Sign in

Prism Science

@prismscienceorg.bsky.social
144 followers 25 following 51 posts

Prism is building the full stack of technologies and algorithms necessary to make protein motion measurable, actionable, and predictable. Learn more at prismscience.org

PostsRepliesMedia
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Prism’s Research page now has an RSS feed. If RSS is how you keep up with papers, methods, and technical work, you can now add our work on protein motion and conformational ensembles to your reader. prismscience.org/research
prismscience.org
Research
Research updates, scholarly work, code and datasets from the Prism team. Filter by topic and by the kind of output you are after.
000
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Microseeding made a big difference in Katie Lu’s Mac1 crystallization screens: 8 potential hits became 54. She’s using those results to optimize crystals for experiments asking how the crystal environment affects diffuse scattering. prismscience.org/research/kat...
prismscience.org
Varying crystallization conditions to study lattice effects on diffuse scattering
Dynamic structural data, models, and language to become standard across the field. At scale, this is how we predict conformational ensembles across all of biology.
020
Reposted by Prism Science
Stephanie Wankowicz @stephanieaw.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Emergency 🚨 TTPD with @fraserlab.com about the launch of @prismscienceorg.bsky.social. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...
podcasts.apple.com
Prism: Unlocking Protein Dynamics
Podcast Episode · The Tortured Proteins Department · September 8 · 27m
031
Reposted by Prism Science
Stephanie Wankowicz @stephanieaw.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Proteins are always moving. They wiggle. They jiggle. They interact with their surroundings. That movement drives their function. Yet the motion stays mostly invisible. We cannot understand protein function, engineer it, or correct it until we can see the motion and predict it. prismscience.org
prismscience.org
Prism | Revealing the Dynamics of Life
Dynamic structural data, models, and language to become standard across the field. At scale, this is how we predict conformational ensembles across all of biology.
193
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Prism’s work will help reveal how a mutation shifts binding, stability, or activity, uncovering how function and disease actually work. Read more: prismscience.org/science/
prismscience.org
Our Science
Static structures cannot tell us what makes a designed enzyme functional, what drives drug efficacy and resistance, or how to engineer motion itself.
010
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
We envision that shifting data banks and experimental designs from static assumptions to dynamic expectations could change biology forever.
100
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
How will we use this data? Rare state data from cryoEM and other methods helps us build a new foundation for structural biology based on protein motion. Our team, led by Joey Davis (MIT), is creating new, public models for interpreting motion, and these methods will only improve with time.
100
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
But why care about rare? Rare and excited protein states are inherently difficult to detect. Yet they have outsized effects on actual protein function. Prism will use the strengths of cryoEM to discover these transient states and decode how proteins move between alternating shapes.
100
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
We have not yet tapped the full potential of cryoEM. The method revolutionized structural bio with atomic-level detail, but has largely focused on proteins’ common lowest-energy states. With enough samples, cryoEM sees a broader energy landscape: It can capture *rare* states.
101
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Prism is building the full stack of technologies and algorithms necessary to make protein motion measurable, actionable, and predictable. Coordinated change to transform the field of structural biology.
000
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Last century, structural biology relied on a motionless view of proteins. Today’s instruments & ML no longer have to. Prism will make protein visible, revealing how form creates function. See more: prismscience.org
prismscience.org
Prism | Revealing the Dynamics of Life
Dynamic structural data, models, and language to become standard across the field. At scale, this is how we predict conformational ensembles across all of biology.
100
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
We need new ways to understand disease & design drugs. Protein motion holds the answer.
143
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Diffuse scattering is hard to compare quantitatively across experiments, let alone across synchrotrons. A new DiffUSE Project update shows diffuse maps reproducing across CHESS and ALS. Read the project update: diffuse.science/posts/reprod...
diffuse.science
Coffee is for Closers: making Mac1 diffuse scattering reproducible
diffuse scattering reproducible, yay!
001
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Diffuse scattering can encode correlated protein motions, but standard pipelines often discard it as background. mdx2 is an open-source Python toolkit for carrying that signal through processing. Read @meisborg.bsky.social's overview and try mdx2: diffuse.science/posts/mdx2/
diffuse.science
Revealing hidden signals in raw X-ray crystallography data with mdx2
Mdx2 is a powerful and open-source toolkit for diffuse data processing.
031
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Same mission, but an expanded vision for revolutionizing structural biology to better capture protein motion. Launching September 8.
041
Reposted by Prism Science
bioRxiv Biophysics @biorxiv-biophys.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
WaterFlow: Prediction of Ordered Water Molecule Positions on Protein Structures www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
064
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Check out our latest! 🌊
011
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
DiffUSE is rebuilding GOODVIBES, a forward model for lattice vibrations in diffuse scattering, in fully open-source Python that handles any space group or unit cell. Stephen Thornton posts the progress and open questions. diffuse.science/posts/goodvi... #openscience
011
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
This reframes the public PDB as a source of experimental ensemble information, and gives ensemble prediction the training data it has been missing. Read the pub: thestacks.org/publications...
thestacks.org
Recovering Conformational Heterogeneity from the Protein Data Bank at Scale
An Ensemble Dataset of over 60,000 Structures
000
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
We ran qFit across high-resolution PDB entries with deposited structure factors: 60,000+ ensemble models, the largest experimentally derived set to date. 83.7% fit the data better than the deposited structure, surfacing side-chain heterogeneity that single models miss.
100
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Most structures in the PDB report one set of coordinates. The experimental data behind them, in both X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM, is produced by an ensemble. New work recovers that hidden signal at scale in over 60,000 structures. thestacks.org/publications...
thestacks.org
Recovering Conformational Heterogeneity from the Protein Data Bank at Scale
An Ensemble Dataset of over 60,000 Structures
161
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
New in BANDICOOT: color each altloc a distinct hue, so you see heterogeneity while you build. Each added alternate conformation is auto hue-shifted from the last; remove them all and the residue returns to bulk color. Configurable and open source! diffuse.science/post/bandico... #compbio
diffuse.science
Displaying Conformational Heterogeneity in BANDICOOT
In preparation for hierarchical hetereogeneity encoding, BANDICOOT has a new, more intuitive display mode for alternate conformations.
032
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
An mmCIF file can say a residue has two alternate conformations and how often each appears. It cannot say which alternates occur together in the same copy. A draft proposal for recording that correlation, plus a tool to inspect it: diffuse.science/posts/mmcif-...
diffuse.science
mmCIF Explorer and the Heterogeneity Proposal
A playground for the PDBx/mmCIF file exploration, a look at the current proposal for encoding correlated heterogeneity
052
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
In our latest blog, @fraserlab.com graduate student Taylor Womack discusses his roadmap before the results: how he plans to separate lattice vibrations from internal protein motion, which open tools he is using, and which parts are still unresolved. Feedback welcome. diffuse.science/posts/taylor...
xtraj.py
Is it all just the lattice?
Towards a complete forward model of diffuse scattering
022
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
New TTPD episode discusses two bioRxiv preprints, revisits the Bethesda Declaration one year on, and public pushback to the OMB funding rule. Plus: where blogs end and peer review begins. diffuse.science/posts/TTPD-16/ #StructuralBiology #Biophysics #OpenScience
000
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Bandicoot reengineers Coot 0.9 for macOS Tahoe: toolbars rebuilt, UI moved from Python 2 to C++, atom picking and labels reworked. Now with built-in pandda.inspect for examining partial-occupancy and alt conformations. diffuse.science/post/bandico...
diffuse.science
BANDICOOT: Coot 0.9 That Runs on MacOS Tahoe
Reviving Coot 0.9 for MacOS Tahoe as Bandicoot, a bespoke and integrated molecular modeling environment.
000
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Why do protein-function AI models look great on benchmarks but disappoint in practice? Often "leakage": proteins meant for testing slip into training data over time, inflating scores. PLUG is a tool to build cleaner training sets. Read Clay's work: diffuse.science/post/plug-be... #proteinML
diffuse.science
Introducing PLUG: A Compiler for Leakage-free Protein Function Benchmarking
Leakage-free Training to Predict Protein Function
010
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Unlocking protein dynamics requires infrastructure we all can access. ICYMI: all of our software packages live on GitHub, updated in the open: github.com/diff-use
github.com
diffUSE
diffUSE has 15 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.
032
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Open science is useful science. One effort we are developing are logbooks where we share research as it happens: what works, what doesn't, what we've learned. Led by DiffUSE Scientist Steve Meisburger (@meisborg.bsky.social). See the latest: diffuse.science/logbook/beam... #OpenScience
001
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
What's happening in protein dynamics research right now? Jaime & Stephanie break down NIH policy changes, preprints & the conformational ensembles conference. New episode up: diffuse.science/posts/TTPD-15/ #StructuralBiology
073
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
In a test case, swapping Phenix's flat bulk-solvent mask for an MD-derived map lowered cross-validated R-free from 0.147 to 0.109 in one 0.96 Å. Code here: github.com/jmholton/phe...
github.com
GitHub - jmholton/phenix_user_solvent: allow user to override default solvent with externally-supplied mtz file
allow user to override default solvent with externally-supplied mtz file - jmholton/phenix_user_solvent
000
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Bulk solvent fills ~half a protein crystal. Modeling this is required for a good fit to experimental data. How best to model this remains an open question. New from diffUSE: a Phenix patch to supply your own solvent map (MD, 3D-RISM, EDEN, neural nets). Read more here: thestacks.org/publications...
thestacks.org
131
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
See our most recent blog diffuse.science/post/science... #SciComm #OpenScience
000
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
We share science at The DiffUSE Project in a few ways: blogs to contextualize motivation and intuition, scholarly outputs for methods, data, code, and a citable DOI. All open and shared rapidly for the best science. Our latest: doi.org/10.82153/jkx...
doi.org
sampleworks: A Modular Platform for Experimentally Guided Biomolecular Ensemble Generation
Structural biology increasingly relies on machine learning-based structure predictors, enabling accurate atomic-level structure prediction at scale. However, predicting conformational ensembles…
141
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
This open platform was built to allow further development of additional methods: github.com/diff-use/sampleworks Initial findings demonstrated that different structural predictors recover alternative conformations unevenly across proteins, suggesting memorization over generalization.
github.com
GitHub - diff-use/sampleworks: Framework for modified sampling from biomolecular generative models
Framework for modified sampling from biomolecular generative models - diff-use/sampleworks
010
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
We present sampleworks, an open, modular platform for generating and evaluating biomolecular conformational ensembles from structure predictors guided by experimental data doi.org/10.82153/jkx....
195
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Want to shape the future of structural biology? We are seeking a Project Manager to help lead the DiffUSE Project, guiding ML researchers, computational scientists, national labs, and university partners. Apply: buff.ly/gZlj9AP #StructuralBiology #MachineLearning #Hiring #AcademicSky
jobs.ashbyhq.com
Project Manager - DiffUSE Project
ABOUT DIFFUSE The DiffUSE Project is building open infrastructure to study protein dynamics using experimental data. The project spans wet-lab collaborators, computational scientists, ML researchers,…
023
Reposted by Prism Science
Gabriel Rocklin @grocklin.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Simulations can be valuable but there is a huge need for scalable experiments that probe protein dynamics- of course we're expanding our work here and there's also great work from others @hkws.bsky.social @ginaelnesr.bsky.social Basile Wicky (not on bsky) @diffuseproject.bsky.social
151
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
The DiffUSE Project wants examples where structural heterogeneity matters but cannot be encoded in PDBx/mmCIF. X-ray, cryo-EM, time-resolved, multi-map, or fragment screening data welcome. Submit yours: diffuse.science/submit/
diffuse.science
Submit Examples of Heterogeneous Structural Data
The DiffUSE Project
076
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
ICYMI: The latest Tortured Proteins Department episode. @stephanieaw.bsky.social and @fraserlab.com on: NIH strategic plan comments (due 5/26), AI lab guidelines, two new cryo-EM preprints, training scientists for what's next diffuse.science/posts/TTPD-14/
011
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
🎉🎉🎉
030
Reposted by Prism Science
Stephanie Wankowicz @stephanieaw.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Speakers include: @nozomi-ando.bsky.social @hkws.bsky.social, @pilarcossio.bsky.social, @cjjackson.bsky.social, @karsonchrispens.bsky.social, @alisiafadini.bsky.social, @thompson-lab.bsky.social, Joey Davis, Alex Bronstein, Rohith Krishna, Matthew McPartlon, Frederic Poitevin
151
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Hosted in partnership with the DiffUSE Project! 🎉👇
010
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Congrats to DiffUSE lead Stephanie Wankowicz @stephanieaw.bsky.social, on winning the inaugural Sheldrick Award! Her work on entropic flexibility and reproducibility in structural biology is core to what we're building. #crystallography #structuralbiology #openscience aucryst.org/sheldrick-aw...
020
Reposted by Prism Science
Stephanie Wankowicz @stephanieaw.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
We observed a tradeoff: weak guidance improves fit to data without wrecking protein geometry. But strong guidance destroys the geometry. Interestingly, models differ a lot in how they handle this despite similar architectures.
111
Reposted by Prism Science
Stephanie Wankowicz @stephanieaw.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Excited to share Sampleworks led by @karsonchrispens.bsky.social with @diffuseproject.bsky.social. It's a modular framework connecting structure predictors to experimental data and guidance methods. Swap predictors or guidance methods. All open and made to be built upon. t.co/fvNHH3gfVu
t.co
https://diffuse.science/posts/sampleworks/
1209
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
There's a missing middle in science funding: too unglamorous for journals, too ambitious for VC, too cross-functional for one lab. Radial CEO @beckypferdehirt.bsky.social on why she's building something new, starting with DiffUSE: beckypferdehirt.substack.com/p/why-im-joining-astera-to-lead-radial
beckypferdehirt.substack.com
Why I’m joining Astera to lead Radial
The systems that enable how we fund, do, and build upon science have long needed an update.
000
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
DiffUSE is expanding. We're rethinking how dynamic structural data is collected, modeled, shared, and interpreted across the entire pipeline. Read more from @stephanieaw.bsky.social diffuse.science/posts/expand...
diffuse.science
Expanding The DiffUSE Project
Expanding The DiffUSE Project
101
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Read more from @seemaychou.bsky.social here: open.substack.com/pub/asterain...
open.substack.com
Announcing Radial, Astera’s new life sciences division
Today, Astera Institute is launching Radial, a division which reimagines how life sciences research happens at a systems level.
100
Prism Science @prismscienceorg.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Radial is live! A new organization at @asterainstitute.bsky.social bringing together structural biologists, engineers, and ML scientists to redesign how we do science. @statnews.com has the story: www.statnews.com/2026/03/11/r...
statnews.com
New nonprofit launches with at least $500 million to modernize scientific process for AI era
A new nonprofit called Radial is launching with at least $500 million to modernize the scientific process for the AI era.
116