Christopher P Jones

And that is taking into account the cost of the loss of life. RFK’s terrible policies will exacerbate that.

Well at least neither of these viruses cause pandemics, right? Right? Right?

Functional relevance of CASP16 nucleic acid predictions as evaluated by structure providers Accurate biomolecular structure prediction enables the prediction of mutational effects, the speculation of function based on predicted structural homology, the analysis of ligand binding modes, exper...

Nucleic acid structural biologists expose that many CASP16 predictions, even ones obtaining high scores by CASP metrics, are inaccurate in the most functionally relevant regions! Read more insights on functionally relevant features by the expert structure determiners (doi.org/10.1101/2025...).

It is very easy for intelligent people to believe they are too intelligent. I appreciate their enthusiasm for solving problems. But it was not the lack of enthusiasm that was preventing us from figuring out the causes.

Pie Jesu KAWmine

The last 100 days at the NIH Overview: My contract at the NIH was terminated on 25 April 2025. However, my science and NIH research more broadly have been stifled ever…

Over the last 100 days at the NIH, the Trump administration has been dismantling science. In this Medium post linked below, I describe what the last 100 days have been like for an scientist at the bench, doing research on RNA viruses.

#science #RNA

medium.com/@jones.cpric...

a man without a shirt is taking a shower in a dark room ALT: a man without a shirt is taking a shower in a dark room

Our crystallography room was 54 F for a while and then 85 F for a while. Looping crystals was a race against time.

A hs friend of mine hosted one of these students. When we visited Germany a couple years later, she hosted us. It was awesome. We saved money, met her friends, and got to see cool spots around northern Germany. It was a refreshing alternative to missing buses and sleeping on the streets.

It is just big boned

Sorry to hear this. I may be following you next month unless the hiring freeze is lifted. You have to admit that it was a blast while it lasted.

Let’s go with flagrantella

How much dire wolf DNA do they need to be dire wolves? Does the environment matter too? Do they need to live in packs?

What’s next? Tariffs against Arrakis?

darth maul from star wars is standing in a hallway holding a gun . ALT: darth maul from star wars is standing in a hallway holding a gun .

So who is this guy in the metaphor?

“Let there be an epsilon > 0” takes me back to my Analysis days in college. I just wish the epsilon here were a dummy variable and not just dumb.

www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

Section on International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977

We cannot buy reagents, go to conferences, or hire people. My contract ends in May, so this is likely the end of my work in academic #science.

This work was supported by the NHLBI at NIH and performed in the lab of coauthor Adrian Ferre-D’Amare. This is some of the science that is now harder to do because of cuts and restrictions.

Stay tuned for my next paper using a version of this viral RNA to solve unknown RNA structures by cryoEM.

This work highlights the conformational versatility of RNA. Flexibility can frustrate efforts to determine “the structure” because RNA is dynamic. Function often arises from multiple structures.

One wing is dynamic and differs among the structures. The other is rigid and unchanged. Between the wings is a critical region that “toggles” conformations. Toggle left, translation is OFF. Toggle right, translation is ON.

Frameshifting is one way viruses control their protein output by tricking cellular translation. Here I show the Rous sarcoma virus frameshifting element adopts a double pseudoknot fold that resembles a butterfly flapping one of its wings.

Structural switching dynamically controls the doubly pseudoknotted Rous sarcoma virus–programmed ribosomal frameshifting element | PNAS A hallmark of retrovirus replication is the translation of two different polyproteins from one RNA through programmed –1 frameshifting. This is a m...

Excited to share my latest research. In this paper in PNAS, I use #cryoEM and #crystallography to solve multiple new structures of a viral RNA motif that controls frameshifting.

#virus #retrovirus #structuralbiology #science #biochemistry

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

In the rare possibility you check your own account, Hillary, what are you reading right now? Recent books that you’d recommend?

Trees in our backyard blooming 😍😍

Where is the z axis

Extraction was the obvious problem with this from the beginning. Until I see crystal structures, I am skeptical.

I wonder if that is why his spouse is joining him. It would be easier for her to bring info if he is busy.

Maybe takes a few years to see the effect? I wonder how long …

Researchers at NIH (like me) cannot buy reagents. Credit cards are capped with 1$ limits. People are bartering. Groups of labs band together to try to place orders. I have papers in press, cant pay for publishing. My contract ends in May, at which point I am out of job. I can’t be hired as an FTE.