Susan Lea

The stomatin-like protein StlP organizes membrane microdomains to govern polar growth in filamentous actinobacteria under hyperosmotic stress - Nature Communications Actinobacteria grow by inserting new cell wall material at the cell poles. Here, Zhong et al. show that a stomatin-like protein modulates polar growth under hyperosmotic stress by facilitating the for...

Congratulations to Xiaobo @xiaobozhong.bsky.social on his great paper! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

YouTube video by Imperial College London Big questions, tiny machines

www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14P...

Last few days to apply for this:

Less than half an hour ago, a peaceful transfer of power has taken place at #BPS2025!

Join me in welcoming Madam President of the @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social, Professor Lynnmarie Thompson!

And Madam President Elect, Professor Karen Fleming!
👏👏👏👏👏

A new structural paradigm for outer membrane protein biogenesis in the Bacteroidota https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.17.638638v1

It really is amazing. Another related point is that Academia wouldn't actually be doing its job if it *didn't* send the bulk of its knowledge and highly trained individuals into other parts of society.

Always amazes me that numerate folks can’t see that if one Prof has multiple trainees in their group over a career you need expansion of the sector for more than one trainee to become a Prof…and massive expansion for even 60% to stay in academia…we have to be training them for non-academic careers!

Also, it is a pyramidal structure. Not all post docs can progress to become PIs. I would wish that there were some mid-level permanent staff scientist positions for those that would like to continue bench work instead of taking a more administrative role as PI, but as things are now, it is PI or out

Hive mind:
I seem to remember having seen a plot/analysis showing that pLDDT is correlated to conservation but my mind or Google-fu isn’t finding it

It is a great honour to invite you to a symposium to celebrate the career of Mark Carrington. An exciting set of talks, particularly if you are fascinated by trypanosomes.

1/ Thrilled to announce Dr. Elizabeth Wright as the inaugural winner of the June Almeida Award for #cryoem! 🎉Elizabeth’s pioneering work in both cryo-ET methods and structural virology made her a perfect fit for this award. Congrats, Elizabeth!

19F modified amino acids such as trifluoromethyl-Phe integrated into proteins can give strong, clean signals for complex samples, but the results are difficult to interpret in terms of structure

This study uses "ring current design" to increase 19F chemical shift dispersion and interpretability 🧬🧶🧲

Americans are now one-third less likely to die from cancer at the same ages as Americans in 1990

As a structural biologist the only sensible hypothesis is - if I see what it looks like I’ll understand it better…

Ben Barres was a wonderful person and his insights were incredibly important for highlighting structural issues - but I feel uncomfortable that this is another example of a man’s views having more weight. Why does it take a male presenting person (be they ally or transgender) to get our voice heard?

The year I was elected to EMBO the news of that came through followed a couple of weeks later by a stage one rejection from the ERC…essentially the ‘we haven’t heard of her’ stage of evaluation…best thing was it meant I was blocked from reapplying so didn’t have to write another for a while…

Clap in the face reminder when judged on PhD/post doc years even after >12 years:

"Kovacs' record in microbiology is somewhat lighter, particularly early career lack of first-authored leadership on high level publications"

... and I am still in academic science #nevertheless

Diverse and abundant phages exploit conjugative plasmids - Nature Communications Some phages use plasmid-encoded conjugation proteins as receptors to infect their bacterial hosts, making their host range dependent on horizontal transfer of the plasmid. Here, the authors present a ...

You may recall, we used a similar technique to find plasmid-dependent phages, by putting the same plasmid in two different bacteria. Now we do it for all sorts of phages!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Phages! At the Disco!

Here's Ellie (the first author's) thread on our new preprint on how to discover weird new phages using glowing bacteria:

Visiting @arianebriegel.bsky.social at the Institute Pasteur ! Great to see her new lab!

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...

I am about to be recruiting two post-docs to work on cryoEM and cryoET of amyloid aggregates... Anyone interested please drop me a line while the wheels of our HR department turn.............

Can I ask you to share a PhD advert at Bristol Uni please? Rhomboid proteases play a role in neurons that is essential for life- but it is not characterised. Got a student interested in cell biology, electrophysiology and neurobiology? Send them our way! tinyurl.com/56f24f7c

Meet Dante - he wants me to tell you he’s a very good boy ;-)

We have, of course, used these ;-)

Published today Steve and Justin’s story that finally reveals the basis for transmission of uni directional ion flow into bi-directional rotation of the bacterial flagellum doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Important so please help spread the word...

Interested in postgrad research? Maybe do a PhD?

Oxford runs a summer internship scheme for UK students from under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds

Stipend, free accommodation, mentoring...

Deadline 21 Feb

www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/g...

Time for puppy to start sciencing….

Not my experience - have always encouraged conversations that aim to find the right path - past students who are happy are a strong incentive for the supervisor! Aid for future recruitment as well…