Ciara Wallis

🎉The @corrylab.bsky.social are so excited to be at #BPS2026! 💃

See Emily TODAY 4:45 PM, Room 207 talking about a simulation PIPeline to predict PIP binding sites 🖥️

+ me tomorrow 8:45 AM, Room 201 for when AlphaFold can predict homo-oligomeric states 🤖

+ both of us @ posters B218 & B11 on Tues! 🎆

2′-O-Methyl-guanosine RNA fragments antagonize TLR7 and TLR8 to limit autoimmunity - Nature Immunology Here, the authors show that 2’-O-methylated RNA fragments from ribosomal RNA naturally block TLR7 and TLR8, helping to avoid avoid harmful self-RNA detection and autoimmunity.

How does your immune system tell pathogenic RNA from your own, even though they’re made of the same stuff?
Our latest paper with @gantierlab.bsky.social shows some self RNA act as an off switch preventing autoimmunity in the absence of pathogens. 🧬🔬⭐
www.nature.com/articles/s41590-026-02429-2

Closing Session 4 - Ben Corry - on Membrane transporter plasmodium falciparum Formate Nitrate transporter - moves lactate and protons out of the cell. Detoxification of glycolysis products.

Transporter or channel??

Central His highly conserved.

#lorneproteins2026

PfFNT blurs the channel–transporter boundary by
• operating as a transporter without major conformational changes
• Switching between transporter and channel modes within the same pathway
6/6

Our data indicates that under acidic conditions, small neutral molecules such as formic acid can passively diffuse through PfFNT. 5/6

We show a transport mechanism for PfFNT in which protonation of a central histidine (H230) enables lactate binding, and proton transfer from H230 to lactate is required to release the substrate as neutral lactic acid. 4/6

We combined over 720 μs of molecular dynamics simulations, quantum chemical calculations, and transport assays in Xenopus laevis oocytes to characterize the transport cycle of PfFNT. 3/6

PfFNT is essential during the intra-erythrocytic stage of Plasmodium falciparum, exporting lactate and H⁺ to prevent cytosolic acidification and parasite death. 2/6

🥳So excited to announce our latest preprint on PfFNT!! The lactate/H+ exporter from the malaria parasite that challenges the standard definitions of transporters vs channels 💪✨ 1/6
tiny.cc/pffnt

Beginning 2026 with a flipping good paper🚀 OSCA/TMEM63 proteins do double duty: they’re ion channels and mechanically activated lipid scramblases helping reshape membranes and survive mechanical stress. 👏 @yiechanglin.bsky.social @charlesdcox.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s414...

I’m so excited to be giving my PhD exit seminar on Feb 16 at 1 p.m., where I'll be talking about some of my favourite chansporter proteins! ✨️

🌟 We are hiring! Seeking a postdoc to use molecular dynamics and AI to understand how ion channels are regulated by membrane lipids 🌟

Join us at #scienceanu with amazing collaborators and great working conditions!

Email me (karri.anu.edu.au) or apply here (tiny.cc/corry). Please share & repost!

We show where chloroquine and peptides bind and help explain the polyspecific transport mechanism (2/2)

Excited to share John's new work in Nat Coms! We demonstrate how PfCRT, a polyspecific peptide transporter, turns into a drug transporter for antimalarials like chloroquine and why this causes a fitness cost for the malaria parasite (1/2)

tiny.cc/PfCRT

Also bittersweet to announce the final work of @elainetao.bsky.social in our lab, using AF2 to study conformational transitions in 32 voltage-gated channel superfamily members 🤩 we're so excited to watch you Nav-igate the next steps of your career, Dr. Tao & are so proud of you 🎩
tiny.cc/VSD-AF2

Bittersweet to announce the wonderful YC's final work in our lab. We are so proud of everything she's accomplished (incl. this beautiful study showing how the TAM complex facilitates lipid flow between the bacterial inner & outer membranes). We can't wait to see what you do next, Dr. Lin 🤩

3/ it feels significant to be writing this as i await my flight to be transported from the inner membrane (Canberra) I've called home for the last 8 years to the outer membrane (Beijing) of my next scientific adventure

2/ ... discuss possible ways that lipids can be offloaded at the OM and use AF3 and MD data to suggest that other members of the AsmA-like protein family can accommodate lipids in their hydrophobic grooves

1/ In my final project as part of the @corrylab.bsky.social, we show the bacterial TAM complex facilitates the spontaneous flow of phospholipids from the IM to the OM in MD simulations..

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.12.642747v1

excited to share these results from a super fun AlphaFold project with @ciarawallis.bsky.social and welcoming examples of your favourite proteins with (possible or known) multiple oligomeric states for testing 👀👀

Thrilled to share our latest preprint from @yiechanglin.bsky.social & @ciarawallis.bsky.social showing that AF2-Multimer and AF3 can quickly & accurately predict the oligomeric states & structures of proteins (& maybe can identify multiple biologically relevant oligomeric states 👀)
tiny.cc/oligomers

Big congratulations to the very sharp @elainetao.bsky.social who submitted her PhD last week! Our greatest Nav channel expert is rumoured to be joining the dark side of Kv. #drtao #phdone @scienceanu.bsky.social 🔪🎆👩‍🔬👩‍🎓

Big congratulations to @riottowow.bsky.social .bsky.social for winning an Anders Early Career Award at @lorneproteins.bsky.social ! Presenting his work on the lipid lined pore of the OSCA mechanosensitive channel. #lorneproteins2025

I'm so excited to have been part of this very fun project in collaboration with the Zhang lab! 💻💙

Please check out our preprint on this beautiful channel-like protein called XPR1 here at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New: @elainetao.bsky.social and @corrylab.bsky.social‬ investigate the binding of sodium channel inhibitors to the Naᵥ1.5 pore using simulations, revealing promiscuous, polyspecific binding at the fenestrations and central cavity. https://buff.ly/40rLqHb

Drugs exhibit diverse binding modes and access routes in the Nav1.5 cardiac sodium channel pore Tao and Corry investigate how the binding of sodium channel inhibitors to the Nav1.5 pore using simulations reveal promiscuous, polyspecific binding at the

Excited to start the year with this paper with
@elainetao.bsky.social. Using simulations we show sodium channel blocking drugs bind at many sites within the pore and fenestrastions rather than at a single distinct pose.
@jgenphysiol.bsky.social @scienceanu.bsky.social
#ionchannels
hubs.la/Q031spy70

I should have included one of the nice figures from the paper!
rupress.org/jgp/article-...

An opioid with a literal, light-sensitive 'on/off switch' to avoid fatal side effects? Look no further - Azomorphine-3 (AM3)! The most exciting study I've been part of, thus far. With the labs of Seva Katritch, Dirk Trauner @dirktrauner.bsky.social and Josh Levitz.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Season's Greetings from our (lab) family to yours! P.s. can you guess which lab member is which?? 🎄🎅🍪

Baking by @yiechanglin.bsky.social, Elaine Tao, ZhouYi Wang, @ciarawallis.bsky.social, + honorary member @caloflaherty.bsky.social ♥️

🥳 celebrating the arrival of my printed and bound thesis yesterday with the lab. Last pic is of Elaine, who helped me manually number the pages of my collated pdfs at 11 pm on submission day 🥺🥺

@corrylab.bsky.social @ciarawallis.bsky.social