Inflammasome Lab

🚨It’s out @embojournal.org 🚨
Cardiolipin inhibits Caspase-4/11!
Huge thanks to my brilliant supervisors Kate & Pablo, to @s-burgener.bsky.social & Mercedes and all the @inflammasomelab.bsky.social, it was a joy working and laughing with you, and to @brozlab.bsky.social & Si Ming lab.

Yes! Read our paper to find out how!

We didn’t do that experiment exactly but did do something similar - we showed that when we trigger noncanonical inflammasome signalling with endogenous effectors in HBECs, this induces filopodial assembly.

Cardiolipin inhibits the non-canonical inflammasome by preventing LPS binding to caspase-4/11 | The EMBO Journal imageimageAvailable caspase-4/11 (CASP4/11) inhibitors also block the activity of caspase-1 (CASP1), which complicates interpretation of results in functional studies and limits their clinical potenti...

Congrats to @malvinapiz.bsky.social and @inflammasomelab.bsky.social on their new paper on the role of cardiolipin in non canonical inflammasome activation. We’re happy to have contributed to the story 🎉🦠!!

www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Cardiolipin inhibits the non-canonical inflammasome by preventing LPS binding to caspase-4/11 | The EMBO Journal imageimageAvailable caspase-4/11 (CASP4/11) inhibitors also block the activity of caspase-1 (CASP1), which complicates interpretation of results in functional studies and limits their clinical potenti...

‼️ Congratulations to @malvinapiz.bsky.social on her cool work published today @embopress.org on Cardiolipin inhibiting Casp4 non-canonical inflammasome signaling outputs 👻 a lot of fun to work with Malvina and Mercedes @inflammasomelab.bsky.social on this project

www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Two blokes dressed in gowns and ceremonial hats with two miniature schnauzers in front of the Goddard building at the University of Queensland, St Lucia campus.

Two blokes dressed in gowns and ceremonial hats being dragged towards a bush by two miniature schnauzers in front of the Goddard building at the University of Queensland, St Lucia campus.

A joy of the job is sharing moments like this after years of working together. May I present Dr Julian Radford-Smith @jradford-smith.bsky.social, with special guests Barbara and Rosalind. Photos taken by the wonderful @lilydun.bsky.social

Sign of the University of Queensland, Brisbane

Thank you @inflammasomelab.bsky.social and @s-burgener.bsky.social for the invitation to visit the IMB@UQ in Brisbane! I had a fantastic time presenting my postdoc work in the Kagan lab (@jkagan1.bsky.social) and talking science!

Join us at next week ACDS seminar - lineup of two fantastic speakers 🔊 all infos below 👇

It was a huge pleasure to write this spotlight commentary together with @inflammasomelab.bsky.social and @JaredCoombs on the recent Cell paper of Xingbin Hu lab on spectosis in red blood cells! Congrats to all the authors for their novel and elegant study in discovery miniNLRP3 signaling in RBC 👇

Predicting and preventing Alzheimer’s disease With all the advances in both the science of aging and artificial intelligence (AI), we are in a propitious position to accurately and precisely determine who is at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s...

In @science.org today my essay on predicting and preventing Alzheimer's disease (open-access)

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The Hunter Meeting has made it to the blue place! 🔵 If you are joining us in the beautiful #HunterValley 2-5 June 2025 - please tag us or search #HunterMeetingOz to follow along. #STEM #CellBiology #DevBio #SpatialOmics @anzscdb.bsky.social #AustralianMeeting

#celldeathresearch #careerdevelopment | Australasian Cell Death Society (ACDS) 🥇2025 ACDS Professional Development Award 🥇 Applications are now open! Are you a PhD student or early-career researcher in the cell death field? Don’t miss your chance to apply for our $2,000 travel ...

(1/3) 🏆 Applications are now open for the 2025 ACDS Professional Development Award!

A $2,000 grant for a PhD student or ECR to support national or international professional development 🌍✈️
Conference? Lab visit? Data training? This one's for you.

More info below

Just make sure you eat ‘em properly. Don’t do a Bill Shorten (zing!) 😂

This allowed us to ask cool new questions (🧵3/3):
-are inflammasomes activated & deactivated in the steady-state?
-is inflammasome silencing critical to prevent disease?
-after a major organ challenge, is it critical to silence inflammasomes to restore homeostasis?
👀 our pre-print for the answers!

We previously discovered that an unusual mechanism of feedback inhibition turns off #inflammasomes in cells (2018 J Exp Med; shorturl.at/hlFQS). Our new mouse model confirms this also terminates #inflammasomes in vivo (🧵2/3)
shorturl.at/HxS9a

Caspase-1 self-terminates protease activity to enforce homeostasis and prevent inflammasome-driven diseases Signal shutdown mechanisms must exist to silence the potent inflammatory programs initiated by the caspase-1 (CASP1) protease, to allow inflammation to resolve and reinstate tissue homeostasis. It is ...

Inflammatory signalling must eventually be turned off (e.g. by feedback inhibition) to prevent chronic inflammation. We didn't know how #inflammasomes turn off their signalling in vivo ... until now! (🧵: 1/3)
shorturl.at/8lWxW

Congratulations @v-hornung.bsky.social! Richly deserved. Wonderful to see another inflammasome great amongst the awardees!

Pleased to see Kevin's paper on the Retromer complex interaction with yeast Vps5 and Vps17 proteins now online!

Is that Cat2 funding? 😉

A mental-health crisis plagues PhDs — these evidence-led initiatives offer help Communities of researchers worldwide are taking on the toxic research cultures that drive poor psychological health among academics.

Studies of researchers globally suggest there is a mental-health crisis in academia

https://go.nature.com/3RNAbmZ

Big congrats to one of our @wehi-research.bsky.social stars, @someblondesci.bsky.social !

'Curiosity-driven research' led to a recent major medical breakthrough. But it's under threat - The Conversation AU

Is it really only 16 degrees? People are wearing shorts and t-shirts! 😂🤯 that’s jacket weather in Brisbane!

A natural experiment on the effect of herpes zoster vaccination on dementia - Nature Using a natural experiment that avoids common bias concerns, this study finds that the live-attenuated shingles vaccine reduced the probability of a new dementia diagnosis within a follow-up period of 7 years by approximately one-fifth.

Nature research paper: A natural experiment on the effect of herpes zoster vaccination on dementia

https://go.nature.com/3XHRhq5

NIH has rescinded its scientific integrity policy. Hard to see this as anything other than clearing the way for shoddy research on things like vaccines. Regardless of the rationale, it's bad news for public health.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

These guys inherited one of the most functional state apparatus in the history of the world and they are inhabiting it like a crack house.
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

We're at a turning point in world history but our leaders are distracted While Australian politicians argue about power bill relief and non-existent nuclear power stations, pressing issues like the great US retreat, global warming and AI are being ignored.

Excellent article #auspol

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03...

The next exciting instalment from @jradford-smith.bsky.social on how climate filters rainforest tree strategies in the Australian subtropics. Now available in early view at @ecography.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1111/ecog...

OMG