And "importantly our reads weren't random" has got to be the best teaser to a paper I read in a while ;)
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I wouldn't be so negative, ai strongly believe some students are more than capable by themselves to come up with incoherent questions that show they have not understood the talk
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Ah found it www.nytimes.com/2026/09/27/s...
nytimes.com
Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)
An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Was someone saying they were scooped by this? Didn't see it
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
How can you run a video competition in 2026 and not check for an AI watermark?
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Reposted by Max Fürst
Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Thoughts on Anthropic’s worries about people accessing Claude for possible bioweapons design:
science.org
AI Help for Biological or Chemical Weapons
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Join to find out more about our ADD-tagging platform plus a preview on our soon-to-be preprinted follow up presented by my PhD student @wahyuwidodo.bsky.social
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Hate to conclude this prediction was correct
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Reposted by Max Fürst
Martin Pacesa @martinpacesa.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
ʙɪɴᴅᴄʀᴀꜰᴛ2 is out, and we're not waiting for the paper. The full code drops today, free for academic and industry use. We're releasing it early so you can start designing right now, and bring its full power to the current Adaptyv competition. github.com/PacesaLab/Bi...
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Unlikely that in 3 months your session went all the way thru dataset prep, training, fine tuning, alignment, and release and also your 1 in a trillion token contribution to training corpus changed the model behavior. If anything, a dedicated analysis of your session by those bio devs there
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Reposted by Max Fürst
Pedro Beltrao @pedrobeltrao.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Anthropic has used Claude to optimise structure prediction and design code to improve speed and memory efficiency. 2-3X speed improvements on AF3, 5X on OF3, 5X on BindCraft low memory modes to model large assemblies. All released as open source www.anthropic.com/research/cla...
anthropic.com
How Claude is uplifting biomolecular modeling
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
of course its different for computational / theoretical stuff, but there i don't collect stuff in a folder anymore, i just throw it on an llm directly
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I use CC a lot but honestly that's not appealing to me. that folder is like a baby. to nurse it, look at it, ruminate about it, and add, remove from, and draw from it is one of the greatest pleasures in my job. New ideas/tests/projects are never the bottleneck, working through is.
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Reposted by Max Fürst
Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
'Our findings illustrate a curious paradox: despite universities being key producers of evidence and seeking the use of their research to inform public policymaking, they are less adept at using evidence to inform their own decision-making.' blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...
blogs.lse.ac.uk
Universities rarely use research evidence in their decision-making, so why do they expect anyone else to? - LSE Impact
Despite universities’ important role as evidence-producing organisations, they rarely draw upon research evidence for internal decision making, why?
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
And i guess this already done by many editors. I see little harm, best case it flags genuine issues, worst case it let's them see which reviewers didn't do much
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Honestly there probably aren't many papers anymore that at least parts of it haven't been AI written/edited and likewise editors might as well by default run manuscripts through the latest LLM as default reviewer 1
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Elisa Fadda @elisafadda.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Thought: If scientific journals start requiring authors to declare the use of AI in any part of their work (as they absolutely should!), then they should also require the same declaration from *reviewers* 🧵1/3
static.klipy.com
Seth Meyers: Right?!
Alt: Seth Meyers: Right?!
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Jill Townley @jilltownley.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
How do researchers design an RNA in 3D when no accurate 3D prediction model exists? Eterna's collaboration with the @rdaslab.bsky.social at Stanford was able to design novel pseudoknots using a blend of secondary structure prediction and GenAI design methods. 🧪 #RNAsky
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Extraordinary blog post by @moalquraishi.bsky.social moalquraishi.wordpress.com/2026/08/10/a... Starting with the question on whether workaphiles will be dying breed post AGI, it later turns into serious scifi - "The 'easy' solution is to make our brains bigger"
moalquraishi.wordpress.com
A Workaphile’s Apology
Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this essay—all em dashes are mine1. Soon after the AlexNet breakthrough burst onto the scene over a decade ago, I became preoccupied with the followi…
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
The music is ok, I understand that fashion changes, but what kills me is what passed as dancing in the 80s Thanks for this
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David McQuarrie @davidmcquarrie.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
A multivalent RNA affinity tag enables selective purification of tagged RNAs and bound proteins doi.org/10.1093/nar/...
doi.org
A multivalent RNA affinity tag enables selective purification of tagged RNAs and bound proteins
Abstract. Efficient purification of specific RNAs from lysates remains a major challenge. Existing methods, such as MS2 tagging or oligonucleotide hybridiz
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Reposted by Max Fürst
Kevin Wilson @kwilsonhfx.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Shocking.
NTSB graph showing the relationship between miles biked per person per year and cyclists killed per billion miles biked. There's an obvious negative trend (people bike more in place where it's safer to do so.
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Reposted by Max Fürst
David Neuzerling @md.neuzerl.ing · 29/07/2026
Programming tip: never type out a 10-character command when you could instead press the up arrow for 5 minutes until you find that command in your history
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Reposted by Max Fürst
Retraction Watch @retractionwatch.com · 23/07/2026
A couple paid more than $800,000 for a gene-editing therapy for their daughter. She died, and it wasn’t made public. An exclusive from us and @science.org.
science.org
Exclusive: Death of girl in Chinese gene-editing trial was never made public
Parents want accountability after study went disastrously wrong, Science and Retraction Watch investigation reveals
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Reposted by Max Fürst
Claus Wilke @clauswilke.com · 21/07/2026
This "scalable" template for oral examination requires 20 minutes per student per exam, or 67 total hours for a class of 200 students. It would appear the authors and I have a different understanding of what "scalable" means. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/care...
insidehighered.com
A Practical, Scalable Template for Oral Exams (opinion)
Yes, it can be done, even in classes with dozens of students.
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
The stat conflates car use with all other options to get somewhere without car, in particular bike, so e.g. NL misrepresented
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
What I don't understand is how you want to QC this data. It's very easy to run a crap MD and the same reasons that make it so easy to be crap are the ones that make it hard to realize that it is crap, and guess what that means for the resulting models
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
scnr
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Submit your research on designed branched sheethelix proteins now
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FX Coudert @nanoporous.net · 17/07/2026
Ironically, as @mart1oeil.eu showed, there are telltale signs that the piece was edited with ChatGPT: many links include "?utm_source=chatgpt.com" If even Science editorial team cannot afford good human editing, that's worrying
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Rafael Pinilla-Redondo (Rafa) @rafomics.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
1/10 🚨Preprint! One RING to rule them all (phages)👑💍⚔️ Bacteria build giant DNA-scaffolded RNase rings (larger than the ribosome!) to shut down viral infection🧬🧵👇 biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Couldn't care less about football but love meself a random chart
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Osterman Ilya @ostermanilya.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
🚨 We're hiring! My new lab at EMBL Hamburg is looking for a Research Technician. I'm looking for someone excited by phages, metabolism, enzymes, structural biology and bacterial immunity—if you know the right person, please share this post!🧵⬇️ Apply here: embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...
embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com
Research Technician (Osterman Group – Metabolism-driven immunity)
EMBL Hamburg / CSSB The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is Europe’s flagship life sciences organization, with more than 110 independent research groups across Heidelberg, Hamburg, Grenobl...
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Our work shows that EpmA, a distant relative of LysRS that links β-Lys to EF-P (an elongation factor that rescues stalled ribosomes), can be reverse engineered to accept tRNAs, upon grafting a suitable anticodon binding domain (at the right crossover). Background & implications for genetic code exp:
linkedin.com
Reprogramming a Protein Ligase for Genetic Code Expansion | Jürgen Lassak
Today, I am sharing our latest preprint with immense pride. This paper is more than a scientific milestone! It is a deeply personal story driven by exceptional scientists who started their journeys in...
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Domain swap is a staple in protein engineering. But instead of trial & error, can we predict an ideal crossover w/ comp modeling? Happy to share a wonderful collaboration w/ Jürgen @lassak-lab.bsky.social at my alma mater LMU Munich to convert a protein ligase to an aaRS for β amino acids t.ly/lNpVw
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Pedro Beltrao @pedrobeltrao.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
The @qedscience.bsky.social "impact" score generated a lot of discussion on ranking preprints, including ideas on multi-dimensional rankings that are user specific. Besides describing the ideas, we can now prototype them (with Claude in this case). Here is Salient salient-sgeu6fs5ua-uc.a.run.app
salient-sgeu6fs5ua-uc.a.run.app
Rising — Salient
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Reposted by Max Fürst
Indigo V. L. Rose @ivlrose.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Not Claude advertising their new model to me using a left-handed helix
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Rosetta Commons @rosettacommons.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Please note the image is from AI and is not scientifically accurate. We intended to add visual appeal to the post, and apologize for posting this fanciful but unfortunately misleading depiction. In future posts, we will ensure scientific images are based on actual data.
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Albert Vilella, PhD. @albertvilella.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Roche throws the axe 🪓 at illumina with Axelios open.substack.com/pub/albertvi...
open.substack.com
Roche throws the axe at Illumina with Axelios
What changes, and what doesn't, now that SBX has a commercial SKU
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Wait where does ADP-ribosylation come into the story
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Can't believe it Sent a cryo dewar with crystals via #FedEx to @esrf.fr and they lost it. Since 2 weeks gone without a trace and of course they're doing nothing to try find it. Equipment worth €8000, dozens of priceless xtals from our projects gone 4ever 😭 Compensation? €600 from FedEx (by weight) 😡
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Reposted by Max Fürst
Philippe Bastin's Lab @bastinlab.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Beautiful videos nicely explaining microtubules! Congratulations to Renaud Chabrier and Casten Janke 👍 www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVbv...
youtube.com
Microtubules | Scientific Animated Short Film 2026
YouTube video by Drawing Intelligence
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Good practice but often a relatively small debug still requires tracing large chunks of the codebase
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
It's the pain of a growing code base (and likely accumulation of memory, notes, skills) as the project progresses causing exponential increase in token burn. Puts a natural limit on the complexity a purely vibe coded software can eventually reach by conventional means
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Nikolai Slavov @slavov-n.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Since the 1960s, the genetic code has been used to predict protein sequences from DNA and mRNA sequences. Our @nature.com article demonstrates that these predictions miss thousands of protein sequences present in human tissues. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/
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Pedro Beltrao @pedrobeltrao.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Here is an example of what I expect we will start seeing more of, a single author bioinformatics paper that looks like it was made with AI assistance. The figures look very much straight out of Claude Code. It does have a "Use of AI tools" disclaimer section journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
journals.plos.org
A zero-parameter first-principles gate framework for full-length TP53 missense variant interpretation
Author summary Most tools that predict whether a TP53 mutation is disease-causing rely on machine learning trained on large datasets. These models can be accurate but typically cannot explain why a pa...
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
wtaf biology, as if you hadn't had enough enzyme mechanisms for adding oxygen already
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Zeynep Baharoglu @zeynepbaharoglu.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Unconventional monooxygenation by the O2-dependent tRNA wobble uridine hydroxylase TrhO www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🦠 cryo-electron microscopy structure of Bacillus subtilis TrhO–tRNAAla complex
nature.com
Unconventional monooxygenation by the O2-dependent tRNA wobble uridine hydroxylase TrhO - Nature Chemical Biology
Shin et al. report the cryo-electron microscopy structure and catalytic mechanism of TrhO, a cofactor-independent enzyme that hydroxylates tRNA wobble uridine using molecular oxygen through a…
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Max Fürst @maxfus.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
How does this square with blocking all biology prompts anyway?
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