Michael J. Robertson

A lot of nice usability & stability improvements here, and some very interesting looking improvements to ab initio! 👀

cryosparc.com/updates/v5.0...

New preprint from the Robertson Lab! We used AF ensemble generation for rigidity filtering with generative design to make cryoEM fiducials, enabling rapid inactive states of four drug targets and a beta2 extracellular fiducial to study GPCR activation!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

2026 Summer Intern - Agents for Structural Biology in South San Francisco, California, United States of America | Students & Graduates at Genentech Apply for 2026 Summer Intern - Agents for Structural Biology job with Genentech in South San Francisco, California, United States of America. Students & Graduates at Genentech

Internship opportunity! @jackn.bsky.social and I have opened two Summer Intern positions at Genentech to build structural biology agents. If you are a (pre-PhD) #cryoEM or #Xray structural biologist with strong computational skills & motivation, please apply!

Excited to share our study resolving the GTP-induced activation of the mu-opioid receptor-Gi complex with different agonists using cryoEM and MD simulations is live now @nature.com with additional MD sims, fluorescence work, and more! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Holiday Ornaments 2025 Holiday Ornament Your immune system’s most iconic defender, the antibody, bends and flexes its Y-shaped arms to recognize antigens—foreign molecules from bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens. E...

Consume...consume...consume!!

#StructuralBiology #BioSky #ChemSky #EduSky #MedSky #IDSky #ImmunoSky #PublicHealth #SciArt #Holiday #Gift #Consume

Happy to share that our paper on Metric Ion Classification (MIC) is now published!

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

Thanks Willow!

Excited to share our latest preprint! We used cryoEM and MD simulations to look at the GTP-induced activation of the mu-opioid receptor-Gi complex with partial, full, & super agonists resolving the landscape of Gi activation and how its modulated by different ligands!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

CACHE Challenge #2: Targeting the RNA Site of the SARS-CoV-2 Helicase Nsp13 A critical assessment of computational hit finding experiments (CACHE) challenge was conducted to predict ligands for the SARS-CoV-2 Nsp13 helicase RNA binding site, a highly conserved COVID-19 target...

"CACHE Challenge 2: Targeting the RNA Site of the SARS-CoV-2 Helicase Nsp13" is out now on ChemRxiv: dx.doi.org/10.26434/che...

You can find a discussion of our workflow and designed compound in the preprint (WF1438), which was among 13 compounds confirmed to bind to Nsp13.

I don't really have one place you can see some stuff here:
github.com/mjrober101/3...
pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Have you tried using TPU for the membrane? That has been successful for me.

Multicolor 3D-Printed Molecular Orbital Models for a First-Semester Organic Chemistry Course We have developed a set of multicolor 3D-printed structural and molecular orbital models for use in a first-semester organic chemistry course. These models provide visual and tactile insights regarding aspects of organic structure, reactivity, and mechanistic “arrow pushing”. The set includes: 1. orbital models of σ and π bonding in methane and ethylene, 2. σCH–σ*CH hyperconjugation in staggered and eclipsed ethane conformations, 3. LUMO accessibility in SN2 electrophiles and HOMO–LUMO orbital interactions in SN2 transition states, 4. E2 transition state structure and orbital interactions in β-hydrogen removal and π bond formation, 5. σCH–pC hyperconjugation in the ethyl cation, 6. transition state structure and σCH–pC orbital interactions in a carbocation 1,2-hydride shift, 7. late and early, respectively, Br• and Cl• H atom radical abstraction transition state structures and SOMO orbitals, 8. bromonium ion structure and LUMO orbital, 9. protonated epoxide ion and neutral epoxide structures and LUMO orbitals, 10. transition state structure and orbital interactions in a hydroboration reaction, 11. transition state structure and orbital interactions in the lithium aluminum hydride reduction of formaldehyde, and 12. π molecular orbitals in 1,3-butadiene. The prints are made with hobby-grade 5-color 3D fused deposition modeling (FDM) printers and sized to provide compact take-home class handouts for each student or projected in-class with a document camera. Models are fabricated with orbital or electron density surface bisections and text annotations to enhance information content. Student perceptions of this set of 3D-printed molecular models are generally favorable and have improved their understanding of course materials.

Pleased to share this set of ~35 multicolor 3D-printed molecular orbital models for organic chemistry classrooms, developed with students @pomonacollege.bsky.social. Article and 3D print files (no paywall): pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
#ChemSky #CompChemSky #3DP #3Dprint #3DModels 🧪

Excellent lab, mentor, and place to work! And we'd get to collaborate if you went there, woohoo!

Sharing highly encouraged: My lab has an opening for a postdoc, to study structural biology, biophysics and pharmacology of GPCRs in neuro- and immunobiology. Come join our diverse and collaborative team in sunny SoCal - please reach out with any questions! dornsife.usc.edu/gati/

First post on bsky to highlight our latest work on smell receptors (www.nature.com/articles/s41...). Odorant receptors are notoriously challenging to work with - we used a classic strategy from protein engineering to get a peek into how these receptors recognize such a diversity of smells.

The Robertson lab has multiple openings for postdocs! Both experimental & computational positions, particularly interested in those with experience in either plate reader assays or ML, but all are welcome!; come learn about GPCRs, cryoEM, MD/FEP, drug discovery and more!
jobs.bcm.edu/job/Postdoct...

This should go chiral

Case-by-case; but when I run 3DVA I pool the particles and do reconstructions. If particles around the two endpoints give nice maps of unique states but particles in the middle parts give degraded resolution map(s) that *look* like midpoint(s), I am wary of what the middle map(s) really are.

Discrete het. can be many types but for conformations some aspect of the transition is high energy with an insufficient population of particles to discern. Hot take: not always clear from things like 3DVA what's truly discrete vs truly continous vs. some kind of blend.

Continuous het. there is/are low energy barrier(s) between endpoints in a conformational transition & the data has robust populations of true particles in a full range of 'intermediates' along the path.

Could you add me please?

Could you please add me too?

Full Circle Native symposium flyer. It includes a Logo, the date of the event (April 3-4 2025), and confirmed speakers: Casey Dorr (Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute), Rebecca Pollet (Vassar College), Kat MIlligan-McClellan (University of Conneticut), Krystal Tosie (Arizona State University), Lauren W Yowelunh McLester-Davis (UW Madison). It also includes that text: The goal of the “Full Circle” symposium is to create an opportunity for North American Native and Indigenous, Native Hawaiian, and Alaskan Native scientists to share their research, meet other scientists, and build community. The symposium will take place over two days at the UCSF Mission Bay campus in San Francisco. We will have talks from students, postdocs, and faculty and panel discussions on Native and Indigenous topics in the context of research. It also contains a QR code that links to: https://forms.gle/AN7nfkhdB3Fvdkkm7

We will be hosting 3rd Full Circle Symposium for Native Biologists hosted at UCSF in April 2025! We aim to build community and provide meaningful opportunities for Native scientists. If you are a Native biologist who is interested plz fill this out to stay up to date: forms.gle/AN7nfkhdB3Fv...

Open-rank tenure track positions in computational biology! Come work with a gaggle of great colleagues in the CMSE department at Michigan State! #msu #cmse #compbio #bioinformatics #genomics #BioSky

careers.msu.edu/cw/en-us/job...

This is amazing! @shervinnia.bsky.social resurrected our cryoEM-papers bot. At it's peak we had over 12k followers on Twitter, but the bot became defunct by a silly Musk policy (and it all went downhill from there).
If you want to keep up with #cryoEM papers, follow:
cryoempapers.bsky.social

🚨 Attention #teamtomo PhD students! 🚨 12-week paid internship opportunity at Genentech. Want to see how we use cryoET in pharma? And spend the summer 2025 in the Bay Area? Details and application link here: roche.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/ROG-A2O-GENE...

Please add me as well!

My lab just started this year!

Really cool stuff! How are you liking the Bambu labs printer?

Very excited to share our new preprint where we develop MIC, a deep metric learning tool for classifying waters & ions in experimental structures; fantastic collaboration with the extremely talented Laura Shub and Selina Liu from the Keiser lab!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...