Ilir Sheraj

<i>What Is Life?</i> Revisited Cambridge Core - Philosophy: General Interest - <i>What Is Life?</i> Revisited

My little book on Schrödinger's famous classic 'What Is Life?' is out! Offering the most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken of the book's origins, reception, impact, and legacy, it uncovers Schrödinger's motivations in writing it, and shows how it has shaped our current understanding of the cell

In 1965, the mathematical physicist Roger Penrose proved that, given two simple assumptions, space-time must end at points called singularities. The paper has been called “the most important paper in general relativity” since Einstein’s. www.quantamagazine.org/mathematical...

Functional maps of a genomic locus reveal confinement of an enhancer by its target gene Genes are often activated by enhancers located at large genomic distances, and the importance of this positioning is poorly understood. By relocating promoter-reporter constructs into thousands of alt...

✨Exciting news: the main story of my PhD is out in Science!

Together with Christine Moene @cmoene.bsky.social, we explored what happens when you scramble the genome—revealing how Sox2’s position shapes enhancer activation.

📖 Read the full story here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

PI5P4Kα promotes glucose and iron acquisition to support metabolic fitness in pancreatic cancer PI5P4Kα is a critical metabolic gatekeeper in PDAC, promoting glucose and iron acquisition to support tumor survival. Arora et al. demonstrate that PI5P4Kα suppression disrupts the metabolic flexibility of PDAC cells, leading to apoptotic cell death, revealing a highly actionable therapeutic vulnerability.

PI5P4Kα promotes glucose and iron acquisition to support metabolic fitness in pancreatic cancer

Effect of ultra-processed food consumption on male reproductive and metabolic health This randomized controlled nutrition intervention conducted in males of reproductive age shows that, compared with an unprocessed diet, consumption of ultra-processed foods impairs metabolic and repro...

Effect of ultra-processed food consumption on male reproductive and metabolic health: Cell Metabolism www.cell.com/cell-metabol...

Experiments from early 2000s have shown that transferring cytosol from tumor to healthy cells transforms them into tumorigenic.

📢Last 2 weeks #immunometabolism discoveries
@biomednews.bsky.social ⬇️⬇️⬇️

biomed.news/bims-imicid/...
biomed.news/bims-imicid/...

Highlights:

Species-specific serine metabolism differentially controls natural killer cell functions
nature.com/articles/s42...

It will fail again... Same American slogans: War on cancer, Give em hell, kill em ....

Its worse than i could imagine :P

drop your best book recs 📚💙

Lysosomal membrane homeostasis and its importance in physiology and disease Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, Published online: 04 August 2025; doi:10.1038/s41580-025-00873-wLysosomes degrade cellular components, and their membrane is an important signalling hub. Recent insights into the mechanisms that maintain lysosomal membrane homeostasis — including the interplay between membrane damage, repair, lysophagy and lysosome biogenesis — highlight their importance in physiology, in disease and during ageing.

ICYMI: New Online! Lysosomal membrane homeostasis and its importance in physiology and disease

Check out our new preprint on the discovery of a molecular switch in NAC that mediates nascent chain sorting on the ribosome and prevents mitochondrial protein mistargeting by SRP. A great collaboration with the Shan Lab @Caltech and the Qi Lab @UVA: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

ACLY inhibition promotes tumour immunity and suppresses liver cancer - Nature Using metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis-driven hepatocellular carcinoma mouse models, an ATP citrate lyase inhibitor reduces tumour burden and enhances efficacy of current standards of ...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

What Can a Cell Remember? | Quanta Magazine A small but enthusiastic group of neuroscientists is exhuming overlooked experiments and performing new ones to explore whether cells record past experiences — fundamentally challenging what memory is...

If you’ve ever tried to cram for an exam, you know that it’s easier to memorize something if you learn the information in shorter, spaced-out sessions. These dynamics are as relevant to each individual cell’s existence as they are to ours. Claire Evans reports: www.quantamagazine.org/what-can-a-c...

It was great being part of this 😍

AI Comes Up with Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work. | Quanta Magazine Artificial intelligence software is designing novel experimental protocols that improve upon the work of human physicists, although the humans are still “doing a lot of baby-sitting.”

Already, AI has rediscovered nature’s symmetries and found new equations for dark matter’s clumping patterns.

Complex genetic variation in nearly complete human genomes - Nature Using sequencing and haplotype-resolved assembly of 65 diverse human genomes, complex regions including the major histocompatibility complex and centromeres are analysed.

Telomere-to-telomere DNA sequencing is set to transform the field of human genetics in coming years. For a flavour of what's coming, see this exciting work on nearly complete genomes of 65 individuals from diverse populations, out today in @nature.com by @glennislogsdon.bsky.social & colleagues. 👇🧬🧪

Stimulating immune cells in vitro is a common experimental lab model. We profiled 150K blood immune cells treated with 11 different stimuli to compare the effects. The data are freely available for researchers. See the preprint for our findings and to access the data 🧪 doi.org/10.1101/2025...

A gut hormone governing protein appetite and longevity - Nature Metabolism A study in Nature Metabolism reports a protein-responsive gut hormone that regulates appetite, sleep and organismal lifespan. This finding sheds light on the evolutionarily conserved endocrine system that controls dietary protein intake.

NEWS&VIEWS | C Sakuma & @obataf-lab.bsky.social‬ (Kyoto Univ, RIKEN)

A protein-responsive gut hormone that regulates appetite, sleep and organismal lifespan
🧪

Cancer progression through the lens of age-induced metabolic reprogramming - Nature Reviews Cancer In this Perspective, Lazure and Gomes argue that metabolic changes that occur as a result of ageing may shape tumour initiation and progression and the development of metastatic disease.

Cancer progression through the lens of age-induced metabolic reprogramming

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

a great piece from @gomeslab.bsky.social

Weight loss alters adipose tissue beyond just reducing fat Cellular changes to adipose tissue after weight-loss surgery could point to pathways responsible for the metabolic benefits of this procedure.

Cellular changes to adipose tissue after weight-loss surgery could point to pathways responsible for the metabolic benefits of this procedure

go.nature.com/4eKUFb1

More videos from the webinar series are available here: www.youtube.com/@build-a-cel...

And if you'd like to watch future presentations live, you can find more information here: www.buildacell.org/seminar

Fast growth and high-titer bioproduction from renewable formate via metal-dependent formate dehydrogenase in Escherichia coli - Nature Communications Low formate dehydrogenase (FDH) activity limits formate assimilation via the synthetic reductive glycine pathway. In this study, the authors introduce a faster FDH in synthetic formatotrophic E. coli,...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#microsky

Histone-mediated chromatin organization in prokaryotes and viruses Histones are fundamental chromatin-organizing proteins in eukaryotes and archaea, where they assemble into (hyper)nucleosomes that wrap DNA. Recent studies have expanded the known repertoire of histon...

A must-read for histone afficionados: our new review on 'Histone-mediated chromatin organization in prokaryotes and viruses' www.cell.com/trends/bioch... @samuelschwab.bsky.social @vikramalva.bsky.social

Inherited mitochondrial genetics as a predictor of immune checkpoint inhibition efficacy in melanoma - Nature Medicine In this genomic analysis of peripheral blood samples of the phase 3 CheckMate-067 trial of ipilimumab (IPI) versus nivolumab (NIVO) versus ipilimumab and nivolumab (IPI-NIVO) in melanoma, the status o...

'We discovered and validated significant associations of MT haplogroup T (HG-T) with resistance to anti-programmed cell death protein-1-based ICI (both single-agent and combination) and have shown that HG-T is independent from established tumor predictors'
#Immunology #Immunotherapy

DeepMind’s new AlphaGenome AI tackles the ‘dark matter’ in our DNA Nature - Tool aims to solve the mystery of non-coding sequences — but is still in its infancy.

An AI model developed by Google DeepMind could help scientists make sense of the non-protein-coding part of the genome

https://go.nature.com/4llASRk

Methylglyoxal is an antibacterial effector produced by macrophages during infection Infected macrophages that transition to aerobic glycolysis produce the reactive aldehyde methylglyoxal. In this study, Anaya-Sanchez et al. use both host and bacterial genetics to show that methylglyo...

Methylglyoxal is an antibacterial effector produced by macrophages during infection: Cell Host & Microbe www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

‘Remarkable’ new enzymes built by algorithm with physics know-how Nature - Computer approach creates synthetic enzymes 100 times more efficient than those designed by AI.

Computer algorithms have designed highly efficient synthetic enzymes from scratch

https://go.nature.com/43PmE5s

This review discusses how mitochondrial #bioenergetic failure, dynamic abnormalities, and mitophagic dysfunction interact with aging processes to drive #ParkinsonsDisease progression, and highlights potential therapeutic strategies targeting #mitochondrialpathways. #medsky

buff.ly/BVasqEu