Harvard Med Cell Biology

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 t…

New work from @harvardcellbio.bsky.social faculty Amy Lee uncovered fundamental aspects of protein translation initiation by a giant DNA virus. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Cancer, communication and connecting continents - insights from our own David Pellman upon election to EMBO. www.embo.org/people/cance...

Exciting work from @lucas.farnunglab.com & @voslab.org report structures of CTCF-nucleosome complexes, revealing that CTCF dimers promote oligomerization of nucleosomes into defined higher-order assemblies involving specific histone-histone and CTCF-CTCF interactions. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Vagal blood volume receptors compensate for haemorrhage and posture change - Nature A vagal reflex to blood volume changes in the heart involves PIEZO2 and helps to stabilize blood pressure in an upright posture and after blood loss.

New work from our own Liberles Lab (liberles.hms.harvard.edu) demonstrates that vagal mechanoreceptors monitor the cardiac cycle and initiate a blood-volume-dependent reflex that defends the constancy of circulation www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research Announces 2026 Emerging Leader Awards, Committing $3.75 Million to Next-Generation Oncology Breakthroughs | The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research is proud to announce the recipients of the 2026 Emerging Leader Awards (ELA), recognizing five visionary early-career scientists poised to make significant impa...

CONGRATULATIONS! to our own Lucas Farnung on being recognized by a Mark Foundation for Cancer Research Emerging Leader Award. Well deserved! themarkfoundation.org/2026/01/2026...

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...

Historically, viruses were thought to primarily use host cell's translational machinery. New work from @harvardcellbio.bsky.social faculty Amy Lee reveals that a giant DNA virus encodes its own IF4F initiation complex, suggesting an unexpected evolutionary innovation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Requirements for establishment and epigenetic stability of mammalian heterochromatin Tatarakis et al. study how H3K9me3 heterochromatin is formed and inherited in mammalian cells. Using a synthetic heterochromatin assembly system and genetic screens, they uncover requirements for init...

New work from the Moazed lab reveals the requirements for establishment & epigenetic stability of mammalian heterochromatin! www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Covariation MS uncovers a protein that controls cysteine catabolism - Nature A mass spectrometry-based approach globally identifies protein regulators of metabolism and reveals the role of LRRC58 in controlling cysteine catabolism.

New work from our own Chouchani Lab finds that LRRC58 is the substrate adaptor of an E3 ubiquitin ligase that mediates proteasomal degradation of CDO1, the rate-limiting enzyme of the catabolic shunt of cysteine to taurine in response to altered Cysteine levels. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Why are α-synuclein aggregates in Parkinson’s disease (PD) toxic at the cell biological level?

Our new study shows that α-syn fibrils hijack the ESCRT membrane repair system, triggering a feedback loop that worsens aggregation.

You can find it at: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Structure and function of IWS1 in transcription elongation Transcription elongation by RNA polymerase II is a tightly regulated process that requires coordinated interactions between elongation factors. IWS1 (Interacts with SPT6) has been implicated as a core...

New insights into transcriptional elongation by IWS1 from the @lucas.farnunglab.com lab. This work establishes IWS1 as a scaffold to organiz the elongation complex, illustrating how disordered regions regulate transcription elongationhttps://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.28.672863v1

Structure of the TXNL1-bound proteasome - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Gao, Nardone et al. report the cryo-EM structure of human TXNL1 bound to the proteasome and reveal interactions required for the stress-induced degradation of TXNL1, an abundant protein that may regul...

New work from the @sshaolab.bsky.social lab with Gu and Elledge labs reveals structure of TXNL1 bound to proteasome and mechanism of its ubiquitin-independent degradation www.nature.com/articles/s41...

“Revolutionary Science Comes from Unexpected Angles”

Thoughts from our own Tom Rapoport on the role of basic science in curing disease. magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/rev...

“I Think the Entire Future of the United States Is at Stake”

Impact of federal funding cuts on science, the progress of knowledge, and our future - an essay by our own Steve Liberles: magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/i-t...

Outstanding life scientists elected to the EMBO Membership – Press releases – EMBO Sixty-nine new members join the community of leading life scientists in Europe and beyond

Congratulations to our own David Pellman, who was elected as an Associate Member of EMBO 2025 - Well deserved! www.embo.org/press-releas...

A host organelle integrates stolen chloroplasts for animal photosynthesis Eukaryotic life evolved over a billion years ago when ancient cells engulfed and integrated prokaryotes to become modern mitochondria and chloroplasts…

Work from our own Corey Allard allardlab.hms.harvard.edu & Nick Bellono reveals a process by which foreign chloroplasts (derived from algae food sources) are incorporated into novel, host-derived organelles termed “kleptosomes". \https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867425006373

Structural basis for the midnolin-proteasome pathway and its role in suppressing myeloma Nardone et al. elucidate the mechanism of the midnolin-proteasome pathway, showing how midnolin achieves nuclear substrate selection and how established proteasomal components are repurposed to enable...

New work from @xingulab.bsky.social @sshaolab.bsky.social & Elledge lab report structure of Midnolin-proteasome complex & its role in controlling myeloma via ubiquitin-independent degradation. www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

The 2025 Freeman Hrabowski Scholars | HHMI Freeman Hrabowski Scholars are outstanding early career faculty who have the potential to become leaders in their research fields.

Congratulations to our own Lucas Farnung @lucas.farnunglab.com who has been named as one of 30 Freeman Hrabowski Scholars for 2025 by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). So well deserved deserved !! www.hhmi.org/programs/fre...

DMXL1 promotes recruitment of V1-ATPase to lysosomes upon TRPML1 activation - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Lee et al. show that DMXL1, a regulator of V-ATPase assembly, is recruited to lysosomes upon TRPML1 activation in a manner dependent on conjugation of ATG8 proteins on lysosomal membranes (CASM) and p...

Chan Lee @harperlabhms.bsky.social reports CASM-driven V-ATPase recruitment to lysosomes for acidification upon TRPML1 activation via DMXL1-RAVE loader. With Magdalene Moran(Caraway), Sophie Helaine lab, Joao Paulo, & HarperLab teams(HMS). Funds: Warren Alpert FND/NIH www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Questions and answers from our own Corey Allard allardlab.hms.harvard.edu on his labs quest to discover new biology and reveal conserved and fundamental principles that operate across biological systems and impact human health. hms.harvard.edu/news/fish-le...

EndoMAP.v1 charts the structural landscape of human early endosome complexes - Nature A study presents EndoMAP.v1, a resource that combines information on protein interactions and crosslink-supported structural predictions to map the interaction landscape of early endosomes.

New work @harvard by Miguel Gonzalez-Lozano @harperlabhms.bsky.social & @ernstschmid.bsky.social in Johannes Walter lab charts structural interactome of endosomes. #XL-MS #Alphafold Funded by @asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org & NIH. Science continues-despite attacks www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Questions and answers from @harvardcellbio.bsky.social faculty member Rachel Wolfson concerning her work on interoception and how our brain and gut communicate with each other. hms.harvard.edu/news/investi...

New work from @lucas.farnunglab.com reveals multiple states of the CHD1 chromatin remodeler and mechanisms of remodeler recruitment!

CONGRATULATIONS!! to @harvardcellbio.bsky.social faculty member Tommy Kirchhausen for his election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. So well deserved! www.amacad.org/new-members-...

Another outstanding study by @sshaolab.bsky.social reveals the structures of prohibin and erlin assemblies. Could also be a hat, it seems.

In parallel with the updated Harvard website, there is also a new page on the Harvard Med website providing some of the important discoveries of our dedicated community, including the CellBio faculty and trainees. One can only ask “Why?” hms.harvard.edu/about-hms/hi...

Harvard University Harvard University is devoted to excellence in teaching, learning, and research, and to developing leaders who make a difference globally.

Check out the updated Harvard University website, which speaks to the breadth and depth of the research we do and its contributions to human health and beyond: www.harvard.edu

YouTube video by CanadaGairdnerAwards 2025 Canada Gairdner International Award Drs. Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas, Iva Greenwald & Gary Struhl

We are so happy for our own Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas who today was the co-recipient of the Gairdner Award from his work on the Notch pathway! Congratulations!! www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA6d...

ARMC1 partitions between distinct complexes and assembles MIRO with MTFR to control mitochondrial distribution ARMC1 partitions between distinct outer mitochondrial membrane complexes and the cytosol to control mitochondrial distribution.

How do cells achieve an optimal mitochondrial distribution? Excited to share a piece of this puzzle: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Ever wonder how the human replisome engages the nucleosome? New work from the @lucas.farnunglab.com provides a striking visual tour of the process with reconstituted components!

Mechanism of ASF1 engagement by CDAN1 Nature Communications - CDAN1 is an essential protein with unclear function that binds the histone chaperone ASF1. Here, the authors reveal that CDAN1 sequesters multiple copies of ASF1 by engaging...

Exciting new work from the Shao lab @sshaolab.bsky.social by @samanthasedor.bsky.social reveals novel functions and interactions for the CDAN1 protein with ASF1A/B complexes. www.nature.com/articles/s41...