Max Fels
@mfels.bsky.social
Branco Weiss and Moderna Global Fellow at DFCI/HMS. On the lookout for the strangest viruses out there. 🐸
https://brancoweissfellowship.org/fellow/fels/
https://brancoweissfellowship.org/fellow/fels/
Viral entry converges on a cellular stress pathway to remodel host ribosomes by redirecting an additional copy of a 60S ribosomal protein to the 40S subunit! Really cool story from my colleague Hsin-Yu.
Ribosome remodeling drives translation adaptation during viral infection and cellular stress https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.24.684008v1
October 25, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Viral entry converges on a cellular stress pathway to remodel host ribosomes by redirecting an additional copy of a 60S ribosomal protein to the 40S subunit! Really cool story from my colleague Hsin-Yu.
Reposted by Max Fels
The latest preprint from the lab is out!
Here we used structural clustering and immunoprecipitations to uncover some networks in our knowledge of giant virons proteomes. An interesting story by Hela Safi and @ambsch.bsky.social.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Here we used structural clustering and immunoprecipitations to uncover some networks in our knowledge of giant virons proteomes. An interesting story by Hela Safi and @ambsch.bsky.social.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Elucidating the interaction network of one of the largest icosahedral capsids in the virosphere
Giant viruses challenge traditional boundaries of virology with their large particle sizes, complex genomes, and unique replication strategies. Yet, despite its 750 nm diameter and incorporation of do...
www.biorxiv.org
October 15, 2025 at 5:19 AM
The latest preprint from the lab is out!
Here we used structural clustering and immunoprecipitations to uncover some networks in our knowledge of giant virons proteomes. An interesting story by Hela Safi and @ambsch.bsky.social.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Here we used structural clustering and immunoprecipitations to uncover some networks in our knowledge of giant virons proteomes. An interesting story by Hela Safi and @ambsch.bsky.social.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Are viruses capable of regulating protein synthesis in the nuanced way of cellular organisms? Kinda! I’m excited to share some of my postdoc work that leveraged giant DNA viruses to address this question.
Giant DNA viruses encode a hallmark translation initiation complex of eukaryotic life
In contrast to living organisms, viruses were long thought to lack protein synthesis machinery and instead depend on host factors to translate viral transcripts. Here, we discover that giant DNA virus...
www.biorxiv.org
October 2, 2025 at 12:32 AM
Are viruses capable of regulating protein synthesis in the nuanced way of cellular organisms? Kinda! I’m excited to share some of my postdoc work that leveraged giant DNA viruses to address this question.
Reposted by Max Fels
Our story describing the Panoptes bacterial immune defense system is now finally peer-reviewed and published today! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The Panoptes system uses decoy cyclic nucleotides to defend against phage - Nature
The Panoptes antiphage system defends bacteria by detecting phage-encoded counter-defences that sequester cyclic nucleotide signals, triggering membrane disruption and highlighting a broader strategy of sensing immune evasion through second-messenger surveillance.
www.nature.com
October 1, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Our story describing the Panoptes bacterial immune defense system is now finally peer-reviewed and published today! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Max Fels
>18,000 new genomes of giant DNA viruses! An incredible trove of new genes and insights into evolution of host-virus interactions from @fmschu.bsky.social and @jgi.doe.gov
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 29, 2025 at 7:10 PM
>18,000 new genomes of giant DNA viruses! An incredible trove of new genes and insights into evolution of host-virus interactions from @fmschu.bsky.social and @jgi.doe.gov
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Max Fels
Starting the lab Bluesky account to share a preprint from @aragucci.bsky.social and @sadieantine.bsky.social that reveals molecular principles shared across diverse nuclease-NTPase anti-phage defense systems in bacterial immunity (1/7)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Nuclease-NTPase systems use shared molecular features to control bacterial anti-phage defense
Bacteria encode an enormous diversity of defense systems including restriction-modification and CRISPR-Cas that cleave nucleic acid to protect against phage infection. Bioinformatic analyses demonstra...
www.biorxiv.org
July 15, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Starting the lab Bluesky account to share a preprint from @aragucci.bsky.social and @sadieantine.bsky.social that reveals molecular principles shared across diverse nuclease-NTPase anti-phage defense systems in bacterial immunity (1/7)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...