John Steele

An illustration of a carbonic anhydrase complex in a synthetic mini-carboxysome

Pleased to see this collaboration with a great PhD student Pei Cing Ng, from Prof. Luning Liu's lab at Liverpool University published. Structure of the H. neapolitanus carbonic anhydrase and localisation in a mini-carboxysome: www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

A really nice paper! Your link didn't work for me though, I used www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Are you looking for a PhD in Plant Science? Check our our project on barley canopy architecture. Combine genetics and physics to understand how awns influence barley grain development. Find out more here: lnkd.in/eWhWammJ Apply by 14th December. #PhDPosition
#PlantSci @instmolplantsci.bsky.social

Check out this advertised professorship in Bern with my colleagues at the Institute of Plant Sciences! Please share widely to reach candidates from across the world and beyond our local academic bubbles. 🫧

#QueerInSTEM #DisabledInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #WomenInSTEM #CarersInSTEM #AcademicSky #HigherED

The Wallace Lab is expanding in 2026, with five new Postdoctoral Research Associate positions now open. If you're passionate about engineering biology for sustainability, we'd love to hear from you! 🧬 ♻️

Deadline: 12th November 2025, details below ⬇️

A manifesto for plant science education Plants provide oxygen, food, shelter, medicines and environmental services, without which human society could not exist. Tackling pressing and global challenges requires well-trained plant scientists....

Very excited to announce that our collaborative manifesto for 🌱 #PlantScience #Education has now been published! Educators from >10 countries and 30 institutions have contributed to it and we are incredibly proud of the final output. Here is a short thread 🧵1/4 doi.org/10.1002/ppp3...

Do you enjoy teaching biochemistry? The University of Virginia Department of Chemistry is hiring a teaching-track assistant professor to teach lecture and/or laboratory biochemistry courses. #chemjobs #facultychemjobs

More details in the link below:
apply.interfolio.com/175929

Independent Research Fellowships Leading to Tenured Faculty Positions | John Innes Centre The John Innes Centre (JIC), is a world leading centre of excellence in plant and microbial sciences based on the Norwich Research Park, UK. We are inviting applications from outstanding researchers…

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to give a seminar at the Fellows Conference, which will be held on 10 March 2026.

Candidates who win Fellowships will be offered a Tenure Track Group Leader position from the outset, initially for 5 years.

Find out more: www.jic.ac.uk/training-car...

Fully-funded #PhDposition in my lab @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social Apply before 🗓️ 2nd Dec 2025 👉 biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/mak... Making Drugs Out of Sunlight and "Thin Air" ☀️🌿🧬⚗️ with secondary supervision from Prof. Anne Osbourn @johninnescentre.bsky.social 🥼 #SynBio #OrgChem #PhD

Obsessed with this Journal of Immaterial Science article 🔥

If you can't see sidechains, can you really call the resolution 3.3 Å..? 👀

And if you can't see sidechains, how do you know the helical symmetry is right..?

The proliferation of tools to generate predictive protein structures just underscores how important CASP is. There is no better way to allow unbiased & fair comparisons between tools!
predictioncenter.org/index.cgi
Such a shame NIH didn't renew funding

Apple is entering the protein folding arena.
SimpleFold: Folding Proteins is Simpler than You Think arxiv.org/abs/2509.18480 🧬🖥️🧪 github.com/apple/ml-sim...

A biocompatible Lossen rearrangement in Escherichia coli - Nature Chemistry Biocompatible chemistry merges chemo-catalytic reactions with cellular metabolism for sustainable small-molecule synthesis. Now a biocompatible Lossen rearrangement has been demonstrated to control ba...

Ever wondered where your paracetamol comes from? Spoiler: crude oil. In this study – led by Nick Johnson from our lab in collaboration with @astra-zeneca.bsky.social – we show how biology and chemistry can work together to create a more sustainable alternative. (1/n)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Plant Shape Lab is hiring! Are you interested in supporting cutting edge cereal research? We are looking for an enthusiastic and dedicated technician to join us for 2 years, setting up and running cereal transformation. Find out more, and apply here: elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

If you're on LinkedIn, you'll probably want to switch this toggle to 'off'.

📢Deadlines fast approaching for the BiPS Conference 2025!

Join us for a day of connection and celebration where we'll be hearing from the renowned academics Nicola Patron and Kevin Cox. With workshops on a variety of topics and a chance for you to build your community.

Register: buff.ly/J9PM0Wj

I supervise an excellent postdoc who's looking for a postdoc or associate position in < 1 yr. Highly skilled in chem biol and biochem (peptide synthesis, native chem ligation, bacterial expression, purification, intein-based splicing, crystallography, interaction assays). Contact me if interested.

IndAc Conference - SULSA

SULSA is running an Industry Academia conference on 28th & 29th October.
Looks fantastic for researchers working in Scotland- particularly good for students interested in learning more about industry & working on skill development!
sulsa.ac.uk/indac/

Food for thought here for anyone not working at TRUE atomic resolution…

I had no idea about this! Amazon owns AbeBooks!

If this is true, it’s abysmally shortsighted for #NIH. The new tools nurtured by the long series of #CASP challenges probably contribute far more in one year to the scientific and industrial economies than the entire funds that have supported it.

Great thread- thanks for sharing!

YouTube video by Science Communication Lab The Most Beautiful Experiment: Meselson and Stahl

Just learned that Frank Stahl (of the Meselson and Stahl DNA replication experiment ("the most beautiful experiment in biology") died at the beginning of April, to no fanfare. Here's a lovely video of them reminiscing: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-tn...

Interested in trying out life as a scientific #editor? Based in the UK? Background in #PlantScience? The @plosbiology.org crew is expanding (again!), so a place in our lovely team might be for you...

🧬 New toolkit for engineering Chlamydomonas plastomes!
MoCloro brings Golden Gate modular cloning to algal chloroplasts — enabling fast, multigene integration & homoplasmy in 2 months 🌿

🔗 https://bit.ly/4jMNhfU
#SyntheticBiology #Chlamydomonas #Microalgae #Plantscience

This is wild!
Engineering E. coli bacteria to turn plastic waste into paracetamol (Tylenol)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Scientists use bacteria to turn plastic waste into paracetamol Genetically modified E coli used to create painkillers from material produced from plastic bottles

Always exciting when research from the lab is disseminated for the public! @theguardian.com have reported on @swallacelab.bsky.social paper turning plastic into paracetamol using engineered bacteria
tinyurl.com/32hxnwsd (original publication rdcu.be/esYfF)

thanks for sharing an accessible version!
I don't know any postdoc who hasn't echoed these feelings. I really hope funders & institutions read & listen to examples like this, but I'm not holding my breath!

Would you like to write for New Scientist? We always work with freelancers, but occasionally I put out a call like this for new writers. I'm looking for 300-700 word news stories about new discoveries. Don't pitch us press releases or the big journals, we have those covered. Pay starts at 51p/word