Arjun Bhatta

Postdoc Research Group Schur The Schur lab at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) has an open postdoc position for a highly motivated candidate to be part of our ERC-funded project ActinID. Our Group ...

We're hiring a postdoc!
Join our ActinID project to explore an uncharacterized actin-binding protein.

- Background in cell and/or structural biology?
- Eager to bridge both fields?

Get in touch if you're curious or have questions!
#cellbiology #cryoEM #cryoET #actin

ista.ac.at/en/job/postd...

A cellular entity retaining only its replicative core: Hidden archaeal lineage with an ultra-reduced genome Defining the minimal genetic requirements for cellular life remains a fundamental question in biology. Genomic exploration continually reveals novel microbial lineages, often exhibiting extreme genome...

So cool, a novel archaeon with a super small genome and no metabolic genes!
"An unprecedented level of metabolic dependence on a host, a condition that challenges the functional distinctions between minimal cellular life and viruses."
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Structure of fungal tRNA ligase Trl1 with RNA reveals conserved substrate-binding principles Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 25 June 2025; doi:10.1038/s41594-025-01589-3Köhler et al. present the crystal structure of fungal tRNA ligase Trl1-LIG bound to an activated RNA substrate, providing key insights into conserved substrate binding and activation, enzyme specificity and a tRNA substrate coordination model.

ICYMI: New online: Structure of fungal tRNA ligase Trl1 with RNA reveals conserved substrate-binding principles

Barbara McClintock portrait

🧬🌽 Happy Transposon Day! 🌽🧬

Today we celebrate the birthday of Barbara McClintock - scientist extraordinaire and discoverer of jumping genes. Still the only woman to have an unshared Nobel Prize in the biomedical sciences #TransposonDay2025

SLAC, Stanford researchers discover large protein-free RNA structures Cryogenic electron microscopy showed for the first time that large RNA complexes can assemble without the help of proteins. 

Cryogenic electron microscopy showed for the first time that large RNA complexes can assemble without the help of proteins, expanding our understanding of RNA folding and function.
www6.slac.stanford.e...

spent some time this evening updating the teamtomo.org site - if you're interested in cryo-EM + Python you might want to take a look around!

EMBL-EBI should have most of the tools and databases available through NCBI.

YouTube video by Veritasium How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet

A really comprehensive video about PFAS: history, chemistry, planetary contamination, effects. Worth watching. By @veritasium.bsky.social

The electron cryo-microscope adapted for use at liquid nitrogen temperatures within its custom-made black box.

A colder frontier in cryo-EM 🧪🔬

Chris Russo’s group, inc. Joshua Dickerson, adapted #cryoEM to work at liquid helium temperatures (13 kelvins), where every frame captured contains more information than the equivalent using liquid nitrogen (81 kelvins).

Read more: tinyurl.com/mwwcunkc

#LMBResearch

What DEI threatens isn’t merit. It’s monopoly. Political science professor Hakeem Jefferson argues for DEI's importance to de-monopolizing universities.

A colleague at Stanford’s business school used The Stanford Daily to argue—poorly—against DEI. The piece was riddled with historical errors and left one searching for fact, so I broke my public writing hiatus to respond.

I hope you’ll read and share the piece.

stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/w...

If your perception is that all interactions are transactional and that there is no such thing as sincerity of curiosity, or a desire to discover, then you will never value science.

No matter how many economic arguments there are for funding it.

Because you don’t understand the fundamental premise.

This is exciting! A platform to share small and unpublishable results will be immensely helpful to the scientific community to minimize research waste and address the reproducability crisis. #ResearchAgora #OpenScience

Structural basis of Nipah virus RNA synthesis - Nature Communications Sala et al. report the first structural snapshot of the Nipah virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase in the actively elongating state, uncovering key mechanisms of RNA synthesis by non-segmented negative ...

The peer-revied version of our paper on the structure of the Nipah virus RNA polymerase in complex with RNA is out in @naturecomms.bsky.social. Congratulations to first-author @salafernanda.bsky.social and many thanks to the reviewers for their constructive comments!

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

YouTube video by Premodernist The boring truth about the Library of Alexandria

youtu.be/M4WU8gqrgsQ?...

This is how I heard about it!

Structural basis of Nipah virus RNA synthesis pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40050611/ #cryoEM

🇩🇪🇺🇸 The interference in the German elections by Elon Musk and Washington was "no less radical and outrageous than that of Moscow," — Merz.

German and US flags

To US colleagues who have lost or are in imminent danger of losing their jobs: please DM whether we can accommodate your research.

Topological constraints on self-organisation in locally interacting systems All intelligence is collective intelligence, in the sense that it is made of parts which must align with respect to system-level goals. Understanding the dynamics which facilitate or limit navigation ...

Is all intelligence collective? 🤔 New research explores how parts of a system align to achieve goals, with implications for #AI, #neuroscience, and even the evolution of #biological complexity! 🤯 #emergence #selforganization #complexity #PottsModel
arxiv.org/abs/2501.13188

Congratulations and huge thanks to fellow co-first authors: Bernhard Kuhle and Ryan Yu, my supervisor Hauke Hillen, and all co-authors. 😁

For those who want a deeper dive, here's a link to the 🧵 in the old place from when we uploaded the preprint. x.com/BhattaArjun2...

Molecular basis of human nuclear and mitochondrial tRNA 3′ processing - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Bhatta et al. use biochemistry and cryogenic electron microscopy to elucidate the mechanism of human tRNA 3′ processing. Their results show how mitochondria-specific subunits of RNase Z compensate for...

Our story on the mechanism of mitochondrial and nuclear tRNA 3' processing is finally out in NSMB. 😇

We discover how a unique problem caused by high mutation rates in mitochondria of bilaterian animals is solved by a compensatory evolutionary innovation.

doi.org/10.1038/s41594-024-01445-w

Super excited to preprint our work on developing a Biomolecular Emulator (BioEmu): Scalable emulation of protein equilibrium ensembles with generative deep learning from @msftresearch.bsky.social ch AI for Science.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Would you prefer to lead a lab alone or together with a science buddy? How interesting would be a research institute where joint labs are the standard?!

Thanks! :)

Thanks for making the starter pack, Florent. Could you please add me to it as well? 😁