Itay Budin

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

Getting lectured by Markus Deserno about publishing bangers, now that’s rich!

Congrats to you Roberto!

Thanks Andrew!

Thanks André :)

This work was aided greatly through help from the Devaraj (UCSD), Obara (UCSD), and Best (UT Knockville) labs. It was supported by NIGMS and Paul Allen Family Foundation @alleninstitute.org. Reagents for implementing FACES will soon be available from Avanti Polar Lipids and Addgene.

We think FACES is a powerful approach for beginning to interrogate the hidden heterogeneity and asymmetry of intracellular membranes. It can also be applied to other molecules accessible to biorthogonal labeling, like intracellular glycans that are difficult to image via direct fluorescence.

He then shows that fusing fluorogen sensors to either side of a transmembrane domain allows for imaging of leaflet-specific phospholipid distributions in the trans-Golgi network. He sees that asymmetry is generated at TGN vesicles and finds transporters and flippases that control this asymmetry.

Will shows that organelle targeted FAPs can be used to untangle the role of lipid transfer proteins in trafficking of phospholipids like PC across organelle contact sites, like those of the ER and mitochondria.

FACES is the brainchild of incredibly creative and talented post-doc Will Moore @moorrhizal.bsky.social. It combines bioorthogonal labeling of phospholipids with fluorogen technology, in which fluorescence is generated upon coincidence of a lipid-bound dye and a genetically-encoded protein sensor.

Leaflet-specific phospholipid imaging using genetically encoded proximity sensors - Nature Chemical Biology An approach combining bioorthogonal chemistry with genetically encoded fluorogen-activating proteins enables subcellular imaging of phospholipids and glycans, as well as the visualization of lipid tra...

Very excited to share new work out today in @natchembio.nature.com on a new approach - FACES - for selectively imaging of phospholipids and other biomolecules at spatial resolutions down to individual membrane leaflets (1/n) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

UW Tacoma is hiring a tenure track Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and a teaching Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry. Please share widely and consider applying.

Biochemistry:
apply.interfolio.com/172884
Organic Chemistry:
apply.interfolio.com/172940

Depends on the temperature you grew them up at :P

Awesome, congrats!

I am delighted to announce that the UW Department of Biochemistry has opened searches for TWO tenure-track positions.

Descriptions and links in the following two posts.