Dr J

Mucosal vaccination in mice provides protection from diverse respiratory threats Traditional vaccines target specific pathogens, limiting their scope against diverse respiratory threats. We describe an intranasal liposomal formulation combining toll-like receptor (TLR) 4 and 7/8 l...

This should make any researcher who tested intranasal vaccination using any other route (or intranasal without adjuvant) as control arms really revisit their results. It would have been very easy to misinterpret results from such experiments.

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

Deltaviruses spread through a viral Trojan Horse Hepatitis D-like satellite viruses, known as deltaviruses, have been recently discovered in a wide range of animals. These viruses are thought to expr…

We found a viral Trojan Horse: a virus can hide inside another virus.This one surprised us: deltaviruses don’t just borrow a helper virus. They can travel inside it.
A literal Trojan Horse “virus-in-a-virus” route into cells. 🤯 Kudos to 1st author @viroscope.bsky.social and co-authors !

I guess not “fast” anymore but now getting repetitive.

www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

A 3x3 grid of coloured images of influenza virus particles in the style of an Andy Warhol screen print. Image credit Naina Nair / Ed Hutchinson (MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research)

🚨New Influenza Tool🚨
Interested in IAV mutations?
Looking for markers of mammalian adaptation?
Frustrated by converting between IAV numbering systems?
The #Flu-MutationExplorer, a new tool from @cvrbioinfo.bsky.social and @royalvetcollege.bsky.social, is here to help:
flu-gdb.cvr.gla.ac.uk
(1/n)

Out today: We discovered new viral proteins that target immune signaling molecules, solely based on their AlphaFold-predicted shapes

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

Congrats Nitzan Tal and coauthors! Thank you Kranzusch lab for the fun collaboration!

Linking below previous thread on our findings

Figure 1. Cryo-EM of abundant protein complexes in native membranes.

Figure 2. Cryo-EM of membrane proteins in vesicles.

Figure 3. 3D reconstruction of V-ATPase in native synaptic vesicle membranes.

Figure 4. Generation of membrane vesicles for structure determination of proteins in their native lipid bilayer.

I've written a review on what I think is an extremely exciting direction in cryo-EM:

Cryo-EM of endogenous membrane proteins in their native lipid bilayer

Open access in Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics:
doi.org/10.1017/S003...

🚨 new paper alert 🚨

Here we demonstrate increased anti-RBS neutralizing responses elicited by stabilized influenza H5 immunogens:

bit.ly/4u8UxJl

High-resolution in situ structures of hantavirus glycoprotein tetramers The cryo-EM structures of Andes hantavirus (ANDV) glycoprotein tetramers, dimers of tetramers, and ADI-65534 Fab complexes on eVLPs unveil the molecular basis of New World hantavirus glycoprotein architecture, acid-induced membrane fusion, and antibody-mediated neutralization. Immunization with repRNA encoding ANDV-VLPs elicits high neutralizing-antibody titers.

Now online! High-resolution in situ structures of hantavirus glycoprotein tetramers

Paper now published in @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... (subscription req for full text)

Estimated 2024-2025 COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Against Severe COVID-19 This case-control study estimates vaccine effectiveness of the 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccines against severe COVID-19 and investigates whether it varied by SARS-CoV-2 lineage or spike protein mutations.

Current Covid vaccine 40% effective against hospitalization and 79% effective against death. It is best to get vaccinated for protection against severe disease and use other protection including masks to reduce risk of infection and less severe illness.
#Medsky
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

We studied how the glycan shield of alphaherpesvirus fusion protein gB mediates host co-receptor interactions. Great work by Sabrina, check it out!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Antibody escape drives emergence of diverse spike haplotypes resembling variants of concern in persistent SARS-CoV-2 infections Snell et al. develop sequencing methodology to identify full-length spike haplotypes and show that persistent SARS-CoV-2 infections drive divergent haplotype emergence, accelerating viral evolution an...

This is finally out.

Very short take home. All the variation in spike that produced the immune escape characteristics of Omicron can occur in one single persistently infected individual over the period of a year.

This is why persistent infections matter

www.cell.com/cell-reports...

🚀 CryoSPARC v5.0 BETA is here!

We’re excited to deploy another major #CryoSPARC release to help enable and accelerate #cryoEM data analysis. v5 has a redesigned underlying software system and many new features - highlights in thread!

Full changelog: cryosparc.com/updates/v5.0.0

Back in 1994, Science published an examination of whether or not HIV caused AIDS with Duesberg being the dissenting voice. Here is part of one of the responses.

The trail of bereavement traceable to Duesberg’s denialism is a stark reminder that the truth doesn’t bend towards anyone’s will.

Structure-based design of soluble prefusion-stabilized herpes simplex virus type 2 glycoprotein B antigens www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.26.701809v1 #cryoEM

Vibrant color portrait of Jane S. Richardson, the visionary biophysicist and artist who revolutionized structural biology with her invention of ribbon diagrams. She gazes warmly at the camera with a bright, knowing smile that radiates quiet brilliance and decades of curiosity. Her silver-blonde hair woven with gentle waves. Large, elegant dangling earrings catch the light, and she wears a richly patterned brown blouse embroidered with intricate turquoise paisley motifs and delicate beadwork that echoes the molecular elegance she has spent her life depicting. Behind her floats a luminous, dreamlike backdrop of glowing molecular structures--interlocking hexagonal and ribbon-like forms in electric blues, teals, and greens--blending science and art in a single, living canvas.

Hand-drawn and hand-colored (by Jane Richardson) scientific artwork known as a Richardson ribbon diagram (or “ribbon model”), one of the iconic visual inventions of Jane Richardson that transformed the way we see and understand protein structures. A graceful, three-dimensional tangle of protein backbone ribbons twists and spirals through space, rendered in soft pencil lines and luminous watercolor hues. Smooth golden-brown coils represent α-helices that curl like elegant ribbons, while broad teal-green arrows trace the flat, pleated strands of β-sheets slicing through the molecule with directional purpose. Thin, looping golden threads connect the secondary structures, creating a delicate, almost dance-like choreography of biology’s hidden architecture. The entire form is framed by a simple olive-green mat and dark border, giving the drawing the quiet dignity of both fine art and precise scientific illustration—a timeless bridge between molecular reality and human imagination.

Jane Richardson was born #OTD in 1941

+ Developed the Richardson (ribbon) diagram to represent proteins' 3D structure (becoming a standard representation for protein structures)
+ MacArthur Fellow, 1985
+ Elected, Nat'l Academy of Sciences, 1991
+ President, Biophysical Society, 2012

#WomenInSTEM

U.S. makes exit from the WHO complete The U.S. withdrawal from the WHO became official Thursday, formalizing a fissure between the Trump administration and the Geneva-based global health agency.

The US withdrawal from #WHO became official today, leaving the world less prepared for dangerous disease outbreaks. “When that will bite us in the ass, it’s impossible to predict. But there is a 100% certainty that it will bite us in the ass,” one expert told me. www.statnews.com/2026/01/22/u...

This is how we first teach chirality to our undergrads !

So…Ben Affleck actually hits on the main elements of chatbot AI’s better than most “by it’s nature it goes to the mean..it’s not reliable…it’s a useful tool…”.
It’s useful but it can’t make an extraordinary leap.

I cannot believe I've been in structural biology this long and never thought to make a new years "resolution" joke

Happy to finally share the amazing results of our long-term collaboration with Karin Reinisch’s lab on how bridge lipid-transfer proteins (BLTPs) cooperate with partner proteins to orchestrate lipid delivery. A quick thread (1/7)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Here’s something I love: every cool paper, at least for discovery science, shrouds its pages over a graveyard of dead ends: promising-looking tunnels that narrowed impassably small in the dark or took a sharp left-turn.

Just received my first -definitely just AI- reviewer comments for a submitted manuscript. I guess we just alert the editor for that reviewer?

Very reassuring data in this preprint on this season's flu vaccine. The researchers ask the question - do vaccinated humans actually make antibodies that recognize this virus?
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Hi fellow membrane protein #StructuralBiology people!

Do you use maltoside detergents / model them in your stuctures? Watch out! ⚠️

Most PDB models of LMNG and GDN are wrong ❌, yet continue to be re-used. Spread the word!

See more: doi.org/10.1021/acsc... (w. @sebvidalchem.bsky.social ) #cryoEM

🧪 Some really important data points in here to share with others.

Over the past year, Bluesky has 5 million research posts (0.25% of the total traffic).

Compared to the 11.2 million research posts on Twitter (0.000006% of the total traffic).

Bluesky is punching above its weight!

#AcademicSky

Read it here!

Here it is compared across countries instead, with rotavirus as an example:

Denmark is one of very few western countries that doesn't recommend rotavirus vaccines universally (yet?)

U.S. vaccination rates are plunging. Look up where your school stands. Take a look to see what the kindergarten measles vaccination rates are in your area.

EXCLUSIVE: @laurenweberhp.bsky.social & I have spent the last year collecting school+county-level vaccination data from across the US and found that only about 28% of counties now have herd immunity for kindergartners from measles—that leaves about 5.2mn kids unprotected.

Gift link: wapo.st/49zDc43

Pretty happy with our #Tundra results.
3.55Å for Croatia 2023 H3N2 influenza HA (C3). We're consistently getting better than 4Å and we don't even have the newer camera.

www.ebi.ac.uk/emdb/EMD-74650