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Michelle McCully

@mccullylab.bsky.social
1.3K followers 316 following 131 posts

The McCully Lab at Santa Clara University studies the structure, dynamics, and function of proteins towards designing better ones. sites.google.com/site/mccullylabscu BS WashU | PhD UW | Postdoc UCSF | Assoc prof SCU Acamama, PUI, family biking, Bay Area

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Reposted by Michelle McCully
Magnus Kjærgaard @proteinmagnus.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
How does the extreme thermostability of de novo designed proteins arise? We aimed to answer this question by combined chemical and thermal denaturation of de novo designed minibinders in a paper out now in Protein Science (@proteinsociety.bsky.social): dx.doi.org/10.1002/pro....
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Protein Society @proteinsociety.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
🎃 October’s Under the Microscope is here! Explore an imagined Halloween interview with Jacques Monod, TPS award nominations, upcoming events & Protein Science highlights. 📬 Read: mailchi.mp/proteinsocie...
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RedPen/BlackPen @redpenblackpen.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I will say, it's soooo satisfying to see that entire day of meetings dissappear. Though as you progress in your career the meetings start coming faster and faster. Eventually they're gonna overflow to Saturday and it's game over.
Comic with multiple panels showing a calendar scheduling grid where Monday is an entire red block with one tiny sliver. A voice bubble is saying 'Wow your Monday meeting schedule looks like hell!' - the second panel a blue meeting on Friday flips around and another voice says 'Nah- watch this'. The blue meeting block (L-shaped) moves to Thursday with a 'plunk' - voice says 'Whaa?!' - then moves to the Monday block with a 'shoop'. The entire Monday block dissappears 'Shiiiing!' and all the remaining meetings move to the left. Voice says 'Problem solved!'
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RedPen/BlackPen @redpenblackpen.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Grad school: to be successful in a future career you're going to need to focus on THIS ONE THING for the next 5 years. The actual career in question: you can't focus on one thing for more than 30 minutes at a time and you have to keep switching between 1000 things endlessly
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Roberto Chica Lab @chicalab.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Thanks to @campbell-lab.bsky.social for putting together this excellent overview of the protein engineering field at PEDS, and for inviting us to contribute the computational enzyme design section. Check it out below! Protein engineering: status report academic.oup.com/peds/article...
academic.oup.com
Protein engineering: status report
Abstract. With this status report, we aim to provide a timely snapshot of the protein engineering field as a broad and rapidly advancing discipline that in
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Robin G Nelson @robingnelson.blacksky.app · 24/08/2026
Also as far as science goes - this is a repeatedly asked and answered question (no for the trolls) and yet somehow it remains a talking point for the "intellectually curious" crowd. Go test the validity of gravity - it's just as stupid a question.
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
SCU is hiring assistant professors in 1) Biochemistry and 2) Animal Behavior or Behavioral Ecology this fall! Please share! We are a Jesuit primarily undergraduate institution in the Bay Area. Biochemistry - wd1.myworkdaysite.com/en-US/recrui... Biology - wd1.myworkdaysite.com/en-US/recrui...
wd1.myworkdaysite.com
Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Biochemistry
Position Type: Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Biochemistry Position Type: Regular Salary Range: $105,122 to $116,846 Purpose: The department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Santa Clara Universit...
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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
When we don't adequately fund public universities, and instead force students to take out loans, what we as a society are really doing is borrowing money from the younger generation—their hard-earned future income—to fund a necessary project that benefits us all: building an educated society.
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
"Watching a man who is typically so talkative plead the Fifth, I realized that some of the hate aimed at me had subsided, in part, because one person had continued to absorb the heat, fire, vitriol, and anger over all of our mistakes. Not just his."
yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com
It's time to leave the man alone.
One day in 2020, I went to a coffee shop.
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
I just submitted a comment addressing the devastating changes proposed by the #OMB for US federal grant funding. Thanks to @apsphysics.aps.org for making it so easy! 🧪 You should too. The deadline is Mon, July 13th www.aps.org/initiatives/...
aps.org
Comment on OMB proposed rule for federal financial assistance
Make your voice heard on the Office of Management and Budget's proposed federal grant funding changes and defend the scientific community from this existential threat. Submit your comments by July 13,...
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Glad to see this story and coverage of an important paper. www.statnews.com/2026/06/17/n... 1/16
statnews.com
NIH diversity programs doubled undergraduates’ odds of getting a Ph.D., 20-year study finds
A new study found that two diversity-oriented programs supported by the NIH doubled the odds that an undergraduate would earn a Ph.D.
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
OK--is this satire??? The fact that we can't tell anymore is..... inpreparation.substack.com/p/opinion-i-...
inpreparation.substack.com
Opinion: I Was Not Allowed To Type Prompts Into ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk And This Is Discrimination
By Dr. Rachel Simmons, Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University
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Theoretical Biophysics @theobiophysics.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Submission open for the 11th YBM Meeting soon- 20th May! Abstract submission link: t.co/8pCwjpO2Ml
t.co
https://forms.gle/UK1fBmzGtLwnGHB96
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Rosetta Commons @rosettacommons.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Let’s talk about Bruno! Bruno’s lab is focused on the development and use of computational tools for the design and engineering of proteins, with the aim to develop new protein-based therapeutics, vaccines, biosensors and more. Learn more about Bruno in our April 2026 newsletter. zurl.co/X2o4z
A picture of Bruno Correia along with the text “Member Spotlight, Bruno Correia, Full Professor, LDPI, EPFL.” It also includes a quote that states “If there is a problem you want to work on, do it, because that passion helps to push science beyond the status quo.” The background is a light orange. The Rosetta Commons logo is at the top and spiral teal and orange proteins are at the top and bottom of the image.
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Andrew Palmer 🎃 @andrewp97.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
imagine trying to explain this to someone from 1776
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Willow @rockshrimp.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Every time I see someone talk about Claude I think about how they switched from female to male names as soon as they wanted the robots to seem like experts vs personal assistants.
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NIH Vigils @nihvigils.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
The NIH Vigils has become a place for community and support as we endure censorship and antiscience policies inside NIH. Every week for a year, we have gathered to mourn the losses to science and the harms to public health. And we will continue to gather every Saturday until NIH is rebuilt.
Please join us as we mark one year of building community and speaking truth. Outside the Medical Center Metro Station on Saturday, May 2, 2026 at 10 am
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 28/04/2026
More details on the firing of the National Science Board. The NSF now has no director, deputy director, or board. They have issued almost no new awards in 2026. The plan appears to be to completely destroyed the agency. The details are horrifying and have Russ Vought written all over them.
insidehighered.com
Board Ouster Raises Further Concerns About NSF’s Future
The White House axed all members of the board overseeing the National Science Foundation Friday, leaving the agency with no board, director or deputy director. It finally provided a reason Monday afte...
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Magnus Kjærgaard @proteinmagnus.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Why are de novo designed proteins so extremely thermostable? We try to answer this question by dissecting the thermodynamics of unfolding of mini-binders emerging from our protein design pipeline – and establish a convenient GUI for data analysis in the process. doi.org/10.64898/202...
Graphical abstract for pre-print showing a) theoretical model for thermostability, b) a GUI based analysis platform, c) protein denaturation data of mini-binders assessed by nanoDSF and d) a correlation plot that shows the de novo designed mini-binders have a much lower deltaCp than expected for a protein of their size.
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
And,
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
To the contrary,
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
This is not lets-propose-this-and-see-what-Congress-says. Their plan is more like USAID: eliminate before Congress can weigh in.
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Zen Faulkes @doctorzen.net · 07/04/2026
AS PER MY LAST POST: Google's AI Overview scanned a hoax paper (loaded with Star Wars references) that @neuroskeptic.bsky.social wrote. AI Overview said "Kyloren syndrome" is a real disease. See "The garbage'll do", July 2017, in Stinging the Predators: bit.ly/StingPred
bit.ly
Stinging the Predators: A collection of papers that should never have been published
This ebook collects academic papers and conference abstracts that were meant to be so terrible that nobody in their right mind would publish them. All were submitted to journals and conferences to expose weak or non-existent peer review and other exploitative practices. Each paper has a brief introduction. Short essays round out the collection.440 pages (version 24.1).Version 1.0 released 26 July 2017.Version 2.0 released 28 July 2017 (two new entries).Version 3.0 released 31 July 2017 (two new entries).Version 3.1 released 7 August 2017 (error corrected).Version 4.0 released 16 February 2018 (one new entry).Version 4.1 released 16 February 2018 (journal PDF replaced copied text).Version 5.0 released 4 July 2018 (one new entry).Version 6.0 released 26 July 2018 (one new entry).Version 6.1 released 28 July 2018 (journal PDF replaced copied text).Version 7.0 released 29 September 2018 (one new entry).Version 8.0 released 3 October 2018 (one new entry with three new papers).Version 8.1 released 4 October 2018 (one new paper added associated with v 8.0 entry; PDF bookmarks fixed).Version 8.2 released 7 October 2018 (expanded introduction associated with v 8.0 entry).Version 8.3 released 30 October 2018 (expanded introduction associated with v 8.0 entry; minor addition to earlier entries).Version 9.0 released 16 March 2019 (new entry).Version 10.0 released 7 April 2019 (new entry; minor update to previous entry).Version 11.0 released 31 March 2020 (two new entries; minor update to previous entry).Version 12.0 released 4 April 2020 (new entry; various minor updates to earlier entries, including updated link, corrected date, corrected name, etc.).Version 12.1 released 5 April 2020 (excerpts from hoaxed paper replaced with full PDF).Version 13.0 released 1 June 2020 (two new entries).Version 14.0 released 15 August 2020 (one new entry).Version 14.1 released 15 August 2020 (expanded newest entry).Version 15.0 released 16 August 2020 (one new entry).Version 16.0 released 26 December 2020 (one new entry).Version 17.0 released 12 January 2021 (one new entry; Introduction restored).Version 18.0 released 20 March 2021 (one new entry).Version 19.0 released 1 January 2022 (four new entries).Version 20.0 released 20 May 2022 (one new entry).Version 21.0 released 25 April 2023 (one new entry; one expanded entry).Version 22.0 released 16 January 2024 (one new entry; minor corrections).Version 23.0 released 11 November 2024 (one new entry).Version 24.0 released 18 May 2025 (two new entries).Version 24.1 released 23 May 2025 (two updated entries).Version 25.0 released 1 February 2026 (one new entry).
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
(aside from being conveniently squished in the vertical dimension with a non-functioning pop-out button)
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
I'm curious how these plots on year-to-year NIH funding levels compare to those @jeremymberg.bsky.social has been compiling. In my recollection, they're meaningfully different than the ones he was showing at the @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social meeting. grants.nih.gov/news-events/...
grants.nih.gov
NIH Awards by Month | Grants & Funding
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 03/04/2026
More context on this #Artemis II image: * This is the night side, lit by moonlight. You can see city lights in Spain & Portugal, & a sliver of day at lower right * The Sun is entirely behind Earth, which makes it a kind of solar eclipse, but w/ Earth doing the eclipsing instead of the Moon: ☀️🌍🚀🌕
A full disc image of Earth, as seen from the Orion Crew Module. The planet is a pale blue, swirling with white clouds and glowing slightly lighter blue in place from reflected light. At lower left, a large brown landmass is Africa, with Spain and Portugal with twinkling lights where the planet curves. At top right, auroras glow in a thin green glow, just barely separated from the planet's surface. Earth is set against the black of space (pic: NASA/R.Wiseman)
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
"Experts are Dubious" !?!?
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
THE TRUMP TRAP. Do not give up your integrity to keep your job, your funding, your lab, your organization, your science…you’ll end up with neither. If you wait for them to forcefully take it, you still have your integrity. Choose wisely, history watches.
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
After almost 10 years, my name is finally right in SCU's digital systems 🎉🎉 Depending on how implementation rolls out, my students and advisees should finally know how to find me, I shouldn't miss as many communications and payments. Thanks to the HR/IS team who make it happen!! #WomeninSTEM
Screenshot of HR software showing "Michelle McCully" listed as the poster's name
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Carolyn Bertozzi @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social · 14/03/2026
Another informative and thought provoking piece by @dereklowe.bsky.social
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
…Noem was just fired because of public pressure, articles of impeachment getting serious, and tanking polls. And immigration has ALWAYS BEEN Trump’s number one issue. He shoots the hostage every time. Why would he spare an unpopular Kennedy? RFK Jr is not a sacred cow.
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
What a good idea for an article! Very interesting. It's worth contemplating whether you would have also recognized the warning signs -- or have someone in your life who would. www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Meet three scientists who said no to Epstein
The warning signs included a web search, a mother’s doubts, and inklings of a “sexist attitude”
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 27/02/2026
I mean, it's this, or we just send chatbot-written e-mails back and forth to each other forever
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Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 25/02/2026
Let's hit the streets on Saturday, March 7th! The mission is simple: Save Science, Protect Health, Defend Democracy. Find a rally near you, start your own, or just get some friends together and have a pop-up protest! Links in bio, or visit standupforscience.net/march7 #science #standupforscience
MARCH 7, USA

TAKE BACK our SCIENCE RALLY!

ALL ACROSS THR COUNTRY

NATIONWIDE DAY OF ACTION

SAVE SCIENCE. PROTECT HEALTH. DEFEND DEMOCRACY.

standupforscience.net/march7
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Nick Polizzi @nickpolizzi.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
I’m looking to hire a research technician for my lab at Harvard & DFCI, who would primarily work in the wet lab expressing and characterizing designed proteins, starting this summer. A great role for a recent college grad looking for an immersive research experience before grad school.
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Daniel José Older @djolder.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
DOCTOR Rümeysa Öztürk has earned her PhD!!
linkedin.com
Hi everyone, I earned my PhD from the Department of Child Study and Human Development. My studies, research, and professional work focus on how positive media use among children and young people… |...
Hi everyone, I earned my PhD from the Department of Child Study and Human Development. My studies, research, and professional work focus on how positive media use among children and young people ca...
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Alt-NIHscience4ALL @alt-nihscience4all.altgov.info · 18/02/2026
@altfda.altgov.info challenged us to list #5Things that each of us Alts think have caused the most damage in our agencies over the past year. Each of the five items is chock full of sub-items…adding up to far more “things.” Here goes.
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Christelle Sabatier @chsaba.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
We should also note that these vaccines were limited to the most vulnerable populations or not approved at all due to these rare side effects (1 in 200,000). And now this detective work will help ensure future vaccines are even safer. Truly important work!
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
#goals @ncfdd.org
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Preaching to the choir, but...
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
I'm giving an exam but have slept in, forgotten to make copies, forgotten to write it, etc. When I was a student, never in a million years would I have suspected that my professors were having nightmares about the same exams as I was -- but from the opposite side!
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Jeffrey J. Gray @jeffreyjgray.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Final stretch to apply for undergraduate summer internships in the Rosetta Commons! Come design proteins, develop AI and physics-based methods to model biomolecules, and impact health, materials, and sustainability! Application deadline is Sunday Feb 1. rosettacommons.org/education/reu/
rosettacommons.org
Undergraduates
Rosetta Commons Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) AI for Biomolecular Structure Prediction and Design Interns in this geographically-distributed REU program participate in research using…
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Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 26/01/2026
Do what you can. ❤️‍🩹Take care of yourself. 🫂Take care of each other. ☎️Call 5calls.org 🧑‍💻Write democracy.io#!/thanks 🚫Boycott ICE: www.boycottcitizens.org/ice ✊Support MN: www.standwithminnesota.com
standwithminnesota.com
Stand With Minnesota Donation Directory
Stand With Minnesota is a hub for supporting, learning, and taking action to support Minnesotans impacted by ICE and federal enforcement.
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Admirable Women @admirablewomen.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Jane Richardson was born #OTD in 1941 + Developed the Richardson (ribbon) diagram to represent proteins' 3D structure (becoming a standard representation for protein structures) + MacArthur Fellow, 1985 + Elected, Nat'l Academy of Sciences, 1991 + President, Biophysical Society, 2012 #WomenInSTEM
Vibrant color portrait of Jane S. Richardson, the visionary biophysicist and artist who revolutionized structural biology with her invention of ribbon diagrams. She gazes warmly at the camera with a bright, knowing smile that radiates quiet brilliance and decades of curiosity. Her silver-blonde hair woven with gentle waves. Large, elegant dangling earrings catch the light, and she wears a richly patterned brown blouse embroidered with intricate turquoise paisley motifs and delicate beadwork that echoes the molecular elegance she has spent her life depicting. Behind her floats a luminous, dreamlike backdrop of glowing molecular structures--interlocking hexagonal and ribbon-like forms in electric blues, teals, and greens--blending science and art in a single, living canvas.Hand-drawn and hand-colored (by Jane Richardson) scientific artwork known as a Richardson ribbon diagram (or “ribbon model”), one of the iconic visual inventions of Jane Richardson that transformed the way we see and understand protein structures. A graceful, three-dimensional tangle of protein backbone ribbons twists and spirals through space, rendered in soft pencil lines and luminous watercolor hues. Smooth golden-brown coils represent α-helices that curl like elegant ribbons, while broad teal-green arrows trace the flat, pleated strands of β-sheets slicing through the molecule with directional purpose. Thin, looping golden threads connect the secondary structures, creating a delicate, almost dance-like choreography of biology’s hidden architecture. The entire form is framed by a simple olive-green mat and dark border, giving the drawing the quiet dignity of both fine art and precise scientific illustration—a timeless bridge between molecular reality and human imagination.
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Laura G Mitchell @lauragmitchell.com · 26/01/2026
We've raised a lot of money for my school community neighbors. And I predict all of it will be depleted by the end of this week. If you're in a position to donate, please help: paypal.me/lyndalepto (donations are tax deductible) 3/3
Mutual aid fundraiser poster for Lyndale Community School
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Keating Lab @keatinglab.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
Here’s a preprint from the Keating Lab: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... Foster Birnbaum and Amy E. Keating demonstrate that sequence design models, such as ProteinMPNN, are limited because they were trained only on native sequences.
biorxiv.org
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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
“We shouldn’t be aiming to nudge a few % points in public opinion. Our goal should be to make freedom of mobility so compelling that people demand it. Help people visualize & demand a future where kids can bike to school, seniors can walk to stores, couples can bike to dinner.” @usa.streetsblog.org
usa.streetsblog.org
Opinion: Stop Asking If People Want to Ride Bikes — Streetsblog USA
"We shouldn’t be aiming to nudge a few percentage points in public opinion. Our goal should be to make freedom of mobility so compelling that people demand it."
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Michelle McCully @mccullylab.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
Here for the right reasons
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Carolyn Bertozzi @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social · 09/01/2026
Exciting new work from @aliceyting.bsky.social and coworkers @stanfordbiosci.bsky.social @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Computational design of conformation-biasing mutations to alter protein functions
Conformational biasing (CB) is a rapid and streamlined computational method that uses contrastive scoring by inverse folding models to predict protein variants biased toward desired conformational sta...
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Pleuni Pennings @pleunipennings.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
I have started updating my website because I am no longer at San Francisco State. I also wrote on my website landing page that I am writing a book about my favorite topic: evolution of drug resistance. That's my biggest goal for the year! pleunipennings.wordpress.com
This is a drawing about the book I want to write.
Alt text: Drawing with on the left a person with a megaphone and the text: “DOOM NEWS Superbugs on the rise, soon all bacteria resistant!?” And on the right a person with heart-shaped glasses and the text: “NEWS Evolution-proof drug discovered”. In the middle it says: “The news can be extreme. Better news about drug resistance. Evolution, data and how we are winning the fights against drug resistance”
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