BejaLab

Explore Faculty Opportunities at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev | Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev We have another open PI position in our department, this one is for our Eilat campus! 💥 This is a special opportunity for someone wanting to be part of starting something new Details here: https://ln...

call for PI position at our department, we're nice :)
www.linkedin.com/posts/depart...

ATP synthase activity boosts membrane proton acceptance and lateral diffusion | PNAS In most organisms, ATP synthesis is powered by the proton motive force (pmf) and catalyzed by ATP synthase. While the chemiosmotic theory originall...

📣 I was waiting for this paper for a while 🥳
Our new paper in @pnas.org shows that ATP synthase drastically alters membrane properties related to proton diffusion. Funded by @volkswagenstiftung.de
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

VACANCY - We’re searching for a Postdoctoral Researcher to join the newly appointed group of Dr @hassansalem.bsky.social, to explore the developmental biology of host-microbe symbiosis

www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/po...

Deadline - 25 March 2026
Salary - £37,500 - £45,350
Contract - 3 years, full-time

Image 1

This is Mycena rosoflava. A species of agaric mushroom in the family Mycenaceae. It is a wood-inhabiting mushroom native to New Zealand.

Original post

A Double International Honor for the Technion: Prof. Debbie Lindell Recognized by Leading Scientific Societies
www.technion.ac.il/en/blog/arti...

@alexjprobst.bsky.social look at this, we’re drilling over here!! 🥳

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…

The Trojan Horse is real, and it’s microscopic! 🐴🦠
Our paper is out today in @cellcellpress.bsky.social!
We discovered that deltaviruses physically hide INSIDE helper viruses to sneak into new cells. And to prove it, we had to image them from every angle. 🧵👇

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

(bacterial) chromosome segregationists take note 👇

membrane-anchoring of the 𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘊 region to ensure proper daughter chromosome segregation after replication initiation – proposed decades ago but never substantiated... 👉now shown for 𝘚. 𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘶𝘴 by mariana pinho's lab

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 !

After >10 years of our lab studying bacterial cGAS-like enzymes, @hobbslabutah.bsky.social finally reconstitutes viral sensing in vitro and discovers how these ancient receptors sense phage protease enzymes to detect virion assembly and activate antiviral immunity

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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...

@nitzantal.bsky.social @romihadary.bsky.social @soreklab.bsky.social use structure prediction and in silico binding site analysis to discover viral immune evasion proteins! Exciting for our lab @reneechang.bsky.social @riveralopz.bsky.social to help with this project.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Prediction of eukaryotic cellular complexity in Asgard archaea using structural modelling - Nature Microbiology A structural catalogue of the Asgard archaeal pangenome reveals hundreds of eukaryotic-like proteins that suggest a higher degree of cellular complexity in the archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes.

Fun new paper out today - a collaboration led by @stephkoe.bsky.social and @ettema.bsky.social found lots of new Euk-like proteins in Asgard Archaea
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Asgard #archaea: have we found our microbial ancestors?
New review (also for newcomers to the field!) by Christa Schleper and Thiago Rodrigues-Oliveira
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

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

New paper out: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🥳 Congratulations to our PhD student Katja for her inspiring work just published in Nature Communications on how the larval zebrafish brain processes multiple visual features.

Check out a short summary of the work here: tinyurl.com/yzv4ct9k

Read our review about the "Diversity, ecology, cell biology and evolution of the Asgard archaea" in @natrevmicro.nature.com here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

By @kassipan.bsky.social @stephkoe.bsky.social @micropat.bsky.social & @gerbenz.bsky.social

DICER cleavage fidelity is governed by 5′-end binding pockets - Nature Cryo-electron microscopy and massively parallel assays shed light on the mechanism by which DICER, a key enzyme in the RNase III family, cleaves RNA at precise locations to produce small RNAs.

Nature research paper: DICER cleavage fidelity is governed by 5′-end binding pockets

go.nature.com/4ssj1vN

BlueTech26: Session 1

BlueTech26: Session 2

BlueTech26: Session 3

BlueTech26: Session 4

🌊 Blue Tech Europe 26: Marine Observing Technologies

📅 21–22 Apr
📍 Paris
🔗 https://swll.to/BT26

2 days of sessions on:
👉 Science & industry collaboration
👉 #MarineTech including sensors
👉 Industry driving #OceanObservation

@marco-bolo.bsky.social @tricuso.bsky.social #AcademinSky 🧪

🌊 Blue Tech Europe 2026: Marine Observing Technologies

👉 Bringing academia & industry together to strengthen Europe’s #BlueTech sector
👉 Organised by EMBRC

📅 21–22 Apr 2026
📍 Paris

More 👉 https://swll.to/BT26

@marco-bolo.bsky.social @tricuso.bsky.social #AcademinSky #Sensors 🧪

Does China have a huge electricity advantage over the United States? China uses most of its electricity for industry, while the US consumes it in households and commercial services.

Fascinating analysis:
open.substack.com/pub/hannahri...

Call for Abstracts – The Ocean in a High-CO2 World – 6th International Science Symposium Call for Abstracts The Call for Abstracts is now open. Please submit your abstract no later than 1 April 2026 (any time zone). Full submission guidelines

Call for abstracts is open for the 6th International Symposium of the Ocean in a High CO2 World! We are looking for work that examined the impacts of ocean acidification, deoxygenation, mCDR, and multiple drivers of change: highco2-vi.org/call-for-abs...

Non‐Canonical, Somatic‐Dependent Vertical Transmission of Wolbachia in an Aphid We discovered a novel somatic-associated Wolbachia transmission strategy in cedar bark aphids (Cinara cedri), contrasting with its typical maternal vertical transmission. This unique maternally retai....

Non-Canonical, Somatic-Dependent Vertical Transmission of Wolbachia in an Aphid enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Join @berasymbionts.bsky.social , @tatsuyanobori.bsky.social and us for a postdoc on the remarkable developmental biology of symbiosis!

Applications are due March 25th 🪲🦠

@johninnescentre.bsky.social @thesainsburylab.bsky.social

Day 2 #NASA #OxyMoRon team is going sampling 1 billion-year old brines at 2900 m depth below surface. Walking 4km in the heat and dusty tunnels to get to our site and back. #mblscience ⚒️🧪 #darkoxygen #deeplife #microbiome @karenlloyd.bsky.social @jamesdinneen.bsky.social @hfspo.bsky.social

Out now! In collaboration with Leifu Chang, we uncover the molecular and structural underpinnings of CRISPR-Cas12f-like RNA-guided transcription systems!

Links to the published articles:
tinyurl.com/55kpavet
tinyurl.com/sk6djwx3

Previous thread for the preprint:
bsky.app/profile/did:...

Out Now! Retraction Note: Metabolic remodelling produces fumarate via the aspartate–argininosuccinate shunt in macrophages as an antiviral defence #MicroSky

An Enzyme System to Help Catalyze Bioproduction of Plastic | Joint Genome Institute By characterizing the structure and function of a methylthio-alkane reductase system, researchers could open avenues for using bacteria to produce ethylene and more.

By characterizing the structure and function of a methylthio-alkane reductase system, researchers could open avenues for using bacteria to produce ethylene and more. 🖥️ 🧬

Full story: https://jgi.doe.gov/user-science/science-stories/enzyme-system-help-catalyze-bioproduction-plastic

Exapted CRISPR–Cas12f homologues drive RNA-guided transcription - Nature Specialized σ factors interact with nuclease-dead, CRISPR–Cas12f proteins to form potent, RNA-guided gene activation systems that function independently of fixed promoter motifs.

Just amazing what evolution can come up with. Naturally occurring nuclease deficient Cas12 family members use gRNAs to bind DNA and recruit sigmaE family members that drive txn initiation proximally. 2 papers! 1- describes 2- structure!
www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Insect herbivory dependent on a specialised bacterial symbiosis - fascinating talk by new @johninnescentre.bsky.social group leader @hassansalem.bsky.social #CMINorwich26