Itay Budin

GenAI uncovers the hidden mechanism linking Ünal to the origins of Spanish silver!

News and views from Olivia Seidel in my lab on this important paper from the Baskin lab from last month www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is a fantastic institue and people…what an opportunity!

This work was a collaborative project with Christian Metallo at @salkinstitute.bsky.social and featured important contributions from several labs. NIGMS provided financial support. Thanks also to the reviewers and the @cp-cellchembiol.bsky.social team for helping to improve the final paper.

We note important similarities in our observations with those recently made by @noemijimenezrojo.bsky.social when ER membrane fluidity is synthetically lowered through light-induced fatty acid isomerization
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

She found that 1-deoxy species accumulate in the ER, likely to impairment in their vesicular trafficking. She then showed that their buildup alters ER membrane fluidity, which alters protein cargo secretion kinetics, and properties of ER exit sites.

Former post-doc Meli Tsai applied a range of lipid chemical and cell biology tools to understand how aberrant 1-deoxysphingolipids are trafficked in cells and how their accumulation due to mutations in the enzyme SPT might contribute to dysfunction in the secretory pathway.

I want to highlight a new #lipidtime article from our lab on disease-associated 1-deoxysphingolipids, which is nicely featured on the cover of this month's issue of Cell Chem Bio @cp-cellchembiol.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell-chemica...

Membrane editing with proximity labeling reveals regulators of lipid homeostasis - Nature Chemical Biology Coupling an optogenetic lipid-modifying enzyme with proximity labeling reveals protein networks and mechanisms regulating lipid homeostasis in the membranes of target organelles.

Thrilled to share our latest study, led by @reikatei.bsky.social, in @natchembio.nature.com! We began by asking a simple question—how do cells know if they have too much of a lipid in a particular membrane, and how do they respond to rectify this imbalance?
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
More info 👇

Congrats Jeremy, Reika and the rest. Great to see this out!

Happy new year! I've so enjoyed the end-of-year lists of people's favorite papers from 2025, so I made a list of 16 #lipidtime studies from 2025 that I found interesting. Here they are in no particular order (please add more if you would like!), and here's to much more exciting science in 2026! 🧪

Killer turtleneck

copyright Palina Nepachalovich of ZML Dresden

Ups we did it again! Please mark your calender. EMBO Workshop “Lipid Code to Life”, taking place September 7–11, 2026, in Dresden, organized by Maria Fedorova, @lipid.bsky.social, Valerie O'Donnell, @holthuislab.bsky.social and @molcellbiophys-lab.bsky.social 🥳 Retweets = lipidlove

It’s such a waste of time and a huge headache. Trying to get our program to eliminate these, but something systematic is sorely needed. Common app with a max number of programs would help quite a bit. Will be impossible to do admissions if everyone applies to 20 programs .

Ctenophore 🚨

Love this!

No lies detected

The Many FACES of Lipid Research Scientists have long wanted to get a closer look at the movement of lipids around a cell, but it’s tough to visualize with traditional light microscopy. UC San Diego researchers have unveiled a new technology with the power to see cells in unprecedented detail.

Researchers in Itay Budin's lab, incl. William Moore, have created a tool with the power to see lipid movement inside cells in unprecedented detail. The tool uses fluorogens to illuminate certain lipids while other remain dark. Their work appears in Nature Chemical Biology. https://bit.ly/4hnDFZG

First part is a biophysical primer for a wide audience. Second is a recap of recent findings using ctenophores with @stevehaddock.bsky.social. Third is a re-analysis of published datasets to test between homeoviscosity and homeocurvature models. More soon!

Sharing a new in-depth review article on intrinsic lipid curvature and models of lipidome adaptation to the environment that I recently wrote with Jacob Winnikoff for Progress in Lipid Research (open access).

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Follow up to Keller et al 1993!

Definitely not dependent on FPs. Can be observed with solvatochromic dyes like Laurdan

🥰

Wow

Awesome. The Elyra system is very powerful. We haven't run yeast on them yet, but looks compare to CLSM/Airyscan

How does Mycoplasma pneumoniae scavenge lipids from its host membranes? P116 is an adaptive, all-in-one lipid acquisition machinery fit for any host environment.

How does Mycoplasma pneumoniae scavenge lipids from its host membranes? | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Tenure-track Position in Biophysics at Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Physics Location: Pittsburgh, PA Open Date: Sep 19, 2025 Description The Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position in biophysics. The appointment is intended to be at the Assistant Professor level, but exceptional candidates at a higher level may also be considered. We seek outstanding candidates with a strong record in cellular and subcellular biophysics. Topics of particular interest include, but are not limited to, uncovering how key characteristics of living systems arise from the interplay between supramolecular cellular structures, how the emergent cellular circuitry defines goals and enables robust decision making, and how metabolic resources are allocated. This encompasses understanding of how information is learned, stored, transduced, and processed across subcellular structures. Applicants with theoretical, data science, or experimental backgrounds within biological physics are encouraged to apply. The ideal candidate will strengthen and extend research programs of current biophysics faculty in the Department of Physics and collaborate with broader life science activities across many departments at CMU and the wider Pittsburgh area. More details on Interfolio: https://apply.interfolio.com/174360

I am super excited to announce that we have a tenure-track faculty position in biophysics open in the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon! 🧪

Interfolio link: apply.interfolio.com/174360

PLEASE, share widely across the blue skies!

Let me briefly explain what we're looking for:

1/10

Molecular basis for the regulation of membrane proteins through preferential lipid solvation - Nature Chemical Biology Static protein structures can capture the association of lipids, but it is unclear whether the association is due to lipids acting as long-lived ligands or the solvation of preferred lipids around the protein. A computational-experimental framework has now shown that for the protein CLC-ec1, it is the change in lipid solvation energies that drives dimerization, with preferred lipids around the protein modulating this driving force.

Are the lipids associated with static protein structures there as long-lived ligands or an effect of preferential solvation? This computational-experimental framework shows the way! #lipidtime #compchem

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

Congrats Erdinc! So well deserved

Wonderful to see our paper on the #organelle signatures of #neurons and #astrocytes out in final form - congratulations, Shannon Rhoads and team!🎉 t.co/BPxKlbU6Ou