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fitzpatricklab.bsky.social
@fitzpatricklab.bsky.social
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New preprint from Daniel Du @fitzpatricklab.bsky.social shows #femtosecond light pulses can lens electron beams, promising higher contrast in #cryoET and better aberration correction in #cryoEM

tinyurl.com/257sw7j9

Experiments made possible by support from @cziscience.bsky.social #ImagingTheFuture
Reposted
Seeing is believing-Plasmodium falciparum translation in action pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41202797/ #cryoem
November 8, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Reposted
Excited to share our latest @nature.com: How does naloxone (Narcan) stop an opioid overdose? We determined the first GDP-bound μ-opioid receptor–G protein structures and found naloxone traps a novel "latent” state, preventing GDP release and G protein activation.💊🧪 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
November 5, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Reposted
Please RT. Post-doc opportunity alert! 💥 closing 10th December.. Come join our team (www.thelowlab.org) at Imperial, London, working on the structure and mechanism of bacterial secretion systems.

For more details and to apply please see

www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...
November 4, 2025 at 5:20 PM
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Learn how our hunt for the native structure of top antimalarial target PfATP4🧂led to the discovery of PfABP, an unknown essential binding partner, out now! @natcomms.nature.com 👉 rdcu.be/eLRlH 🦠🔬❄️

A team effort led by @mehsehret.bsky.social & Anurag Shukla @akhilvaidya.bsky.social! #cryoEM #malaria
Endogenous structure of antimalarial target PfATP4 reveals an apicomplexan-specific P-type ATPase modulator
Nature Communications - Here, the authors present the 3.7 Å cryoEM structure of native sodium efflux pump PfATP4 from Plasmodium falciparum, revealing a bound protein that they term...
rdcu.be
October 20, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Reposted
1/10 Genome maintenance by telomerase is a fundamental process in nearly all eukaryotes. But where does it come from?

Today, we report the discovery of telomerase homologs in a family of antiviral RTs, revealing an unexpected evolutionary origin in bacteria.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Antiviral reverse transcriptases reveal the evolutionary origin of telomerase
Defense-associated reverse transcriptases (DRTs) employ diverse and distinctive mechanisms of cDNA synthesis to protect bacteria against viral infection. However, much of DRT family diversity remains ...
www.biorxiv.org
October 17, 2025 at 5:22 PM
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A beautiful piece of work from @ruixuan3.bsky.social and @supgokul.bsky.social presenting a light-based slicing method using a photosensitive hydrogel to image large biological samples layer by layer, preserving fine structure for full 3D reconstructions.
October 17, 2025 at 3:52 PM
As ever, beautiful #cryoEM work from the lab of Hong Zhou with field-defining insights using #cryoET:

“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 16, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Reposted
If you're curious about how cells quickly eliminate misfolded proteins produced under proteotoxic stress or mitotic substrate during cell cycle progression, check out our latest article in Nature Communications:
doi.org/10.1038/s414...
Structural basis of K11/K48-branched ubiquitin chain recognition by the human 26S proteasome - Nature Communications
K11/K48 branched ubiquitin chains regulate protein degradation and cell cycle progression. Here, the authors report the structural basis of how such a branched ubiquitin chain is recognized by the hum...
doi.org
October 15, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Reposted
Check out our preprint! With new molecular mechanisms, 140 subtomogram averages, and ~600 annotated cells under different conditions, we @embl.org were able to describe bacterial populations with in-cell #cryoET. And there’s a surprise at the end 🕵️

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#teamtomo
October 15, 2025 at 6:26 AM
Reposted
Lipid imaging on the cover of @nature.com! Great times for lipid cell biology indeed. And a fantastic recognition of all the hard work by the team, especially Juan M. Iglesias-Artola and Kristin Böhlig (who made the cover). Link to article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
October 9, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Reposted
October 9, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Reposted
High-resolution #CryoET provides ‘compelling’ evidence for the true 3D architecture of glutamatergic synapses: a complex ‘synaptoplasm’ rather than the textbook postsynaptic density.
buff.ly/hOYKjHH
October 6, 2025 at 10:28 PM
Reposted
How does hunger spur us to consume? @columbiauniversity.bsky.social scientists have found a brain area that drives mice to consume sweets, fats, salt & food. This finding may inform novel treatments for both overeating and undereating:
zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/brain-dial-c...
September 10, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Reposted
Progress in the development of an ultrafast pulsed ponderomotive phase plate for cryo-electron tomography pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40896196/ #cryoem
September 3, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Brooklyn at sunset
August 31, 2025 at 2:01 AM
August 28, 2025 at 10:30 PM
Reposted
Exciting to see our protein binder design pipeline BindCraft published in its final form in @Nature ! This has been an amazing collaborative effort with Lennart, Christian, @sokrypton.org, Bruno and many other amazing lab members and collaborators.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
August 27, 2025 at 4:14 PM
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Contrast by electron microscopy in thick biological specimens pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40857101/ #cryoem
August 27, 2025 at 9:48 PM
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August 24, 2025 at 9:28 AM
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Fourier-based multiple-slice reconstruction in cryo-electron tomography pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40834650/ #cryoem
August 22, 2025 at 5:05 AM
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A massive genetic study in @Nature just identified why chronic pain hits some people harder than others.

They discovered the first neuronal “pain transporter” - and it could unlock entirely new ways to treat pain. 🧵
August 22, 2025 at 7:03 AM
Reposted
ICYMI: New online: Integrated structural biology of the native malarial translation machinery and its inhibition by an antimalarial drug
Integrated structural biology of the native malarial translation machinery and its inhibition by an antimalarial drug
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 18 August 2025; doi:10.1038/s41594-025-01632-3Integrated structural biology approach leveraging in situ cryo-electron tomography reveals molecular details of the native malarial translation elongation cycle and its perturbation by cabamiquine, a potent antimalarial drug candidate.
go.nature.com
August 19, 2025 at 11:17 AM
New "Mindscapes" exhibit @zuckermanbrain.bsky.social‬ featuring #cryoEM structures of #TMEM106B fibrils (doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.02.026) and the ligand-bound human sweet receptor (doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.04.021) from the Fitzpatrick (www.fitzpatrick-lab.org) and Zuker (www.zukerlab.com) labs
August 20, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted
Our #CryoET story on how a top antimalarial drug candidate perturbs the native malarial translation machinery is out @natsmb.nature.com🥳 rdcu.be/eBbrH

A massive team effort led by @leonieanton.bsky.social Meseret Haile & Wenjing Cheng in collaboration with Jerzy Dziekan & the Alan Cowman! #TeamTomo
Integrated structural biology of the native malarial translation machinery and its inhibition by an antimalarial drug
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology - Integrated structural biology approach leveraging in situ cryo-electron tomography reveals molecular details of the native malarial translation...
rdcu.be
August 18, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Reposted
Flexibility can be frustrating when processing a #cryoEM dataset. If your target has a wobbly domain, check out our new case study on FaNaC1 for continuous heterogeneity tips in #CryoSPARC!

guide.cryosparc.com/processing-d...
August 5, 2025 at 1:46 PM