Zunlong Ke
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zunlongke.bsky.social
Zunlong Ke
@zunlongke.bsky.social
240 followers 270 following 14 posts
Assistant Professor @UT Austin | Structural Virology | cryo-EM and cryo-ET | Postdoc with John Briggs @MRC_LMB @MPI_biochem | PhD with Elizabeth Wright @GeorgiaTech @Emory
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Reposted by Zunlong Ke
mclellanlab.bsky.social
Excited for Adam Klivans and my other colleagues at UT working in the AI space!
texasscience.bsky.social Texas Science @texasscience.bsky.social · 19h
Already among the most powerful artificial intelligence hubs in academia, the UT Center for Generative AI is keeping its foot on the gas. “It’s exciting to accelerate discovery and to create more opportunities for our researchers to push the boundaries of what’s possible.”
UT Doubles Size of One of World’s Most Powerful AI Computing Hubs
AUSTIN, Texas — The Center for Generative AI at The University of Texas at Austin, already among the most powerful artificial intelligence hubs in the
news.utexas.edu
November 10, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
tbharat-lab.bsky.social
An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments

Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
November 7, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
proleu.bsky.social
Glad to see our antibody design paper finally out in
@nature.com
(and congrats to lead authors and everyone involved )!
At Xaira we are excited about pushing antibody design further to bind harder targets and make drugs for unmet medical needs.
Paper:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
November 5, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
dodonova-sveta.bsky.social
Lab’s first paper is out!! We show the first structures of #Asgard #chromatin by #cryo-EM 🧬❄️
Asgard histones form closed and open hypernucleosomes. Closed are conserved across #Archaea, while open resemble eukaryotic H3–H4 octasomes and are Asgard-specific. More here: www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
October 28, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
jcb.org
Glushkova, Böhm, & Beck @maxplanck.de develop a publicly available computational method to measure the thickness of biological membranes in cryo-electron tomograms. Analysis of algae & human cells reveals systematic membrane thickness variations within & across organelles rupress.org/jcb/article/...
November 4, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
cryoempapers.bsky.social
Systematic membrane thickness variation across cellular organelles revealed by cryo-ET pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41186573/ #cryoem
November 5, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
aixbiobot.bsky.social
Lessons learned from a Kaggle challenge for particle picking in cryo-electron tomography [new]
Kaggle cryo-ET picking: Over-pick tol, aug, & annot key.
Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4
November 5, 2025 at 10:48 AM
zunlongke.bsky.social
Just completed 100 miles at Austin rolling through Texas Hill Country. The event is 2025 LiveStrong Challenge to support cancer research. Feeling blessed!
November 2, 2025 at 10:30 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
sjorsscheres.bsky.social
We are looking for a computational postdoc to work with us on new optimisation algorithms to make #RELION even better. Join our bubbly team at the @mrclmb.bsky.social in Cambridge, UK. 🤗 RTs appreciated.

mrc.tal.net/vx/appcentre...
Quick Check Needed
mrc.tal.net
October 29, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
slcuplants.bsky.social
Ever seen a pumpkin under a microscope? 🎃🔬

This Halloween, Raymond Wightman & Daniel Sparrow used @slcuplants.bsky.social’s powerful imaging tools to reveal:
🔬 Skin detail with the #Keyence microscope
💡 Beta-carotene via #Raman spectroscopy
❄️ Flash-frozen oval cells via cryo-SEM

#HappyHalloween
Composite image showing a pumpkin used for microscopy. A photo of the whole pumpkin with a small 2mm square cut out indicates the area imaged. The main background shows the orange flesh captured with a Keyence digital microscope, with the darker ridge on the left marking the skin. An inset black graph displays the Raman spectrum with strong beta-carotene peaks, explaining the pumpkin’s orange colour. Another inset image from cryo-SEM reveals tightly packed oval cells that make up the pumpkin’s fleshy interior. Images by Raymond Wightman and Daniel Sparrow. Pumpkin on the Raman microscope Flash frozen pumpkin in the vacuum chamber of the cryo-SEM before undergoing cryofracture and then coating in gold/palladium. It was then passed in to the cryo-SEM itself for imaging.
October 31, 2025 at 3:24 AM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
johnrubinstein.bsky.social
New lab preprint!
@zestytoast.bsky.social tagged a scarce mycobacterial protein in M. smegmatis with TwinStep but got… something? @kjamali.bsky.social's ModelAngelo built models & @martinsteinegger.bsky.social's FoldSeek IDed them as the biotin-containing MCC & LCC complexes
🧵
tinyurl.com/ukny4ptz
Cryo-EM maps and atomic models of the biotin-containing 3-methylcrotonyl-CoA carboxylase (MCC) complex and long-chain acyl-CoA carboxylase (LCC) complex
October 30, 2025 at 3:21 AM
zunlongke.bsky.social
The biophysics class I taught recently did kinesin walks hand-over-hand model (2004, Science), with reference to the inchworm model (2002,Science). Students discussed danced to mimic the two models, super fun!
Thanks to the shortage of giant squid due to meteorological disturbance El Niño in 1983!
October 25, 2025 at 5:32 AM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
dabiophysicist.bsky.social
Another undergraduate paper discussion today! This time we are doing Ron Vale's 1985 kinesin trifecta. Focusing on [1] & [3]. 🧪🔬

[1] www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
[2] www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
[3] www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
[4] www.ibiology.org/cell-biology...
Identification of a novel force-generating protein, kinesin, involved in microtubule-based motility
Axoplasm from the squid giant axon contains a soluble protein translocator that induces movement of microtubules on glass, latex beads on microtubules…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 24, 2025 at 7:41 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
lifeonthewedge.bsky.social
Our colleagues Vinith Kishore and Valentin Debarnot from the @ivandokmanic.bsky.social lab have come up with an amazing deep learning tool for denoising and filling the missing wedge in #cryoET data. I'm pleased to introduce Icecream🍧
Icecream: High-Fidelity Equivariant Cryo-Electron Tomography
Cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) visualizes 3D cellular architecture in near-native states. Recent deep-learning methods (CryoCARE, IsoNet, DeepDeWedge, CryoLithe) improve denoising and artifact cor...
www.biorxiv.org
October 23, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
smhsci.bsky.social
“Kiss-shrink-run” unifies mechanisms for synaptic vesicle exocytosis and hyperfast recycling | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
“Kiss-shrink-run” unifies mechanisms for synaptic vesicle exocytosis and hyperfast recycling
Synaptic vesicle (SV) exocytosis underpins neuronal communication, yet its nanoscale dynamics remain poorly understood owing to limitations in visualizing rapid events in situ. Here, we used optogenet...
www.science.org
October 17, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
g-anastasia.bsky.social
Excited to share a new chapter of my scientific journey in Chris Russo's group — developing a way to freeze proteins faster than they diffuse, paving the way for cryo-EM without air–water interface damage.
mrclmb.bsky.social MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology @mrclmb.bsky.social · 19d
Chris Russo and Anastasiia Gusach have developed a new method to prepare #cryoEM samples that avoids protein damage during freezing

Read more: www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/a-new-method...

#LMBResearch
October 22, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
ardemp.bskyverified.social
During these uncertain times, I’m very happy to see that my institution, @scripps.edu has an open tenure-track Assistant Professor position. Any field in Chemistry or Biology is welcome. I’d especially love to see fellow neuroscientists apply. Please repost!

apply.interfolio.com/174756
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October 14, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
ribbehulab.bsky.social
Our home department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry at UC Irvine is looking to hire a new tenure-track assistant professor in the broad area of structural biology. Come be our colleague! recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09887

Please apply and/or share this post.
Assistant Professor in Structural Biology and Biochemistry, Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
University of California, Irvine is hiring. Apply now!
recruit.ap.uci.edu
October 17, 2025 at 11:23 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
ardemp.bskyverified.social
Hey folks! I got a tattoo of my beloved PIEZO ion channel on my arm! Now I can show how they activate (flatten) under pressure by flexing—Will add a bit of performance art to my science talks 🧪🧠.
November 22, 2024 at 4:05 AM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
structurabio.bsky.social
🚀 Introducing fully automated data processing for repeat-target #cryoEM.

Using new tools in #CryoSPARC, it is now possible to obtain resolutions & map quality equal to or better than manual processing, with zero user intervention.

Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 20, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
allostericstate.bsky.social
Yikes! In this paper the AlphaFold model of human plasminogen (PDB-8uq6) has been refined into noise (EMD-42462) using Phenix & ISOLDE. For some reason the authors even interpret side-chain interactions:
#cryoEM
Image from the EMD entry EMD-42462 for human plasminogen bound to streptococcal surface enolase. Projections of the map are shown demonstrating no protein features and radial streaks due to overfitting. EMD-424262 and PDB-8UQ6 opened in ChimeraX. Though the map is stated to be of Human Plasminogen bound to streptococcal surface enolase the authors have modelled only plasminogen in their PDB. The map shows radial streak at the surface indicative of overfitting and no clear density in the centre of the map corresponds to the model. Figure 5 from the paper describing side chain interactions of human plasminogen from the PDB 8uq6. Image showing the model to map FSC curve from Phenix which is the software used by the authors to real space refine their PDB into their cryo-EM map. The model to map FSC curve is a flat line showing no correlation exists between the cryo-EM map EMD-42462 and the PDB 8uq6.
October 12, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
olibclarke.bsky.social
possibly stupid question - does anyone in #teamtomo or #cryoem recognize these little stacks (from EMPIAR-12549, U2OS cell lamellae)? The green circle is 300Å, and the spacing between the layers is ~50Å. The fourth, bell-shaped thing is something else, also not sure of that one..
October 11, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
gesahoffmann.bsky.social
It was wonderful to have Bijun with us @mpi-mp-potsdam.bsky.social & @incavirus.bsky.social to finally "use our microscope to its full potential" as our core-facility put it! 🔬

Congrats to all, esp. @bijuntang.bsky.social and @xanderjones.bsky.social ! Super happy to be a part of this great story!
October 10, 2025 at 7:09 AM
Reposted by Zunlong Ke
botanicaljim.bsky.social
I was tremendously lucky to be in @xanderjones.bsky.social's lab to watch @bijuntang.bsky.social move from technician to PhD to Postdoc and produce this magnum opus. #SalicS1 is the just reward for years of brilliance and hard work.Well done Bijun, Xander, Jing, and everyone involved! #SalicylicAcid
slcuplants.bsky.social Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU) @slcuplants.bsky.social · Oct 9
Salicylic acid biosensor, SalicS1, tracks the plant immune hormone salicylic acid in real time - revealing propagation of hormone surge during plant pathogen advance

Latest biosensor from @xanderjones.bsky.social team
In Science doi.org/10.1126/scie...
Summary www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/news/new-bio...
October 10, 2025 at 9:07 AM
zunlongke.bsky.social
Really cool story on a FRET biosensor by Bijun Tang @bijuntang.bsky.social and an amazing team, now published @science.org
I’m so proud of your PhD work at @slcuplants.bsky.social
Below is the lockdown time in 2020 when you spent long hours screening your FRET biosensor, now known as SalicS1!
October 10, 2025 at 5:05 AM