LernerLab

Khalil Joron, a very talented PhD student from my group, has won the prestigious 2025 #Clore fund #Scholarship for outstanding doctoral students. Khalil develops fluorescence-based tools for sensing microenvironmental properties of phase-separated bio-condensates. Big congrats, Khalil.

PDRA in molecular etiology of Parkinson's disease.
We seek to characterize biomolecular species inducing disease-promoting cellular toxicity. Research involves single-molecule assays, advanced fluorescence imaging, mass-spectrometry and structural modeling
Apply for funding - Fullbright fellowship

Congratulate Paz Drori from my group, for being awarded the Alexander Silberman Institute's SMART prize for her work on developing the flow virometer approach (summarized in this paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.is...).

doi.org/10.1038/s435...

which established a specific tRNA fragment (tRF) motif as target in blood testing for pre-symptomatic Parkinson's disease.

Our contribution: showing translational inhibition via disrupted ribosomal association of the tRF.

Thanks, Hermona Soreq and team.

Blood test could detect Parkinson’s disease before symptoms emerge Researchers behind test using biomarkers say it could ‘revolutionise’ early diagnosis of disease

“This discovery represents a major advancement in our understanding of Parkinson’s disease and offers a simple, minimally invasive blood test as a tool for early diagnosis,” said Prof Hermona Soreq of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who supervised the study"

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

A ‘Swiss army knife’ microscope that doesn’t break the bank The parts of a 3D-printed device can be changed out, allowing for versatility as well as ultrahigh resolution.

Congrats Gabriel, the team and our collaborators from Hebrew U on two new papers on compact microscopes (www.science.org/doi/full/10....) and their applications to virus detection (www.cell.com/iscience/ful... - we got even featured in Nature: www.nature.com/articles/d41....

azrielifoundation.org/fellows/inte...

Call for Applications for the Azrieli International Postdoctoral Fellowship - The Azrieli Foundation

Are you looking for a postdoc position and in search of appropriate funding?

Check this opportunity out this opportunity (azrielifoundation.org/azrieli-fell...) and discuss with me the opportunity for a postdoctoral research position in my lab and the several leading-edge projects

In other words, be careful when using PEG to induce protein phase separation. It will do so not only for proteins with intrinsically disordered proteins but also for well-folded stable ones, with minimal disorder.

Importantly, it is not only about the bulkiness of a crowder. We compared the effects of PEG & PVA, with similar "softness" and different chemical groups.
Only PEG induced fluorescence lifetime modulation.
PEG's interactions with exposed lysines are unique.

Thanks, @sarahrauscher.bsky.social lab. It was an honor to contribute to this work.
PEG is not a typical crowder. Even highly stable proteins, e.g., mCherry, undergo specific interactions with PEG that above a given concentration will seemingly induce phase separation of this well-folded protein.

PEG–mCherry interactions beyond classical macromolecular crowding The dense cellular environment influences bio-macromolecular structure, dynamics, interactions, and function. Despite advancements in understanding protein–crowder interactions, predicting their prec...

which is now published in doi.org/10.1002/pro....

Sure thing. See you soon.

As well as a talk in the "Spectroscopy: from forces to photons I" platform, Sunday 17:55.

Come over

9) As a final remark, I am looking forward to meeting you, existing friends and colleagues, and new potential ones to discuss Science.

8) Finally, I am taking part in a multi-group study, led by the @timcraggs.bsky.social Lab, which will be presented Wednesday 10:30, poster B478, continuing the exploration of single-molecule fluorescence-based tools for probing distances shorter than ones possible with smFRET.

7) The talk will be given Sunday 17:55 at the "Spectroscopy: from forces to photons I" platform.
Importantly, this work is a close collaboration with the Nir Keren lab, and already feeds exciting follow-up projects (to be continued).

FEBS Press Phytoplankton cells of the same species in the same environment exhibit cell-wide coordination into distinct subpopulations of photophysiological cell states. Upon a rapid change in light intensity, ...

6) The talented postdoc, Paul Harris, will give a talk about his work regarding the multiparameter time-resolved fluorescence-based measurements of photosynthesis-related features in phytoplankton cells one at a time (see doi.org/10.1111/febs...).

FRET-sensitized acceptor emission localization (FRETsael) – nanometer localization of biomolecular interactions using fluorescence lifetime imaging Super-resolution light microscopy techniques facilitate the observation of nanometer-size biomolecules, which are 1-2 orders of magnitude smaller than the diffraction limit of light. Using super-resol...

5) As for posters, the research associate, Yair Razvag, will present one about FRETsael (doi.org/10.1101/2023...), which allows localizing FRET pairs of interacting proteins with 20-30 nm precision, using confocal microscopy and non-blinking dyes (Monday 13:45, poster B567).

4) Come over on Monday 13:45 to see the poster of
the @sarahrauscher.bsky.social lab, summarizing this work (poster B4).

PEG-mCherry interactions beyond classical macromolecular crowding The dense cellular environment influences bio-macromolecular structure, dynamics, interactions and function. Despite advancements in understanding protein-crowder interactions, predicting their precis...

3) This is a collaborative project with the @meshorer.bsky.social lab, and the @sarahrauscher.bsky.social lab.

Talking about @sarahrauscher.bsky.social, they have presented an elaborate MD-based model of the effects of PEG on the FP mCherry, a work we took part in (see doi.org/10.1101/2024...).

2) about how to use FLIM of (monomeric red) fluorescent proteins to probe local densities and their heterogeneities within heterochromatin bio-condensates in mouse embryonic stem cells (see doi.org/10.1038/s414...).

It is almost happening - #BPS2025 - and we are happy to attend and present our research.
A thread.
1) I will give a talk on Saturday morning at the Biological Fluorescence subgroup, presenting the work spearheaded by the PhD student Khalil Joron, about

Dear US Scientists friends, I feel for you. Just be prepared - it'll probably get worse.
How do I know? because academia in Israel is also fighting a fascist gov. Thankfully, they're an incompetent bunch and still don't have so much power as POTUS...
But we've already seen attempts to pass laws >>

Who said taste changed (or at least completely changed) for simple elegant experiments? I'd say simple elegant experiments are preferred by many but hard to achieve. Additionally, simple elegant experiments can many times benefit from orthogonal and/or validational experiments of the other sort.

Interesting... Having an n=3 points and more than dozen parameters (p>12), sets a negative value for the statistical degrees of freedom, yet they report a positive chi^2 value...

Physics-based structure model

Figure 4. Position and type of fluorescent tag affect protein expression and P-body numbers in vivo.

The dark side of fluorescent protein tagging: the impact of protein tags on biomolecular condensation
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Well, except if panels, from whatever reason, are organized in a circle (e.g., to follow some circular logical flow)

FEBS Press Phytoplankton cells of the same species in the same environment exhibit cell-wide coordination into distinct subpopulations of photophysiological cell states. Upon a rapid change in light intensity, ....

Perhaps, as initial post, I'll reiterate this work, where we use the fact that in photosynthetic unicellular species, autofluorescence is rich in meaningful multiparameter data.

This work was first in several upcoming works, stepping into complexities of photosynthesis

doi.org/10.1111/febs...