Mara Duncan
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mcduncanlab.bsky.social
Mara Duncan
@mcduncanlab.bsky.social
Associate Professor at the University of Michigan. I post photos of my cat and garden, and helpful tips for running a lab. Thoughts my own.
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🧪Dear Grad student,

Are you overdue for a thesis committee meeting but feel like you have nothing to show since your last meeting? I'm begging you to schedule that meeting now!

1/🧵
Reposted by Mara Duncan
FWIW The docudrama was “Breaking The Mould” (www.imdb.com/title/tt1434... )
Breaking the Mould (TV Movie 2009) ⭐ 7.1 | Drama, History
1h 20m
www.imdb.com
February 18, 2026 at 8:59 AM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
IIRC, that case (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_... was in a wonderful docudrama about Florey et al ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_... ) trying to turn penicillin from a petri dish curiosity, into an actual medicine.
Unfortunately at the time they couldn’t produce enough to save Alexander.
en.wikipedia.org
February 18, 2026 at 8:58 AM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
I'm very excited to share our newest preprint, where we show that long, linear bifunctional molecules like PROTACs can bind within the narrow ubiquinone-binding tunnel of mitochondrial complex I, leading to off-target mitotoxicity.
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
(1/4)
February 16, 2026 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
I am looking for a post/doc! Are you motivated to study the fundamental questions in autophagy? Have a look!
March 26, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
I am finally getting around to discussing our preprint "Septins mediate cell-cycle-dependent exclusion of Cdc42 GAP Rga4 from growth sites in fission yeast" by a very talented grad student Justin McDuffie in the Das lab. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/
www.biorxiv.org
February 15, 2026 at 3:36 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
Does anyone happen to know what Debs might be talking about?
Many years ago there was a test going round in one of the online broadsheets where you could test the size of your vocabulary- aimed at native speakers but I can’t find it anymore. Google just keeps giving me English language tests for learners but that’s not as interesting to me.
February 15, 2026 at 1:09 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
Congratulations to Prasanna Satpute-Krishnan (@pskcellbio.bsky.social)
for winning the USU Henry C. Wu Award for Excellence in Basic Science Research!
February 13, 2026 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
FCHo2, not talin, enables inside-out activation of integrin ɑvβ5 in curved adhesions
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
FCHo2, not talin, enables inside-out activation of integrin ɑvβ5 in curved adhesions - Nature Communications
Talin has been believed to be indispensable for integrin activation. Here, the authors show that the curvature-sensing protein FCHo2, not talin, enables inside-out activation of integrin ɑvβ5 in curve...
www.nature.com
February 12, 2026 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
🔬 How does #Yeast optimize protein secretion? SEC72 deletion reshapes cellular functions including iron homeostasis and cell wall assembly, boosting secretion of proteins with strongly hydrophobic signal peptides

🧪 #YeastResearch #SGD #CellBiology #Biotechnology
www.yeastgenome.org/reference/S1...
February 10, 2026 at 7:27 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
We are starting Bay Area Chromatin Club up again in 2026! Fist event March 5th at UCSF Mission Bay! Details and registration HERE: If you like to nominate a person for a talk- DM me. It's been a great experience in the past.

urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...
Bay Area Chromatin Club - In Person Symposium: March 5, 2026
The Chromatin Club Bay Area was founded to foster a scientific community between academic and industry members in and around the Bay Area.
urldefense.com
February 9, 2026 at 9:40 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
omg everybody go draw a horse this is what the internet was made for

gradient.horse
gradient.horse
Draw a horse, watch it run!
gradient.horse
February 9, 2026 at 11:11 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
I am looking for examples of a 2-3 hour lab activity for a course that would allow college students to get some experience connected to environmental DNA studies (e.g., e-DNA, rRNA/ITS PCR, metagenomics, etc). Ideally this would have some DNA extraction and some follow up processing / analysis.
February 9, 2026 at 11:25 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
🩺 From #Yeast to human disease:
Reseach shows metabolic pathway disruption causes amino acids to self-assemble into toxic amyloid structures, providing new insights into inherited metabolic disorders and potential treatments

🔬 #YeastResearch #SGD #DiseaseModeling
www.yeastgenome.org/reference/S1...
February 9, 2026 at 6:17 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
February 8, 2026 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
Did you know melons have to get married in really big weddings?

They cantaloupe.
a cat wearing a melon hat sits next to a melon
Alt: a cat wearing a melon hat sits next to a melon
media.tenor.com
February 3, 2026 at 6:12 AM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
'The regularization effort underway in Spain actually began as a citizen-led initiative endorsed by more than 900 nongovernmental organizations, including the Catholic Church, and it has the support of business associations and trade unions alike.'

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/o...
Opinion | I’m the Prime Minister of Spain. This Is Why the West Needs Migrants.
www.nytimes.com
February 6, 2026 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
I actually just went over HIV in my Gen Micro class and the gp41 fusion mechanism seems evocative of SNAREs. Are there mechanistic similarities?
February 6, 2026 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
Lipids challenge ligands to control receptors

The behaviour of a receptor protein can be influenced by the presence of certain lipids in the membrane it is embedded in.

🔗 buff.ly/G1Zl6cZ
February 6, 2026 at 2:59 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
Postdoc job alert in the Crick Institute in London. Are you interested in the actin cytoskeleton? I am looking for a postdoc to examine the cellular, developmental or physiological role of Arp2/3 iso-complex driven actin polymerisation. Multiple aspects available.
crick.ac.uk/WayPostdoc2026
Postdoctoral Fellow - Cellular signalling and cytoskeletal function lab
crick.ac.uk
February 6, 2026 at 8:22 AM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
If you're afraid to ask someone for a recommendation, please don't be. It's part of the job of being a mentor, editor, teacher, advisor, former boss, etc. to write recommendations or politely decline.
(I wish I could go back in time and tell my former self this.)
February 5, 2026 at 2:44 PM
Am I the only one who is always somewhat relieved whenever I see my review for a manuscript is almost identical to the other reviewers' reviews?
February 3, 2026 at 10:20 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
What is a “citation?” I thought it said you could list author and title, etc. So that’s what I did.
February 3, 2026 at 6:21 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
It’s announcement day!📣 I am greatly honored to receive the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science🎉 I will be even more strongly committed to supporting the next generation of immigrant scientists.
Join us in congratulating the winners of our 2026 Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Science, Fashion & Culture, Fashion & Design, and Art History! This year, we awarded $850,000 to 14 immigrants and cultural leaders. https://vilcek.co/4aemyr2
February 3, 2026 at 4:32 AM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
My department at Washington State University is recruiting an Assistant or Associate Professor in vector-borne disease 🕷️🦟🦠

Full job description is linked below.

Come join us on the Palouse!
February 2, 2026 at 9:02 PM
Reposted by Mara Duncan
Ever wished there was a way to “paste in place” in PowerPoint, so that pasted item is not way offset vertically and horizontally from the original? There is a keyboard shortcut that doesn’t seem to work on a Mac, but what DOES work is to press an arrow key once after copying and before pasting. 💯👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
February 2, 2026 at 9:57 PM