Pablo Alcón's Avatar

Pablo Alcón

@palconh.bsky.social

Scientist. Molecular and structural biology of DNA repair 🧬 Aarhus University 🇩🇰🇪🇺 From Extremadura, Spain 🌍 https://sites.google.com/view/alconlab/home

1,111 Followers  |  865 Following  |  20 Posts  |  Joined: 13.11.2024  |  2.0944

Latest posts by palconh.bsky.social on Bluesky

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#womeninSTEM #womeninscience #Nobelprize

Trading cards to share, print and collect

cc @francesarnold.bsky.social @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social @jenniferdoudna.bsky.social @e-charpentier.bsky.social

link (aninfinityofhypotheses.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...)

10.10.2025 13:11 — 👍 4    🔁 5    💬 0    📌 0
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We still can’t predict much of anything in biology Biology is hard. Yes, even for AI.

We still can’t predict much of anything in biology
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/we-still-c...

09.10.2025 13:58 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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Distinct ATRX functions cooperate with 9-1-1 and CST complexes to safeguard replication and telomere integrity Mutations in the ATRX chromatin remodeller predispose to a developmental genetic disorder and cancer, but how it safeguards genome and telomere stability remains unresolved. Here, we uncover critical ...

🧬 Preprint alert!

"Distinct ATRX functions cooperate with 9-1-1 and CST complexes to safeguard replication and telomere integrity."

Read the manuscript here 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

07.10.2025 21:49 — 👍 17    🔁 10    💬 1    📌 0
Black and white portrait of John Gurdon, 1971

Black and white portrait of John Gurdon, 1971

John Gurdon, former Group Leader and Head of @cellbiol-mrclmb.bsky.social has died.
Despite calling himself a "total non-intellectual” his work to reprogramme somatic cells to pluripotent stem cells transformed the field of developmental biology.
More: www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/john-gurdon-...
#LMBNews

08.10.2025 08:49 — 👍 98    🔁 32    💬 3    📌 3

RIP John Gurdon

07.10.2025 18:06 — 👍 28    🔁 12    💬 0    📌 0

We have an open post-doc position in my group to study mRNA cleavage and polyadenylation using biochemical reconstitution and cryoEM.

Please get in touch if you are interested in joining this amazing team! 🔬🧬🤩
#RNA #cryoEM

27.09.2025 11:06 — 👍 55    🔁 51    💬 0    📌 1
Juan B. Rodriguez Molina

Juan B. Rodriguez Molina

Congrats to #LMBAlumni Juan B. Rodriguez Molina, former Investigator Scientist in the LMB's Structural Studies Division, newly appointed Assistant Professor in the Dept of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
researchdirectory.uc.edu/p/1818215

25.09.2025 11:17 — 👍 7    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0
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Developmental biologist Maria Jasin wins the 2025 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize - News Maria Jasin, whose fundamental research on repair of damaged DNA in cells has transformed our understanding of cancers linked to inherited gene mutations, has been selected as the 2025 recipient of the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize. Awarded annually by ...

Maria Jasin, whose fundamental research on repair of damaged DNA in cells has transformed our understanding of cancers linked to inherited gene mutations, has been selected as the 2025 recipient of the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize. Congratulations! #WomenInScience

12.09.2025 13:24 — 👍 22    🔁 6    💬 1    📌 2
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I thought science hinged on prestige. Moving abroad made me reassess my priorities In Denmark, this Ph.D. student fell in love with an egalitarian society that values work-life balance

I’m biased 🇩🇰, but this is quite nice to read:

I thought science hinged on prestige. Moving abroad made me reassess my priorities

www.science.org/content/arti...

12.09.2025 07:50 — 👍 45    🔁 13    💬 2    📌 1

1973: Max Perutz explains the solution of hemoglobin. 53 years later, we’re still waiting for someone to solve the missing pointer

09.09.2025 23:42 — 👍 28    🔁 5    💬 3    📌 1
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History of Molecular Biology Collection This unparalleled collection includes Rosalind Franklin's historic 'Photo 51,' which revealed the double-helix structure of DNA.

News in the history of molecular biology. The Science History Institute in Philadelphia has acquired a huge archive of correspondence and other scientific material from the pioneers of molecular biology (Franklin, Klug, Perutz, Delbrück etc, with items from Crick and Watson, too). 1/n

08.09.2025 12:24 — 👍 197    🔁 94    💬 6    📌 12
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David Baltimore, Nobel-Winning Molecular Biologist, Dies at 87

Co-discoverer of reverse transcriptase at 32, Nobel Prize at 37, played a key role at the 1975 Asilomar comference.

07.09.2025 20:36 — 👍 145    🔁 67    💬 0    📌 5
An intersection between two streets named after Bilbao and Aarhus.

An intersection between two streets named after Bilbao and Aarhus.

Nice corner. Spotted in Copenhagen.

06.09.2025 11:05 — 👍 7    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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Aarhus University to award five honorary doctorates One recipient has developed new therapies for diseases of the liver. Another has made it possible to map proteins at the atomic level, and a third has made groundbreaking contributions to the study of...

Aarhus University to award five honorary doctorates

medarbejdere.au.dk/en/news-arti...

04.09.2025 07:10 — 👍 5    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Private tour of the Louvre is a special treat. They were vacuuming the Sphinx. You may not have seen a Sphinx being brushed, so I am sharing.

03.09.2025 08:36 — 👍 106    🔁 9    💬 3    📌 0

Congrats Luuk! all the best in this new adventure!

19.08.2025 09:02 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

COngrats Juan!!

To all interested: don't miss this opportunity to join Juan's lab, a great scientist and mentor!

🧬🔬🧫

13.08.2025 15:04 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Returning home: there and back again in Czechia - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Returning to Central Europe was appealing and challenging. Here, I reflect on my part in rebuilding a research career in Czechia and fostering a collaborative scientific community across the region.

@natsmb.nature.com has published three pieces on scientists returning to their country of origin after working abroad. www.nature.com/nsmb/article... Two more will come out. The most recent one by @hanasedlackova.bsky.social hits home for me, a very interesting read.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

12.08.2025 11:54 — 👍 5    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0
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Excited to share our latest work with @simonbullock11.bsky.social! We looked at how diverse mRNAs get selected for subcellular localization and it turns out that a single protein can recognize different RNA elements using shared features that weren’t apparent before.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

05.08.2025 10:43 — 👍 140    🔁 45    💬 4    📌 9

A tribute to Pedro Cuatrecasas, the Spaniard who (whilst working in the US) co-invented affinity chromatography.

13.07.2025 12:40 — 👍 1    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
Structure of telomerase dimer with key catalytic codes and H/ACA RNPs highlighted with schematic illustrating how dimer disruption leads to shortened telomeres and disease mutations of the dimers causes premature ageing diseases

Structure of telomerase dimer with key catalytic codes and H/ACA RNPs highlighted with schematic illustrating how dimer disruption leads to shortened telomeres and disease mutations of the dimers causes premature ageing diseases

Sebastian Balch, Zala Sekne & Elsa Franco-Echevarría in @kellythd-nguyen.bsky.social's group have confirmed the existence of dimeric telomerase and illustrated how it is key to telomere maintenance:
www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/first-struct...

#LMBResearch @yiliangding.bsky.social @rdaslab.bsky.social 🧪

11.07.2025 08:41 — 👍 33    🔁 5    💬 0    📌 2
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Cryo-EM structure of human telomerase dimer reveals H/ACA RNP-mediated dimerization Telomerase ribonucleoprotein (RNP) synthesizes telomeric repeats at chromosome ends using a telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) and a telomerase RNA (hTR in humans). Previous structural work showe...

Proud to share our work where we resolved a longstanding question regarding the existence of a human telomerase dimer and provided insights into its function. Led by 3 amazing lab members in collaboration with @yiliangding.bsky.social and @rdaslab.bsky.social.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

10.07.2025 21:26 — 👍 145    🔁 47    💬 7    📌 1
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Zincore, an atypical coregulator, binds zinc finger transcription factors to control gene expression Zinc finger proteins (ZNFs) are the largest family of transcription factors, yet how they activate gene expression remains unclear. In this study, we identified Zincore, a protein complex consisting o...

In today’s publication in Science we introduce Zincore: a novel protein of QRICH1 and SEPHS1 and functions as a transcriptional coregulator dedicated to zinc finger transcription factors. Here’s how we found it: 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 1/11

04.07.2025 11:00 — 👍 127    🔁 47    💬 3    📌 3

Wish I could be there!

An unmissable chance to hear Richard Henderson speak in the magical setting of Fonseca, Salamanca.

❄️⚡🔬

03.07.2025 09:21 — 👍 1    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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Check out this new review (with animations, natch) of mechanisms of licensing origins of DNA replication - a wonderful (and continuing!) collaboration with Bruce Stillman @cshlnews.bsky.social and John Diffley @crick.ac.uk! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

02.07.2025 17:01 — 👍 79    🔁 43    💬 6    📌 2
A picture of a bottle of hummus. It is labeled NATURE HUMMUS

A picture of a bottle of hummus. It is labeled NATURE HUMMUS

These NPG spinoff journals are out of control

29.06.2025 16:50 — 👍 479    🔁 70    💬 12    📌 7
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Structural and functional analysis of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis MmpS5L5 efflux pump presages a pathway to increased bedaquiline resistance Bedaquiline, an antitubercular drug that targets ATP-synthase, is a key component of a new oral drug regimen that has revolutionized the treatment of multi drug resistant tuberculosis. Clinical bedaqu...

Bedaquiline resistance driven by the MmpS5L5 efflux pump is threatening the drug regimens used to treat MDR-TB.

In our new preprint, we used structural and genetic approaches to better understand how MmpS5L5 effluxes bedaquiline and how future resistance may evolve. 🧵🔽

#TBsky #MicroSky #TB

26.06.2025 10:30 — 👍 25    🔁 11    💬 2    📌 1
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Symposium
"The structure and workings of molecular machines”
📍 University of Salamanca, Historic building
📅 Sunday June 29, 2025
⌚Starts 10:00 am
Organized by @usaloficial.bsky.social‬ / @ucciusal.bsky.social‬
With :
@ciccancer.bsky.social‬
@interibfg.bsky.social‬
@cnb-csic.bsky.social‬
LUMES-USAL

23.06.2025 19:28 — 👍 2    🔁 5    💬 1    📌 0
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Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Blackford Group A position as Postdoctoral Research Associate is available at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, in the group headed by Dr. Andrew Blackford. Th

We’re #hiring, please share! A fully funded #postdoc position is available in my lab to work on DNA damage response mechanisms.

Please get in touch with your CV if you are interested; closing date: 27th June 2025.

More details here: candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

29.05.2025 11:26 — 👍 23    🔁 35    💬 0    📌 0

Postdoc positions open in my lab (Francis Crick Institute) to study

1. initiation of DNA replication.

2. chromatin replication/epigenetic inheritance.

Great for biochemists, biophysicists and cryo-EM/cryo-tomography scientists.

Deadline 3 August 2025.

crick.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/External/job...

20.06.2025 09:38 — 👍 77    🔁 80    💬 1    📌 2

@palconh is following 20 prominent accounts