Aninda Dutta

Check out our latest work on the discovery and engineering of PiggyBac transposases! 🧵

Negative design enables cell-free expression and folding of designed transmembrane β-Barrels https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.16.676539v1

Anyone know what program & settings was used to make these figs? I assume it isn't pymol or chimera (pic from @asimovpress.bsky.social on the other site)

Deep learning-based joint sequence-structure de novo membrane protein design https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.15.670493v1

Evolutionarily diverse caveolins share a common structural framework built around amphipathic disks pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40772930/ #cryoEM

Complexity myths and the misappropriation of evolutionary theory | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Plot that shows an increasing number of papers about de novo protein design

We’re getting more and more papers on de novo protein design, but I still don’t really know what it means

What’s your definition of de novo design?

The brain fires up immune cells when sick people are nearby When people viewed virtual avatars with coughs or rashes, their brains triggered an immune response.

The brain activates front-line immune cells in response to the mere sight of a sick person

go.nature.com/475cIXn

Sucks at times.

Measurements of molecular size and shape on a chip Size and shape are critical discriminators between molecular species and states. We describe a microchip-based high-throughput imaging approach offering rapid and precise determination of molecular pr...

Madhavi Krishnans lab with an absolutely amazing new measurement technique:
Measurements of molecular size and shape on a chip | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Why are biological membranes asymmetric, with different lipids in the two bilayer leaflets? Discovered in the 70s, lipid asymmetry is linked to many cellular processes, but why the cell needs it is largely unclear. @pavelbarahtjan.bsky.social addresses this question: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Hey #TeamTomo,
Ever been in need of a tutorial about the fundamentals of cryo-electron tomography? From preprocessing raw frames to high-res subtomogram averaging?
That's why @florentwaltz.bsky.social and I made this website!

tomoguide.github.io

Follow the thread 1 /🧵
#CryoET #CryoEM 🔬🧪

Functional and Structural Characterization of F1-ATPase with common ancestral core domains in stator ring www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.30.651372v1 #cryoEM

🚨New preprint!🚨 #teamtomo
We expanded Surface Morphometrics to quantify membrane thickness from cryo-ET—revealing local variation across organelles.

Led by the lab’s first grad student, @mmedina300kv.bsky.social (defending Monday! 🍾) w/ @attychang.bsky.social @hamid13r.bsky.social & @tomo.science

If u ever had to depict proteins as schematics in papers, u know the dilemma: how to create a pretty “blob”?
If structure ends up big & central, u’ll render it with PyMol et al, but for a truly schematic depiction u want a biorender-style icon, but for YOUR protein.
Think I’ve finally found a way.

quite extraordinary story. Sometimes I think it’s the weird people that will save the world,

Mechanistic studies of mycobacterial glycolipid biosynthesis by the mannosyltransferase PimE pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40301322/ #cryoEM

Grappling with poorly-resolved ligand binding sites in #cryoEM maps?
Check out our new case study on a peptide ligand-bound GPCR showing how practical tips and features in #CryoSPARC v4.7 improve locally refined map quality and reveal clearer ligand density!
guide.cryosparc.com/processing-d...

My guidelines for exploratory data analysis

AI for research: the ultimate guide to choosing the right tool Nature - Curious about using artificial intelligence to boost your research? Here are the programs you shouldn’t miss.

Curious about using artificial intelligence to boost your research? Here are the programs you shouldn’t miss

https://go.nature.com/4ls2K7a

Cell membranes sustain phospholipid imbalance via cholesterol asymmetry This work challenges a major assumption in cell biology by showing that lipid bilayers can have drastically different phospholipid abundances between their two leaflets. This lipid abundance asymmetry...

Groundbreaking study in Cell from @leventallab.bsky.social: phospholipid asymmetry is a defining feature of the plasma membrane and cholesterol fills the holes — major implications for how this membrane works. A #lipidtime must-read! www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

The coming decade might see major cuts to US Government #funding for biomedicine. This Perspective highlights how your biosciences #PhD gives you the problem-solving skills to navigate this maelstrom, especially if you maintain flexibility, optimism &enthusiasm for uncharted paths🧪
▶️ plos.io/3XEKPjt

Please watch. Powerful and chilling. 1: ‘Do not obey in advance.’ 20: ‘Be as courageous as you can!’

Molecule-MCP is a very cool tool connecting PyMOL and ChimeraX directly to Claude through the Model Context Protocol for prompt-assisted molecule modelling. Great stuff by Jinyuan Sun et al
github.com/ChatMol/mole...

It's the loss of this country if they don't hire grad students and postdocs because if they don't get the opportunity here they will pivot and go to other countries and look for other opportunities.

#science #matters #PhD #postdoc #research #biology #chemistry #physics