Nisha Rafiq
nishamrafiq.bsky.social
Nisha Rafiq
@nishamrafiq.bsky.social
Group Leader, University of Tübingen, Germany. https://www.nisharafiqlab.com/
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
If you’re at #sfn25 you definitely don’t want to miss this nanosymposium on cilia, tomorrow from 1-4pm! Come learn about neuronal cilia, they do some pretty cool stuff!
Synapses may get all the glory, but join us cilia-philes for our @sfn.org Nanosymposium to learn about the role of cilia in modulating brain activity, behavior, and development.

Sunday November 16th 1-4pm SDCC Room 25A. Thrilled to chair with @konjikusicmia.bsky.social - we'll see you there!
November 15, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
'Redefining dopaminergic synapses beyond the classical paradigm'

Kenshiro Fujise, Jaya Mishra, Nasser Karmali & Nisha M. Rafiq @nishamrafiq.bsky.social

www.cell.com/trends/neuro...
November 4, 2025 at 2:11 PM
what a beauty!!
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 29, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Looking forward to speak here!
Synapses may get all the glory, but join us cilia-philes for our @sfn.org Nanosymposium to learn about the role of cilia in modulating brain activity, behavior, and development.

Sunday November 16th 1-4pm SDCC Room 25A. Thrilled to chair with @konjikusicmia.bsky.social - we'll see you there!
October 25, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Do you like following rules… but also breaking them?

So does your dopaminergic synapse! 😎🧠

Our new Trends in Neurosciences review dives into the non-classical side of dopamine signaling, notably the tools reshaping how we see it (CLEM, cryo-CLEM, serial EM + more).
October 15, 2025 at 1:46 PM
what an animation!
Happy to share the inaugural paper from the lab. We describe a molecular mechanism for the activation of outer dynein arm motors that power the vital motion of cilia.

Open access link below:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Here's a cool animated summary
September 30, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
New paper alert! I’m very excited to share our paper published in @embojournal.org! @pdc-lab.bsky.social @yaleneuro.bsky.social
Bridge-like lipid transfer protein 3A (BLTP3A) participates in endomembrane repair as an effector of #ATG8 conjugation to single membranes (CASM) - helping repair or minimize #lysosome damage
@mike-hanna.bsky.social et al, @pdc-lab.bsky.social
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
September 12, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
@anbangdai.bsky.social et al. @pdc-lab.bsky.social report the localization of BLTP2 in different human cell types & reveal binding partners that mediate its tethering to the PM & to PM-connected structures including certain #endosomes & #macropinosomes undergoing fusion rupress.org/jcb/article/...
September 3, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
Very happy that the first article from my postdoc work in the Tomancak lab is now published @PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/.... We studied the self-organization of actin in aggregates made from Hydra cells. Thread below (1/9)
August 6, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Cilia in the brain! Depiction on angular and orientation information across different parts of the mouse brain...
Cilia in the #brain display region-dependent oscillations of length and orientation @PLOSBiology.org
Cilia in the #brain display region-dependent oscillations of length and orientation
by Roudabeh Vakil Monfared, Sherif Abdelkarim, Pieter Derdeyn, Kiki Chen, Hanting Wu, Kenneth Leong, Tiffany Chang, Justine Lee, Sara Versales, Surya M. Nauli, Kevin Beier, Pierre Baldi, Amal Alachkar In this study, we conducted high-throughput spatiotemporal analysis of primary cilia length and orientation across 22 mouse brain regions. We developed automated image analysis algorithms, which enabled us to examine over 10 million individual cilia, generating the largest spatiotemporal atlas of cilia. We found that cilia length and orientation display substantial variations across different brain regions and exhibit fluctuations over a 24-h period, with region-specific peaks during light-dark phases. Our analysis revealed unique orientation patterns of cilia, suggesting that cilia orientation within the brain is not random but follows specific patterns. Using BioCycle, we identified rhythmic fluctuations in cilia length across five brain regions: the nucleus accumbens core, somatosensory cortex, and the dorsomedial, ventromedial, and arcuate hypothalamic nuclei. Our findings present novel insights into the brain cilia dynamics, and highlight the need for further investigation into cilia’s role in the brain’s response to environmental changes and regulation of oscillatory physiological processes.
dlvr.it
July 18, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
Did you know that Bioimage Archive has a specific database for people to share AI-ready imaging datasets? I did not until @yanlanmao.bsky.social told me! Please deposit! If people regularly submitted, it would have a huge collective impact on bioimage analysis. www.ebi.ac.uk/bioimage-arc...
BioImageArchive < The European Bioinformatics Institute < EMBL-EBI
The BioImageArchive – a free, publicly available online resource which stores and distributes biological images
www.ebi.ac.uk
May 21, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
EU augments opportunities for scientists around the world to launch or re-launch their careers in Europe.
Europe’s choice is clear.

To put science at the heart of its economy.

To become the home of scientific freedom and collaboration.

And to welcome talent from all over the world.

I’m glad to present the first elements of our Choose Europe Initiative.

europa.eu/!TTbWbJ
May 5, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
Today, FutureHouse is releasing the first dedicated AI Agents for Science, via our Platform. These agents are able to perform a wide variety of scientific tasks better than humans. With the platform, we are bringing these capabilities to the wider community. 1/2
May 1, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
A package of research papers from the MICrONS (Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks) consortium in Nature and Nature Methods provides a detailed map of mouse brain cell structure and connections, offering insights into how they relate to activity in the mouse brain. 🧪
The MICrONS Project
An unprecedented dataset of high resolution anatomical images of individual cells in mouse visual cortex, mapped on to their responses. This integrated view of function and structure lays a foundation for discovering the computational bases of cortical circuits.
go.nature.com
April 20, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
We're live! @inikon.bsky.social used modular proximity labeling to identify ciliary EV cargo in #celegans. This EV-TurboID approach can be applied in cell- & tissue-specific manners to define the composition of distinct EV subtypes, a major challenge of the EV field.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
April 3, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Eid Mubarak! May this special day bring peace, joy, and blessings to you and your loved ones. 😊
March 30, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
Post doc in Europe? 🇪🇺🔬💡
It’s open to anyone in the 🌍
Call open 9 April 25
marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/actions/post...
Postdoctoral Fellowships
The information provided on this page is a summary of the main rules and requirements for Postdoctoral Fellowships (PFs) and who can apply for them.
marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu
March 9, 2025 at 6:19 AM
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
Constrained roads to complex brains
Neural development and brain circuit evolution converged in birds and mammals

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Constrained roads to complex brains
Neural development and brain circuit evolution converged in birds and mammals
www.science.org
February 15, 2025 at 4:30 AM
Reposted by Nisha Rafiq
Very happy to share our last preprint where we investigated the vesicular organization of dopamine hub synapses with cryo-CLEM. It is a brain structure that emerges as an important regulator of striatal activity. Many thanks to David Perrais, Etienne Herzog and the lab of @fronzeslab.bsky.social !
Cryo-correlative light and electron tomography of dopaminergic axonal varicosities reveals non-synaptic modulation of cortico-striatal synapses https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.07.637058v1
February 12, 2025 at 8:27 AM
"DA vesicles are bigger and less round" in synaptosomes, beautiful cryoEM images!
We too showed this in iPSC-derived DA neurons, of course using just regular EM 😃 See link here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Exciting times for non-classical synapse!
February 9, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Neuronal cilia and ubiquitination
MC4R regulates #BodyWeight at hypothalamic neuronal #cilia, but its levels are normally v low. @nachury.bsky.social &co show that MC4R accumulation is prevented via continuous ubiquitin- & β-arrestin-dependent exit from cilia, unless MC4R is inhibited by AgRP 🧪 @plosbiology.org plos.io/40MWUUz
February 4, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Our paper on the phase separation of synaptophysin+ and dopamine+ vesicles, as well as their co-existence in iPSC-derived DA neurons, is now online! 🤓 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
January 9, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Our review on the emerging roles for primary cilia in synapses and neurological disorders is now online! 😃https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962892424002319
November 26, 2024 at 10:25 AM