Rui Zhang

I am so grateful to the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences for this honor. Can’t wait to be back to the lab and celebrate with lab members on this special recognition of their hard work.

At long last, the Chlamy chloroplast ribosome hat 🎩 (now renamed the arm 💪) is here to say hello👋! We first spotted this extended structure in green algae a decade ago, and @florentwaltz.bsky.social did beautiful work bringing it into focus! #CryoEM ❄️ #TeamTomo 🔬 #PlantScience 🌾 #ProtistsOnSky 🧪

Very happy to say that our work on how axonemes are generated is now available on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... - if you’ve ever wondered how the incredibly beautiful, complex structures within motile #cilia are constructed then this is for you!

Proud and excited to share our work with the community! Helen @helenfoster.bsky.social Foster et al. study how #cilia axonemes are built. 👀 Don't miss the gorgeous and insightful movies by @margotriggi.bsky.social, they really show our discoveries in full action!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Holy cow the Zhou lab at UCLA is cooking with Isonet 2 - www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Averaging-free direct visualization of ribosome translational state! #teamtomo #cryoet

Excited to share our new preprint in collaboration with Ahmet Yildiz's lab. Check out how our team uncovers a novel binding footprint and motor regulation mechanism for MAP9 Congrats to Burak Cetin and @aryantaheri.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Happy Halloween everyone! 🎃

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...

Cryo-EM maps and atomic models of the biotin-containing 3-methylcrotonyl-CoA carboxylase (MCC) complex and long-chain acyl-CoA carboxylase (LCC) complex

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

Excited to share our preprint on cytoskeletal organization in astrocytes!
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Postdoc @mewynne759 looked at microtubules, IFs/GFAP & actin along long elaborate processes.

Wonderful to collaborate w postdoc @dharshinigopal & @NogalesLab on cryo-ET 🤓

1/x

HHMI adopts Plan U journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Yifan Cheng to Receive 2026 Anatrace Membrane Protein Award buff.ly/ooI1UDy

This one is a bit of a departure from the usual and definitely a work in progress!

We found that by using ab initio reconstruction at very high res, in very small steps, we could crack some small structures that had eluded us - e.g. 39kDa iPKAc (EMPIAR-10252), below.

Read on for details... 1/x

Upper - cryo-EM reconstruction of stomatin AQP1 complex. Lower - reconstruction of stomatin-UT-B complex.

Happy to share a new preprint from the Clarke & Vallese (@fravallese.bsky.social) labs reporting #cryoem structures of two RBC stomatin complexes – with AQP1 & UT-B - continuing the SPFH theme from our recent vault preprint! This was a fun one and has been cooking for a while - read on for more! ⬇️

Now published! Big congrats to first author @gginell.bsky.social

We are actively working improving/updating various aspects of FINCHES; don't hesitate to reach out if you run into issues, have questions.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The fantastically successful NIGMS MIRA R35 "expired" on May 17, after the most recent deadline--these removals are the most aggressive attack on American science in the current series of devastating actions 🧪

Private funder HHMI pauses postdoc fellowship As HHMI pauses Hanna Gray fellowship applications, opportunities for young scientists shrink further, making them look overseas.

"to run a contest that you end up not funding as a private organization at this time is… both extremely wasteful of these people’s time, and just devastating in terms of morale."

I spoke with @aniloza.bsky.social at STAT today about HHMI's decision not to fund this round of Hanna Gray applicants.

Long Research Group Long Research Group - Univ. Kentucky

Alex Long, the last postdoc from my lab at Stanford, is starting her own lab, continuing her beautiful work on evolutionary cell biology using chytrid fungi as a model. Check it out! alonglab.org

Conference alert: Machines acting on DNA and RNA
Madrid, May 28-30
Abstract deadline: April 24
Organised by @cniostopcancer.bsky.social. Come to share your research with experts in the molecular mechanisms of DNA & RNA machines. See the list of speakers below.
Please repost.

Introducing blebbisomes! Cover art by @ento-sanchez.bsky.social! #CellBiology
Article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

More than 2 decades ago the PINK1 protein was found to be linked to Parkinson's disease, but its structure and how it was activated was not known. Until @science.org today. A triumph for cryo-EM and structural biology, introducing new targets for drug intervention.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

In this paper we also presented massive functional data of ALL the MIPs from Richard Wheeler and Eva Gluenz labs.

Trypanosome doublet microtubule structures reveal flagellum assembly and motility mechanisms The flagellum of Trypanosoma brucei drives the parasite’s characteristic screw-like motion and is essential for its replication, transmission, and pathogenesis. However, the molecular details of this ...

In the same issue also see the back-to-back paper of doublet structure of Trypanosoma brucei from Z. Hong Zhou and Kent Hill labs.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Another wonderful collaboration with @alanbrownhms.bsky.social lab 👇
Zhang lab (co-first author @qingweiniu.bsky.social) contribute the doublet structure from Crithidia fasciculata, a model organism that infects mosquitoes.

😳😱 R.I.P. Karen

Side view of the structure of a monomer of type II Wadjet.

Happy to share the beautiful structure of a Wadjet SMC complex by @roisnehamelinf.bsky.social, with support from the DCI and @drhonsworth.bsky.social ! This is a type II Wadjet with unique characteristics including a tandem KITE subunit, distinct coiled coil architecture and a deviant hinge.

Thrilled- the @bsdb.bsky.social medal in Wolpert's name marks 'vastly important contributions to research in our field, but also to the communication of its problems to a broader audience'. Communicating the importance of our research has never been more important when science is under such threat!

Poster for the special issue

The @jcellsci.bsky.social has an upcoming special issue - Cilia and Flagella: from Basic Biology to Disease – guest edited by Pleasantine Mill (University of Edinburgh) and Lotte Pedersen (University of Copenhagen) . The submission deadline is 31 March.
journals.biologists.com/jcs/pages/ci...

NIH announces some key grant-review meetings will restart in late March Trump policy blocking required notices has frozen reviews of thousands of grants

Some good news: The Federal Register has just posted NIH study sections, which are to meet in late March.

NIH announces some key grant-review meetings will restart in late March | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

If you've been calling Congress, keep calling & if not, start-we're getting their attention. We had a good visit to a Congressional office yesterday to discuss science funding & the staffer told us how busy they've been-usually the Senate shwitchboard gets 64 calls/minute-now they're getting 1600 🧪