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Thilani Babuji

@thilanibabuji.bsky.social
79 followers 125 following 2 posts

Scientist 👩🏾‍🔬 PhD candidate in Dynamic Molecular Cell Biology in the Dodding lab @BristolBiochem Part time painter 🎨 Big on protein interactions and proteins in general! 🔬

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Reposted by Thilani Babuji
Anna Bodzeta @annabodzeta.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Here it is my 1st preprint about synapse and rhomboid intramembrane protease: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Using imaging and biochemistry, together with @adamgrieve.bsky.social we identify RHBDL2 as a membrane-immersed regulator of synapses architecture. 1/2
biorxiv.org
The unhindered lateral mobility of a rhomboid intramembrane protease enables synapse remodelling
Synapses must maintain their stable molecular organisation while retaining the capacity to remodel in response to changing demands. In order to flexibly change synaptic strength, the abundance of tran...
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adam grieve @adamgrieve.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
What if a membrane protein’s movement is as important as what it does? Our latest work reveals the unrestricted lateral mobility of a rhomboid protease enables neuronal synapse remodelling tinyurl.com/yk6xfxzr All credit to @annabodzeta.bsky.social for this stunning work, who is on the job hunt!
A cartoon depicting the unhindered movement of the rhomboid protease RHBDL2, which is required for it to encounter available synaptic adhesion proteins. Without this process, excitatory synapses fail to remodel.
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Danielle Beckman @daniellebeckman.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
How do the two most abundant glial cell types in the brain "welcome" red blood cells and other things coming through the blood vessels? Check the image below! 🤓 🔬 🧠 Astrocytes 🔵 Microglia 🟡 Red blood cells 🔴 #FluorescenceFriday
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David Solecki @so-lets-kilab70.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
Wonder doesn’t flinch. It’s our compass pulling us toward curiosity, creativity It reminds us: #science & #discovery are good. Here’s a moment that stirred mine: a new PI(3,4)P₂ probe illuminating the cell membrane & endosomes. Marvel with me. Captured on #FluorescenceFriday for #MicroscopyMonday
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Sebastian S. Cocioba @atinygreencell.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
I got hit by some rather sudden and extreme financial hardship so if anyone is in need of remote wetlab contract research, strictly BSL1, do let me know. Currently scrambling for gigs. Plant, Bacterial, Archaeal Non-model Bioeng Custom Lab Hardware Turn Key Genetic Design Please repost for reach 💚
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Princess Vimentin PhD | Cancer Biologist @princess-vimentin.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
🧪Holy shit. The Covid.gov website directs to the WH website claiming that covid came from a lab leak. And they are blaming Anthony Fauci. And calling the NIH a failure. I am utterly speechless. Anti-science propaganda running its wheels in real time.
covid.gov
Lab Leak: The True Origins of Covid-19
THE ORIGIN “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” publication — which was used repeatedly by public health officials and the media to discredit the lab leak
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Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
aside: a stunning comment from David Baker, UW professor who won the Nobel Prize in 2024. Now 15 lab members are looking for positions overseas. “There’s so many amazing people who want to come in, & we can’t take them. The Nobel Prize was just a little blip. But things have gotten quite bleak.”
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Buzz Baum @buzzbaum.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
I offered to present online but was told that this isn’t possible. We need to change this culture! In a world where scientists cannot travel freely, it should be possible to attend virtually. There are always people who can’t travel who shouldn’t be excluded. Science belongs to everyone, everywhere.
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Mark Dodding @markdodding.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
And a postdoc position available working between our lab and the Woolfson lab designing proteins and peptides to augment intracellular transport pathways t.co/0WWgylZMbS
t.co
https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMN615/research-associate-senior-research-associate-in-de-novo-peptide-and-protein-design
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Mark Dodding @markdodding.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
New preprint on kinesin inhibition and activation - collaborative effort across Bristol Biochem and Chemistry with Woolfson and Schaffizel labs and JJ Phillips in Exeter 1/2 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Molecular mechanism for cargo-mediated initiation of kinesin-1 activation
Kinesin-1 is a dynamic heterotetrameric assembly of two heavy and two light chains (KHC and KLC) that mediates microtubule-based intracellular transport of many different cargoes. The complex adopts a...
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adam grieve @adamgrieve.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Pls re-skeet! There's a postdoc job available to join us in Bristol! We're looking for a molecular cell biologist to help us investigate plasma membrane proteostasis in neurons. Apply here by 23 April: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMO097/r.... If interested, do contact me and check out grieve-lab.com! Thanks!
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Gabi Heller @g-heller.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Today @gogs-k.bsky.social, @tlhr.bsky.social, and I are launching @bindresearch.org, a UK-based not-for-profit research startup to deliver publicly–available tools and datasets to make intrinsically disordered proteins druggable. 🍝 💊🧲 💻 🦠
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Pierre Haas @lepuslapis.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Summer #internships in cell, developmental, and systems #biology, #biophysics, #mathematics (and more) @mpicbg.bsky.social @mpipks.bsky.social. Applications are open now: www.imprs-celldevosys.de/join/interns.... Join us in #Dresden over the summer!
imprs-celldevosys.de
IMPRS-CellDevoSys / Join! / Internships / Introduction
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
When Scientific American endorsed Harris, many scientists and science-friendly people were supportive and grateful, but some said: stick to science, science isn’t political, etc. But reality-denying right-wing fanatics will absolutely come for the scientists www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...
washingtonpost.com
Trump policies sow chaos, confusion across scientific community
U.S. scientists, unaccustomed to shock-and-awe political assaults, are reeling from President Donald Trump’s executive orders on DEI, gender and other subjects.
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Bristol BioDesign Institute @bristolbiodesign.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
📢 JOB VACANCY 4-Year Postdoc Position in Protein Design at @bristoluni.bsky.social Develop new peptides and proteins to manipulate, target and probe the mechanisms that underpin intracellular transport by microtubule motors. More: www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find-in... Deadline: 6 Feb 2025
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Wallace Marshall @wallaceucsf.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
Mitochondria consist of networks of cylindrical tubes, right? Not necessarily! - in our new preprint, @gavsturm.bsky.social investigates how mitochondria transiently adopt a beads-on-a-string morphology www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Ali Twelvetrees @handle.invalid · 21/12/2024
There’s a lot more to say about it, but it can wait till the new year. There’s a big addgene deposit with a bunch of useful dual CLIP and SNAP tagged things that will hopefully be useful for lots of folks (Merry Christmas!), as well as kinesin stuff. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Kinesin-1 is highly flexible and adopts an open conformation in the absence of cargo
​​Kinesin-1 is an essential anterograde microtubule motor protein. The core kinesin motor is a homodimer of two heavy chains; N-terminal motor domains hydrolyse ATP and walk along microtubules, whilst...
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bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
StayRose: a photostable StayGold derivative red-shifted by genetic code expansion www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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Kirsty McMillan @mcmillanlab.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
I have a funded PhD studentship available to start in my new lab in 2025! If you are interested in Endosomal Biology, Astrocytes and Alzheimer’s Disease have a look: www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Please feel free to share.
findaphd.com
The Role of the Endosomal System in Alzheimer’s Disease. at University of Liverpool on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - The Role of the Endosomal System in Alzheimer’s Disease. at University of Liverpool, listed on FindAPhD.com
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Timothy Saunders @timesaunders.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
Read about my amazing PhD student Ryan. Many thanks to CoB for hosting him for 3 months
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A/Prof Sam Stehbens PhD (She/Her) @samstehbens.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
@christanny.bsky.social will present her PhD work on #Cytoskeletal- #Golgi crosstalk during cellular #migration through #confined environments, P2586 Tuesday Dec 17, B195, 11:15am - 12:45pm #cytoskeleton #CellBio2024 @ascbiology.bsky.social
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Simon Olsson @smnlssn.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Impressive work by @franknoe.bsky.social and team! A pragmatic tour-de-force combining experimental and predicted protein structures, MD simulations and experimental stability data to sample conformational ensembles of proteins. Think AlphaFold, but capturing multiple free energy minima.
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Izzy Jayasinghe @ijayas.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
Reading the paper in Cell about how to close the scissor plots in gender representation at senior academic positions, I feel just a touch of pessimism. Having reached a level of seniority (middle management) I didn’t think I ever would, I read these great ideas wanting more, much more /1.
cell.com
Closing the scissor-shaped curve: Strategies to promote gender equality in academia
Gender inequality in STEM fields remains pervasive and undermines the ability for talented individuals to excel. Despite advances, women still encounter obstacles in pursuing academic careers and reac...
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Thilani Babuji @thilanibabuji.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Cool project, great new PI!
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Reposted by Thilani Babuji
Ferdos Abid Ali @abidalilab.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
If you’re interested in how molecular motors coordinate to power intracellular trafficking events (e.g. endocytosis), I’ve got a PhD position available to study this at vibrant Bristol uni. In this project, we will capture highly dynamic events by #cryoEM, single molecule imaging & cell biology. 🔬❄️🧪
This scheme shows the cargo adaptor FHF in the middle with arrows pointing to distinct microtubule and actin-based motors (dynein-dynactin, KIFC1, KIF1C and myosins V, IX and X as well as Tropomyosin 1). It also shows a link to Rab5 marked early endosomes. The hypothesis is that FHF coordinates multi motor binding at the early stages of endocytosis. The PhD project would address the hierarchy of motor binding and how these motors coordinate to allow the newly formed vesicle to transition from the actin to MT cytoskeletal network.
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 23/11/2024
I wish there was an easier way to communicate to early career people what being at the next stage is actually like. You can describe it, but it’s like an embodied experience that’s very hard to help people really understand. There’s no analog.
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Benjamin Grädel @bgraedel.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
I thought #fluorescencefriday would be a good opportunity for my first post here. Here are some crazy actin dynamics imaged with TIRF
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Peter O'Toole @yorkbioimaging.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Just maybe my proudest achievement will be #TheMicroscopists podcast which highlights the scientists themselves, and not just their amazing science. Revealing their hobbies and passions, their best and most difficult times. Be inspired: bit.ly/the-microsco... and please share
bit.ly
The Microscopists
The Microscopists is a podcast from Bitesize Bio and ZEISS Microscopy that takes you into revealing, entertaining, and personal meetings with the great microscopists of our time. Your host is Dr Peter...
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Max Schelski @maxschelski.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Hi! I'm Max. I'm developing a #biophysical model of #microtubules in #neurons during #development. The model is based on my surprising experimental finding (lots of live-cell imaging) that the entire microtubule array in neurites flows retrogradely into the soma: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪 🧠📈
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Ivana Gasic @ivanagasic.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Hello Bluesky community! What a better way to introduce myself and my research team than post our lab’s first paper freshly off press 🥳🍾 We reveal how tubulins regulate the stability of their mRNA via reversible sequestration of TTC5. Bravo A. Batiuk and all coauthors 👏🏻🥂 doi.org/10.1038/s414...
doi.org
Soluble αβ-tubulins reversibly sequester TTC5 to regulate tubulin mRNA decay - Nature Communications
When tubulin proteins are present in excess, their encoding mRNAs are selectively degraded in a process initiated by the protein TTC5. Here, the authors show that tubulins themselves reversibly seques...
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Stephen Royle @steveroyle.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
BSCB Women in #CellBiology prize 🧪 Deadline extended (15th Nov) The deal: UK-based scientist, running lab for < 7 years with 1+ senior author publication. Do you know someone who should be nominated? Maybe it's you? Details (a bit out of date): bscb.org/competitions...
bscb.org
Women in Cell Biology Early Career Award Medal | British Society for Cell Biology
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Çağrı Çevrim @cagricevrim.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
Science is objective not apolitical! Even the very act of historically excluded groups—women, immigrants, LGBTQ+, Black, Latino, and others—thriving in scientific spaces is political because it challenges systemic inequities. Their existence is a political manifestation! #scipol 🧪
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adam grieve @adamgrieve.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Can I ask you to share a PhD advert at Bristol Uni please? Rhomboid proteases play a role in neurons that is essential for life- but it is not characterised. Got a student interested in cell biology, electrophysiology and neurobiology? Send them our way! tinyurl.com/56f24f7c
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Matthew Freeman @mjafreeman.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Waves of new BlueSky arrivals in last few days! I’ve been tracking starter packs relevant to molecular/mechanistic/genetic/cellular…etc biology Hope it’s helpful but warning: now a v long thread! Probably the last time I can do this...
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