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Gregor Weiss

@weiss-lab.bsky.social
1.1K followers 619 following 33 posts

Assistant Prof at University of Zürich -- host-pathogen interactions across scales --

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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Tiny bacteria, fascinating biology 🦠 Great work by Marcel & Fabienne from Thomas Rudel’s lab @uni-wuerzburg.de using ExM to explore Chlamydia infection. @tillepprecht.ch from our group added cryo-ET insights—the tiniest bacteria we’ve ever milled!🔍 Congrats to the team www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Sphingolipids associate with the chlamydial nucleoid and mark developmental transitions in Chlamydia trachomatis - Nature Communications
During the developmental cycle of the pathogenic bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis, non-replicative bacterial cells (elementary bodies, EBs) alternate with replicative forms within membrane-bound inclus...
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Haven’t received the bill yet 😅 but I cannot agree more. Such retreats are a massive boost for motivation, team spirit and creative ideas 💡
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Fist lab retreat finally happened 🌴+🦠 We came for the science. We stayed for the lake, the secrets, and between Cadenabbia and Bellagio, we took the time to deeply talk about every project in a beautiful scenery — and how we want to do it together. Good people. Good science. Good vibes.☀️❄️🔬 #TeamTomo
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Ricardo D. Righetto @lifeonthewedge.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
A wild publishing ride to get here... but finally! (first bioRxiv: January 5th, 2024 🙃) Amazing work from @lorenzlamm.bsky.social and colleagues 🤗 Special thanks to the community who jumped early on the boat, sharing feedback and training data to make MemBrain v2 a reality 🙏🏽
nature.com
MemBrain v2: an end-to-end tool for the analysis of membranes in cryo-electron tomography - Nature Methods
MemBrain v2 enables streamlined analysis of membranes in cryo-electron tomography by providing user-friendly tools for membrane segmentation, membrane protein localization and spatial analysis, suppor...
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Florian Wollweber @florianwollweber.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Exciting news! Our @erc.europa.eu StG project ARCHAEAOLOGY got funded 🎉 We’ll combine cryoET/EM, ExM & spatial omics to explore the subcellular organization of Asgard archaea. Job ads coming soon! 🦠 ❄️ 🔬 #TeamTomo #ArchaeaSky #MicroSky
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Pilhofer Lab 🦠❄️🔬 @pilhoferlab.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Congrats to former lab member @florianwollweber.bsky.social for being awarded an ERC StG!!!🥳
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Tanmay Bharat @tbharat-lab.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Molecular architecture of colossal surface layers from hyperthermophilic archaea Led by @idocaspy.bsky.social (Ido) In collaboration with @mkrupovic.bsky.social and @vikramalva.bsky.social labs doi.org/10.64898/202...
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Congratulations @selimlab.bsky.social and team and thanks for including us in this exciting story about Ca2+ signalling in filamentous Cyanobacteria 🥳 great to see it finally published!!
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Khaled_Selim Lab @selimlab.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
🧵 #Bacterial #Multicellularity: We discovered that Ca2+ signaling controls cellular junctions in #cyanobacteria, similar to Euks @embojournal.org A great collab. w/ @weiss-lab.bsky.social #TeamTomo @hhu.de @spp2389.bsky.social @cmfi.bsky.social @mibinet.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
The calcium-binding protein CSE links Ca2+ signaling with cell-cell communication in cyanobacteria - The EMBO Journal
Multicellular cyanobacteria have evolved sophisticated cell–cell communication machinery to exchange, synchronize, and coordinate the efforts of individual cells. Analogous to gap junctions that have ...
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Florent Waltz @florentwaltz.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
This story is now published in @natplants.nature.com ! 🎉🎩 Check out the final article here: nature.com/articles/s41477-026-02361-1 Very similar to the original bioRxiv preprint, with the addition of some cool polysome analysis (in the supplementals)! Thanks and congrats to everyone involved! 🙏
nature.com
Chloroplast-encoded small subunit extensions reshape the Chlamydomonas chlororibosome - Nature Plants
Using in situ cryo-electron tomography, researchers found a unique ‘arm’ domain on the small subunit of Chlamydomonas chlororibosomes. This discovery suggests that chlororibosome structure is more evo...
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Bronwyn Lucas @bronwynalucas.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
New preprint from the lab! Led by graduate student @lainahall.bsky.social we show a new method to thin cells for cryo-EM imaging with minimal damage. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Optimized cryo-FIB milling strategy to generate thin, minimally damaged biological lamellae
Focused ion beam (FIB)-milling has been adapted to thin frozen cells for visualization of macromolecular structures in situ with cryogenic electron microscopy. However, only a few large and abundant c...
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
This was a wonderful collaborative effort between us at the Univeristy of Zurich, @ethz.ch and old friends @unituebingen.bsky.social and new friends @cbitoulouse.bsky.social @matthchavent.bsky.social
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Our data suggest that SepN forms the central plug of the septal junction, while FraD spans the cytoplasmic membrane and anchors the complex within the periplasm. Give it a read and dive into the beautiful world of cyanobacteria: www.cell.com/cell-reports...
cell.com
The SepN-FraD structural module serves as an anchor and assembly platform for septal junctions in cyanobacteria
Filamentous cyanobacteria rely on septal junctions to coordinate multicellular behavior. Kieninger et al. combine cryo-electron tomography, structure prediction, molecular dynamics simulations, and fu...
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Just out in @cellreports.bsky.social, we combined cryo-FIB milling, cryo-electron tomography and subtomogram averaging with AlphaFold3 predictions, molecular dynamics simulations and functional experiments to investigate the architecture of these bacterial cell–cell junctions.
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Some bacteria do not live as individuals. They build multicellular filaments and connect neighboring cells through tiny cell-cell junctions. Cyanobacteria are among the most beautiful examples 😍 In our new paper, we reveal first molecuar insights on the cyanobacterial septal junction architecture 🧵
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Ben Engel @cellarchlab.com · 03/07/2026
Super excited to launch this search for a new endowed professor at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch! Join us to build a research cluster in Climate Biophysics! 🌍🌊🌾🔬🧪 This is a unique opportunity to create a community in Basel🇨🇭working together on this timely topic! ⏳🌡️ Questions? Please reach out! 👩‍🔬👨‍🔬
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Congratulations 🥳🥳 Basel + #TeamTomo => 🚀
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Ben Engel @cellarchlab.com · 07/05/2025
“The Website” is here! It can be intimidating getting into analysis of #CryoET data, and software is evolving all the time👩‍💻🚀. @phaips.vd.st & @florentwaltz.bsky.social put our lab’s workflows into an online guide. We hope this helps lower the bar to joining #TeamTomo. Feedback much appreciated! 🧪🧶🧬🔬
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Wieczorek Lab @mike-wieczorek.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
New preprint! In collaboration with @xujwet.bsky.social, @pedrobeltrao.bsky.social, and Akhmanova and Beekman groups, we determined the structure of the transition zone microtubule doublet in mammalian motile cilia, providing potential insights into the regulation of IFT: tinyurl.com/fssnevuc
tinyurl.com
Structure of the mammalian ciliary transition zone microtubule doublet
The ciliary transition zone gates bidirectional protein trafficking to maintain the specialized ciliary proteome using microtubule doublets as a scaffold. While ciliary axonemal doublets are well-char...
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Biohub @biohub.org · 11/06/2026
In a series of 3 papers and preprints, we’re thrilled to share with you the working laser phase plate. In collaboration with research led by Holger Müller at UC Berkeley, this is a huge innovation in imaging to make small and faint objects inside cells visible. bit.ly/4vK9LVn
Waves of laser light coming from four different directions and meeting in the middle brightly inside the cavity of the laser phase plate
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Pilhofer Lab 🦠❄️🔬 @pilhoferlab.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
🛠️💉It's time for engineering contractile injection systems! @chipericson.bsky.social & @davidschaumann.bsky.social introduce programmable CIS - PROCIS, combining tail length control, non-native cargo loading, and cell retargeting all in one system! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵 1/5
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Allegretti Lab @matteoall.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
We're happy to announce our new preprint! 🐸 easymode: general pretrained networks for cellular cryo-ET. Segment ~20 cellular features – ribosomes, microtubules, mitochondria, nuclei & more – with zero model training. 🔗 doi.org/10.64898/202... 🧵👇
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Alexander Harms @aharms485.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Some phages are named after gods or rivers, this one was named by journalist Thilo Mischke @thilomischke.bsky.social after his grandma ("Oma Karin") while filming in our lab. It's a cool phage that should be temperate but became virulent due to a transposon at its lysogeny control! ⛓️‍💥💪🏼
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Sonja-Verena Albers @archaellum.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
The really striking part: all three Dip proteins oscillate pole-to-pole, and DipB and DipC also build ring-like structures at midcell. This is reminiscent of the bacterial Min system, which uses oscillation to keep FtsZ centered — but Dip is its own thing (more on that below).
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Dimitry Tegunov @dtegunov.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
We're super excited to share MissAlignment: a new ML-based approach to reference-free tilt series alignment, spearheaded by @martenchaillet.bsky.social. We think it's going to make your cryo-ET life a lot better. Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Code: github.com/warpem/miss-... 🧶 Thread:
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Max Gutierrez @maxgg.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Really important and relevant study in TB from @danbarberphd.bsky.social and colleagues. We need to re-think many assumptions. Nitric oxide production in mice has been a confounding factor. #tuberculosis
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Martin Pacesa @martinpacesa.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
I am happy to share a review I recently wrote on the design of peptide binders. It gives an overview of experimentally validated tools and discusses the challenges of why peptide design is more difficult than the design of classical protein binders. www.chimia.ch/chimia/artic...
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
If you wanna try our new Autogrid High-Pressure Freezing Planchettes ❄️ - you can use the provided drawings & CAD files to produce them in-house 🛠️ - you can now also contact www.wohlwend-hpf.ch to order yours with a shiny gold-coating ✨ The preprint for instructions ➡️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Pilhofer Lab 🦠❄️🔬 @pilhoferlab.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
📜The final version of our paper on eCIS firing is out: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congrats to @xujwet.bsky.social @chipericson.bsky.social #cryoEM #CIS
nature.com
Stepwise firing mechanism of an extracellular contractile injection system - Nature Communications
Bacterial contractile injection systems (CIS) mediates cell-cell contacts, but the firing mechanism is unclear. Here, the authors employ a multimodal cryoEM approach and structure guided engineering t...
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
😍 looks fantastic!! Congratulations!
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Helena Watson @helenawatson.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
Preprint 🧵! I’m really excited to introduce BIGSMALL, an interleaved multi-magnification cryo-ET scheme bridging molecular and cellular scales in a single acquisition! BIGSMALL = 𝐁road 𝐈nformation 𝐆athering 𝐒trategy by 𝐌ultiscale 𝐀cquisition of lame𝐋𝐋a www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... (1/6)
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Cetyl palmitate coating helps a lot for releasing the grid. In the current setup, we use hexadecen primarily to fill the cavities to avoid air being trapped. Gold coating is currently in the process 😎 you can produce the planchettes with your workshop and hopefully soon you can buy them at Wohlwend
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
The work was spearheaded by PostDoc Miriam Weber, with help from @tillepprecht.ch and @xujwet.bsky.social 🙏🏼 and it’s the start of Till’s animation career :) movie credits go to @tillepprecht.ch
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Lars-Anders Carlson @lacarlson.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
VERY nice video, and a nice invention! Thanks again Miriam Weber who presented this at CryoNET 2025 in Umeå.
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Check out the preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
New preprint 🚀 ❄️ We developed Autogrid-compatible HPF planchettes that enable direct freezing of clipped EM grids and streamline integration with cryo-FIB workflows ✔️ improved grid stability ✔️ reduced handling ✔️ robust vitrification (🦠 🧫 🧠) A step toward routine HPF for complex samples #teamtomo
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Stella Hurtley @smhsci.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Out now in @science.org Repurposing of a DNA segregation machinery into a cytoskeletal system controlling cell shape | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Repurposing of a DNA segregation machinery into a cytoskeletal system controlling cell shape
Bacteria, like eukaryotes, use conserved cytoskeletal systems for intracellular organization. The plasmid-encoded ParMRC system forms actin-like filaments that segregate low–copy number plasmids. In m...
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Benjamin Springstein @huepfkiesel.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Repurposing of a DNA segregation machinery into a cytoskeletal system controlling cell shape | Science www.science.org/eprint/JCFZX...
science.org
Science | AAAS
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Super cool story on one of the most beautiful bacteria out there: Cyanobacteria 😍 congrats to @huepfkiesel.bsky.social, @nartimsoole.bsky.social & co-authors!
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Martin Loose @nartimsoole.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Now out in its final form! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Science | AAAS
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Sjors Scheres @sjorsscheres.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
We're excited to announce the beta-release of #RELION-5.1! 🥳 This release has important updates on our #amyloid processing pipeline, as described in this preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202... There are also some tweaks for #teamtomo. #OpenSoftwareAcceleratesScience
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Carlos Flores @carlosebflores.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
What a pleasure to give my first talk with a lab coat at Institute of Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich (UZH). Feeling like old school professor. 😅😅 Thank you @weiss-lab.bsky.social for the invitation, and the amazing time with an amazing team. 🥳 #UTI #AMR #organoids #UTISky
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Kimberly Kline 🏔 @kimingeneva.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
What if quorum sensing doesn’t promote biofilms - but restrains it? 🤔 New work from @harisantypas.bsky.social shows that the Fsr QS system in Enterococcus faecalis acts as a brake on biofilm formation and pathogenesis during infective endocarditis (IE). www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Loss of Fsr quorum sensing promotes biofilm formation and worsens outcomes in enterococcal infective endocarditis - Nature Communications
Infective endocarditis (IE) is an understudied biofilm-associated infection. Here, analyses of preclinical and clinical data reveal that the Fsr quorum sensing (QS) system of Enterococcus faecalis is ...
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Thijs J. G. Ettema 🦠🔬🇳🇱🇸🇪🇪🇺 @ettema.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Our latest preprint: Together with the team of Jan Löwe, @danieltamarit.bsky.social and many others we discovered and characterized several Asgard tubulin genes and propose that microtubule architecture and dynamics evolved in Asgard archaea prior to eukaryogenesis www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Pilhofer Lab 🦠❄️🔬 @pilhoferlab.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Contractile Injection Systems - Hot Springs - cryoET: Read the final version of our paper here: academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc... #microsky #teamtomo
academic.oup.com
Thermophilic bacteria employ a contractile injection system in hot spring microbial mats
Abstract. Bacterial contractile injection systems (CISs) are multiprotein complexes that facilitate the bacterial response to environmental factors or inte
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Ben Engel @cellarchlab.com · 30/01/2026
Excited to share this detailed biophysical study of #PhaseSeparation in the Pyrenoid, an algal microcompartment that fixes a third of the Earth's #CO2 🌏. We combine methods across scales, in vitro 🧪 and in vivo 🦠 Thanks for the very fun collaboration! 🤗 #PlantScience 🌾 #TeamTomo 🔬 #LivingPhysics 🧬🧶
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EMBL @embl.org · 28/01/2026
The origin of eukaryotic cells continues to be one of the greatest mysteries in biology. EMBL Grenoble is excited to welcome Florian Wollweber, who will use cutting-edge imaging techniques to study Asgard archaea — microbes closely related to our earliest ancestors. 🦠🔬 www.embl.org/news/people-...
Researcher Florian Wollweber standing next to a cryo-focused ion beam microscope in a laboratory, with technical infrastructure visible in the background.
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Wilfling Lab @wilflinglab.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
LLOMe has long been used to study lysosomal damage, yet how it works has remained a mystery. Using cryo-electron tomography, we show it forms amyloid structures inside lysosomes that mechanically rupture membranes – revealing a new paradigm for lysosomal failure. 🔗 doi.org/10.64898/202... #CryoET
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Dawid Zyla @dzyla.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
I am hiring Postdocs and RAs. If you are interested in structural biology and want to move to beautiful Colorado, I'd love to hear from you. 🏔️ Website: zylalab.org
zylalab.org
Zyla Lab
Structural Dynamics of Molecular Machines
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Gregor Weiss @weiss-lab.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
🔬 Postdoc position – Infection Biology & Cryo-ET (Zurich) 🇨🇭 We are looking for a motivated Postdoc to join our interdisciplinary team. 📩 Interested? Check out the job advert: www.imm.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:cb17... 👉 More info on the lab: www.weiss-laboratory.com Please share with interested colleagues!
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