Caitie McCafferty
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computingcaitie.bsky.social
Caitie McCafferty
@computingcaitie.bsky.social
Postdoc in the @cellarchlab.com at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch. Find out more at ciliagirl.com.
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Hi! My interests include structure prediction, proteomics, cryo-EM, and citizen science. Many of which are summarized in this review I wrote with @cellarchlab.com @svenklumpe.bsky.social @rommieamaro.bsky.social Wanda and Lucy earlier this year tinyurl.com/CellreviewEM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Final version is out! Our large-scale cryo-ET dataset 🔬 of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii 🦠 is now published in @cp-molcell.bsky.social

Huge collaborative effort! So glad to see the community already using it to develop new resources & tools.

Check it out here: shorturl.at/z4i4c
#CryoEM #CryoET
December 19, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Happy to share our fun team-up with @centriolelab.bsky.social & @stearnslab.bsky.social to reveal the architecture of the mammalian centriole’s Distal Ring 🛟. Very cool multiscale integration of #UExM 📏🔬with #CryoET ❄️🔬. Congrats to @ebertiaux.bsky.social & @computingcaitie.bsky.social #TeamTomo 🧪
How does C2CD3 contribute to distal appendage formation in centrioles? @centriolelab.bsky.social show that C2CD3 acts as a central architectural organizer of the distal #centriole, bridging the luminal distal ring complex & peripheral appendage sites @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/496XZuH
December 10, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Great talk (and work 🧪 ) by @computingcaitie.bsky.social from @biozentrum.unibas.ch about exploring multiciliated cells with a complementary trio of structural techniques! Looking forward to sharing the preprint. Thanks for the fab collab @centriolelab.bsky.social @stearnslab.bsky.social #TeamTomo
Next up @computingcaitie.bsky.social from @cellarchlab.com marvels us with in situ structural biology of mammalian motile cilia base- power of #cryoET with #XL-MS & #UExM! Stunning cataloguing of MIPs in different axial positions & cilia types, filamentous actin in action. #UKCilia2025 /3
November 25, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Tomorrow!!
#Cilia and #Centrosome friends- tomorrow is the big day!! 🎉 🎉

Organoids for #PCD, #CryoET of the base of motile cilia, TZ organization in #IRDs, macrophages & cystic niches in #PKD, how pro-inflammatory lipids & #adipogenesis AND cilia as signal-sending organelles shedding #EVs! 🤩 😍 Join us!!
🎆 Join us for an unmissable finale to 2025! 🎆 We're thrilled to bring our #cilia & #centrosome community together 25/11/2025 15:00-17:45 GMT! Our 53rd @bscb-official.bsky.social @gensocuk.bsky.social @ukcilianetwork.bsky.social e-symposium schedule is live: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bscb-genso... /1
November 24, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
While trying to steer clear of the ‘best organelle’ debate, we’re delighted to highlight #JCSciliaSI, guest edited by @cilialab.bsky.social & @lottepedersen.bsky.social.

And, we hope that even the most ardent fans of other organelles can agree that cilia are certainly beautiful to image!
JCS Special Issue - 'Cilia and Flagella: from Basic Biology to Disease' - FocalPlane
JCS Special Issue - 'Cilia and Flagella: from Basic Biology to Disease' - News
focalplane.biologists.com
November 13, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Super happy this work is out and included in the really interesting cilia and flagella focused issue!
Abigail Moye @abimoye.bsky.social @iobswiss.bsky.social, Theodore Wensel @bcmhouston.bsky.social and colleagues examine the sub-ciliary localisation of CEP290 and dissect the effects of its loss in mouse photoreceptors during development.
#JCSciliaSI
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
October 31, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
🚨Our collaboration with @centriolelab.bsky.social & @gautamdey.bsky.social is out today in @cp-cell.bsky.social
We show that #Expansion #Microscopy is a broad-spectrum modality for Euks, enabling 3D phenotypic maps rooted to phylogeny.
#ProtistsOnSky #SciComm #SciSky

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
October 31, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Our Special Issue on Cilia and Flagella: from Basic Biology to Disease, guest edited by @cilialab.bsky.social‬ and @lottepedersen.bsky.social, is building. We’ll be highlighting all the articles over the next couple of weeks. Follow along at #JCSciliaSI.
journals.biologists.com/jcs/issue/13...
Volume 138 Issue 20 | Journal of Cell Science | The Company of Biologists
journals.biologists.com
October 27, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
A class like no other!! From #AI structure hallucination 🤖 to #CryoEM structure reality 🔬 by @biozentrum.unibas.ch @unibas.ch undergraduate students👩‍🔬👩‍🎓 in just a few weeks!

One of their creations is this beautiful flower-shaped tetrameric pore 🌼, a brand new member of the #ProteinCosmos 🧶🧬 🧪
October 26, 2025 at 1:48 PM
That’s a wrap of the 2nd edition of our one of a kind structural biology block course at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch! In just 6 short weeks students designed protein oligomers; rotated in cryo-ET, cryo-EM SPA, AFM, and NMR labs; and expressed, purified, and structurally characterized their designs
October 25, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Mark your calendars for some cilia science!!!
🎆 Join us for an unmissable finale to 2025! 🎆 We're thrilled to bring our #cilia & #centrosome community together 25/11/2025 15:00-17:45 GMT! Our 53rd @bscb-official.bsky.social @gensocuk.bsky.social @ukcilianetwork.bsky.social e-symposium schedule is live: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bscb-genso... /1
October 21, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Last Friday (17th), we had an amazing first Young Swiss Tomo meeting in Bern, organized with Elda Bauda, Zanetta Kechagia, and @leonieanton.bsky.social!
Over 70 people from 🇨🇭 gathered to talk about cryo-electron tomography 🔬.
Huge thanks to the DCI for making the event possible! See you next year! 👋
October 19, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Latest from ours: www.cell.com/cell-reports...

This is two stories in one: a case study/cautionary tale on developing genetic tools in new organisms, and the first hint at a gene regulatory network for choanoflagellate multicellular development (which turn out to involve a Hippo/YAP/ECM loop!) A 🧵
October 5, 2025 at 10:35 AM
So much fun to host @edwardmarcotte.bsky.social at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch and introduce him to the @cellarchlab.com, thanks for a wonderful Discovery Seminar!!
October 4, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Assistant/Associate Professor in Structural Biology, Biophysics or Biological Imaging

www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/open-positio...

#biozentrum #University #Basel #Professor #Structural #Biology #Biophysics #Biological #Imaging
September 29, 2025 at 2:58 PM
You don’t want to miss this one!
The former supervisor of @computingcaitie.bsky.social is coming to visit and tell us all about structural proteomics. Looking forward to this #DiscoverySeminar from @edwardmarcotte.bsky.social !! 😃

#ProteinCosmos 🧶🧬
On Friday, October 3, we will welcome our next #DiscoverySeminar speaker, Prof. @edwardmarcotte.bsky.social @utaustin.bsky.social. Join his lecture on "Modern Cells, Ancient Proteins: Proteomics Across Deep Evolutionary Time to Decode Human Genetics" @biozentrum.unibas.ch @unibas.ch
September 30, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Meet the CAGE: a newly-discovered protein nanocapsule💊, conserved from bacteria to eukaryotes! Looks more like an eclair🍩 than a prezel🥨. This protein pastry now makes us wonder- what's the filling!? Huge congrats to the ever-amazing @computingcaitie.bsky.social, now at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch 🧪🧶🧬
I am excited to share our new preprint on the CAGE complex, a mysterious hollow protein complex that I first saw years ago while surveying Tetrahymena ciliary lysate www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #cilia #protistsonsky 🧬🧪
September 24, 2025 at 12:03 PM
I am excited to share our new preprint on the CAGE complex, a mysterious hollow protein complex that I first saw years ago while surveying Tetrahymena ciliary lysate www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #cilia #protistsonsky 🧬🧪
September 23, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
A molecular-resolution look into the near-native architecture of the spinach chloroplast🌱. This one was a long time in the oven, but we're happy to finally share our "version of record". What long-standing debates did we settle? Check back for a short thread🧵 on Monday. #TeamTomo #PlantScience 🧪🧶🧬🔬🌾
🌱 Using ‘compelling’ methods, including #CryoET, researchers mapped spinach thylakoid membranes at single-molecule precision, revealing how photosynthetic complexes are organised and settling long-standing debates on chloroplast architecture.
buff.ly/j3TSIkn
September 20, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Side hustle level-up! My book, IN THE BEGINNING, will be published by @harperonebooks.bsky.social in 2027! It's about the human embryo, how it gets built, and what it means for where we come from and where we're going.
@harpercollins.bsky.social (1/2)
@socdevbio.bsky.social
#devbiol
#scicomm
September 15, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Sub-cellular chemical mapping in bacteria using correlated cryogenic electron and mass spectrometry imaging

Congrats Hannah Ochner and authors on this important paper! Strong collaboration with @kiranrpatil.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
@mrclmb.bsky.social @wellcometrust.bsky.social
August 31, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Trouble imaging actin in ExM? Meet HAK-Actin, a probe for U-ExM, cryo-ExM & iU-ExM. Enables post-expansion labeling for max signal. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Soon at @spirochrome.com
Led by O.Mercey and @lreymond.bsky.social, in collab with @dudinlab.bsky.social and @marinelap.bsky.social
August 28, 2025 at 7:03 AM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
For some three billion years, unicellular organisms ruled Earth. Then, around one billion years ago, a new chapter of life began

go.nature.com/3JyRV4S
How did life get multicellular? Five simple organisms could have the answer
Single-celled species that often stick together in colonies have researchers rethinking the origin of animals.
go.nature.com
August 27, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
Apply now for the prestigious and independent #BiozentrumPhDFellowships. Great science. Unique rotation-based selection of research group and other incentives. The summer call is open until October 12, 2025. bit.ly/4caiqqX @biozentrum.unibas.ch @unibas.ch #fellowship #PhD#Switzerland
Biozentrum PhD Fellowships
Share your passion for life sciences. If you are talented and highly motivated, want to broaden your horizons and are interested in a wide range of research topics, apply for one of the sought after B...
bit.ly
August 4, 2025 at 11:40 AM
Reposted by Caitie McCafferty
📢 Excited to share our new study in Nature Communications!
We show that the A-C linker safeguards centriole architecture & controls duplication. A big congratulations to Lorène for this beautiful discovery, which represents 4 years of her thesis work.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
July 25, 2025 at 7:51 AM