Cornelius Gati

New paper from my group in @science.org : "A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesise itself and its complementary strand" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Outstanding work by @edogia.bsky.social

Looking forward to #BPS2026 in San Francisco?

Come by the NIH sponsored Transformative High-Resolution Cryo-Electron Microscopy National Centers for #CryoEM at booth 410.

Our mission is to broaden access to high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy and tomography technologies - cryoemcenters.org

Fantastic news: our very own Aaliyah Tyson has been awarded a prestigious R36 NIDA Substance Use/Substance Use Disorder Dissertation Research Award.
Many congratulations to this very well deserved recognition!

Are you a cell biologist who secretly thinks cellular cryo-electron tomography is just George Palade-era EM, but fancier?

Join this webinar to see how modern #teamtomo has shifted from pretty pictures to quantitative, local membrane biology, and how that changes the questions we can ask.

Kicking off the new year with a completely refreshed look for the Filizola Lab website. Happy 2026, everyone! www.filizolalab.org

I’m excited to share that I’ve joined the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. I look forward to serving this incredible community journal and engaging with exciting science! @asbmb.bsky.social 🧪

They grow up so fast! Huge congratulations to the newly minted Dr. Saif Khan, the first graduate of our lab. 🎓 He delivered a spectacular defense on our recent work in opioid receptor pharmacology. We’ll miss you greatly and wish you every success in your next chapter!

Structure and organization of AMPA receptor-TARP complexes in the mammalian cerebellum AMPA receptors (AMPARs) are multimodal transducers of glutamatergic signals throughout the brain. Their diversity is exemplified in the cerebellum; at afferent synapses, AMPARs mediate high-frequency ...

Structure and organization of AMPA receptor-TARP complexes in the mammalian cerebellum | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Excited to share our latest @nature.com: How does naloxone (Narcan) stop an opioid overdose? We determined the first GDP-bound μ-opioid receptor–G protein structures and found naloxone traps a novel "latent” state, preventing GDP release and G protein activation.💊🧪 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Come join our team! The deadline is December 7, but the application is quick. Only a cover letter, CV, and a short Research Highlight are needed #chemsky #chemjob #chembio

Bidirectional communication between nucleotide and substrate binding sites in a type IV multidrug ABC transporter Nature Communications - The communication hinge, found in type IV ABC transporters, forms a bidirectional communication between ATP- and substrate-binding sites. This is an unexplored allosteric...

🧪How does an ABC transporter 'know' nucleotides & substrates bound to far apart binding sites? Using 1H15N, 19F NMR, HDX-MS, PET-FCS & activity assays with Neuweiler, Marcoux, Orelle & Jault labs, we found a communication hinge! 😍🥳

@microverse.bsky.social @lifeprofile.bsky.social

rdcu.be/ePm4C

Structural snapshots capture nucleotide release at the μ-opioid receptor pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41193810/ #cryoEM

Structural snapshots capture nucleotide release at the μ-opioid receptor

Great structure work about MOR binding states from the Cornelius Gati lab! Congrats to all the authors, particularly Saif Khan. Looking forward!

Remember, remember the 5th of November. Today marks the tenth anniversary of my PhD defense. I'm officially old now. (fin)

Huge thanks to our amazing team — and especially to my first graduate student Saif Khan (second from right), who spearheaded this project with incredible drive and creativity. Credit also goes to him for the stunning movie in the first post. (8/n)

Supported by extensive molecular dynamics simulations, we assembled the first half of the G protein activation pathway — a major step toward understanding how GPCRs translate drug binding into cellular signaling. (7/n)

The mind-blowing part: a “latent” state — where the receptor and G protein both appear inactive, yet remain bound to each other. Naloxone traps this state, stalling activation. This likely explains its ability to block opioid signaling so effectively. (6/n)

To explore this further, we determined a series of four novel GDP-bound MOR–G protein structures — the first of their kind for any GPCR. Remarkably, the distribution of these states correlated with the efficacy of the respective ligand. (5/n)

We developed a simple BRET-based assay — “nuc-BRET” — to approximate the nucleotide affinity (EC₅₀) of MOR–G protein complexes. We found a clear inverse correlation: Antagonists stabilize GDP binding, while agonists promote its release for GTP exchange. (4/n)

Recent smFRET and DEER studies from the Kobilka lab (Zhang et al. 2024 Nature; Deutsch et al. 2025 bioRxiv, etc.) revealed clear links between MOR conformations and ligand efficacy. These findings inspired our next step. (3/n)

A big research theme in our lab: how do different drugs acting on the same receptor cause different levels of activity? This concept — called efficacy — lies at the heart of receptor pharmacology and drug discovery efforts. (2/n)

μ-opioid receptors (MOR) mainly signal by activating G proteins. This happens when the G protein swaps its bound GDP molecule for GTP — triggering subunit dissociation and downstream signaling. A classic textbook cartoon, from Alberts et al. - Molecular Biology of the Cell: (1/n)

Excited to share our latest @nature.com: How does naloxone (Narcan) stop an opioid overdose? We determined the first GDP-bound μ-opioid receptor–G protein structures and found naloxone traps a novel "latent” state, preventing GDP release and G protein activation.💊🧪 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It was wonderful to return to UC Berkeley and deliver a lecture with Clayton Heathcock in the audience.

Wilkinson Lab We discover and study reverse transcriptases

The Wilkinson Lab is open for science! @mskcancercenter.bsky.social

🧬We'll be finding funky new RNA biology, mainly by looking at reverse transcriptases (i.e. the Best Enzymes In The World)🧬

annnd: I'm hiring - come join! Especially postdocs and PhD students - please get in touch (NYC is great)

Happy Halloween from the Janetzko lab 🎃 👻

Loss of the conserved switch III region in a G protein leads to severe pediatric encephalopathy The effects of mutations in a neuronal Gα protein associated with neurological disorders are characterized.

In #ScienceSignaling, researchers describe the consequences of the removal of the switch III region from the critical G protein G-alpha-o and connect this defect to a severe neurological disorder in patients. https://scim.ag/4nxB7tc

Human RPA is an essential telomerase processivity factor for maintaining telomeres Telomerase counteracts telomere shortening by repeatedly adding DNA repeats to chromosome ends. We identified the replication protein A (RPA) heterotrimer as a telomerase processivity factor critical ...

Our paper in Science is out! @souravagrawal.bsky.social, @rlynn.bsky.social, @susvirkar.bsky.social, and the rest of the team show human RPA is a telomerase processivity factor essential for telomere maintenance. This reshapes our thinking about telomerase regulation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

CryoEM service center SPA short course picture with highlights from past offerings

NCCAT's biennial SPA cryoEM shortcourse will be held in person on March 16-20, 2026 in NYC.

Applications due December 15, 2025 and late applications due January 2, 2026: nccat.nysbc.org/activities/c...

Hope to see you in NYC this spring!