Vanni Lab at UNIFR, Switzerland

Uni Bern: Assistant Professor with tenure-track for Quantitative Cell Biology Start date of employment: anticipated for August 2027

Please spread the word! 10 days left to apply for this #sciencejobs as Assistant Professor Tenure Track in Quantitative Cell Biology 👩‍🔬
@izb-unibern.bsky.social @unibe.ch! ohws.prospective.ch/public/v1/jo...
#QueerInSTEM #DisabledInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #WomenInSTEM #CarersInSTEM #AcademicSky #HigherED

This is an really amazing opportunity. If you get it, you can essentially pick you institute. The package really is rather competitive.

W1TTW2 Professorship in Membrane Biology (m/f/d)

Job alert 📣 Our faculty looks for a Junior Professor W1 with tt to W2 in Membrane Biology! We are looking for #ECRs working on membrane biogenesis,contact sites,composition & other aspects of membranes in 🌱 and other organisms! DM me if you need more details!

jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/f...

Ne manquez pas le 20e GERLI International Lipid Meeting, Strasbourg, 3-5 nov 2025

Rejoignez chercheurs et experts pour explorer les dernières avancées en biologie des lipides, assistez à des conférences, posters et prix scientifiques !

Plus d'info : : www.gerli.com/congres/welc...

Well...for once I can repost/like a paper I read very carefully 😆

Congratulations André and team. Very very nice work!

Open positions GR-SCHUHMACHER

We are hiring!

If you are looking for a postdoc position and you are interested in signaling lipids and proteomics, come join us in beautiful Switzerland!

More information on www.epfl.ch/labs/gr-schu...

All trajectories and in Zenodo, get in contact if you have questions!

Happy to share the latest from the lab, led by Daniel Alvarez, in collaboration with @lizconibear.bsky.social‬. In this AA-MD tour-de-force, we delve deep into the mechanism and energetics of lipid uptake by bridge-like lipid transfer proteins, and we learn a few interesting things along the way...

Of course! all trajectories are in Zenodo: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
If you want more details, just get in touch!

Thanks!!

Altogether, we think that the mechanism of membrane fusion described in the context of NPC assembly here is different from what known for other fusion machineries (e.g. SNAREs, dynamin-like GTPases,…). More details in the manuscript—let us know your thoughts! (13/13)

Finally, phylogenetic analyses showed that Brl1/Brr6 homologues are broadly distributed across eukaryotes, and functional experiments in human cells and fly establish CLCC1 as an NPC fusogen in metazoans, consistent with recent preprints by @olzmannlab.bsky.social, Xiao-Wei Chen‬ and others. (12/13)

We also modelled Brl1 in curved membranes (a vesicle mimicking the INM shape). Same result: Brl1/Brr6 oligomers stably interacting and promoting lipid mixing within the channel. (11/13)

When observed closely, lipid mixing looks like classic hemifusion-like intermediates with exposed lipid-tails (but stabilized within protein rings here). (10/13)

But here is another interesting part: interaction between Brl1 and Brr6 only happens when the membranes are < 10 nm apart. This is also very consistent with previous measurement of these distances in NPC assembly intermediates prior to fusion. (9/13)

We went back to simulations of opposed bilayers, but with protein oligomers in both of them. We observed a gradual decrease in membrane distances to the point of interaction between proteins (Brl1 and Brr6). This interaction results in lipid mixing in the central channel of the rings. (8/13)

This hydrophobic loop motif is highly conserved in fungi, and disrupting this loop halted NPC assembly process. This is telling us that Brl1/Brr6 head-to-head interaction is essential for NPC assembly. (7/13)

Given that both Brl1 and Brr6 are essential, and their interaction has been studied in earlier work, we modeled 16 copies of Brl1 together with 16 of Brr6. We got a 32-mer complex with two subunits of 16-mers of Brl1/Brr6 with a head-to-head interaction mediated by a hydrophobic loop motif. (6/13)

Our MD simulations of ring oligomers of Brl1/Brr6 showed pronounced lipid-remodeling in its vicinity. Could this lipid remodeling be enough to drive fusion of INM-ONM? The answer is NO, based on simulation of two opposed bilayers, with protein in only one of them. (5/13)

AF3 led us to find that both Brl1 and Brr6 tend to self-associate and form multimeric structures that become fully closed rings when 10 or more copies are present. By mutating charged residues at the dimer interface, we showed that this side-by-side oligomerization is critical. (4/13)

We found that Brl1 localizes to NPC assembly sites via an N-terminal nuclear export signal (NES). At that site, Brl1 and Brr6 oligomerize into rings, bridging membranes by interacting through conserved hydrophobic loops, promoting lipid mixing. Continue for more details! (3/13)

Meet Brl1 and Brr6: two highly conserved transmembrane proteins in yeast, localized to the inner (INM) and outer nuclear membranes (ONM), respectively. Both are essential for NPC assembly, and despite their similarity, they are non-redundant. (2/13)

Happy to share the latest work from the lab, led by @mudgal17.bsky.social‬, in collaboration with the Weis lab @ethzurich.bsky.social.
How do nuclear membranes fuse during NPC assembly? We answer this question in our latest work, where we identify a new mechanism for membrane fusion… (1/13)

Congratulations Matthieu!!!!

Hey there!✨I’m thrilled to share that our latest research, in collaboration with the Tontonoz Lab (UCLA), has just been published in Nature Metabolism. Our study explores the fascinating role of polyunsaturated fatty acids in fat storage. Check it out!
@labvanni.bsky.social
@natmetabolism.nature.com

Postdoctoral fellowship in protein biochemistry and biophysics - DTU Chemistry Do you want to contribute to an exciting chemical biology project? This postdoctoral fellowship deals with the synthesis of probes aimed at studying cholesterol transport proteins in health and diseas...

I am looking to hire a protein #biochemist, #biophysicist or structural biologist: efzu.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

- 2-year position working on lipid transport proteins.
- Experience in protein expression, purification and biochemical and biophysical assay development.
Please share!

Lipid Droplets: Cell-Biological Control of Metabolism Lipid droplets are master regulators of nutrient and energy homeostasis, but their functions go far beyond these classical roles: They are important in cellular differentiation and various stress res…

Learn about #LipidDroplet #biology, their role in human disease and more at EMBO Workshop "Lipid Droplets: Cell-Biological Control of #Metabolism" in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain, 21–26 September 2025

Deadline: 10 June 2025

meetings.embo.org/event/25-lip...
#EMBOlipidDroplets #EMBOevents 🧪

Cette année le @cnrs.fr ouvre une Chaire de Professeur Junior "Méthodes de modélisation et simulations moléculaires" pour rejoindre à labo à Toulouse (@laascnrs.bsky.social), Palaiseau (LIX) ou Nancy (LORIA), vous avez jusqu'au 14 juillet pour candidater !
emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CPJ/C...

Excited to share the new work from the Carvalho lab @dunnschool.bsky.social! 🎉This was part of my PhD & a collaboration with the @labvanni.bsky.social & Ernst labs!

Big thanks to everyone involved! 🙌 @jcb.org

Read more: doi.org/10.1083/jcb.... (1/2)