Samrat Mukhopadhyay

What a terrific recognition of our research field!
Dirk Görlich (Max Planck Institute Göttingen) and Steven McKnight (UT Southwestern) received the Lasker Award for their work on low-complexity domains and their phase separation.
Read the perspective in PNAS:
www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

Last week, I started teaching the freshman biology class (BIO 101), which I'm very excited about. I'm sharing one of my introductory slides on the three pillars of modern biology - evolution, genetics and molecular nature of genetic material. Looking forward to teaching the first-year biology class!

Happy to share our community note published in Nature Communications @natcomms.nature.com. In this 14-page article (34 authors from 9 countries), we discuss current practices in phase separation. We hope it will be useful to the biomolecular condensate community.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Breathtaking view of the Shivalik range of the Himalayas from the balcony of our apartment on the 7th floor at IISER Mohali: at 5:30 pm and 7 pm.

Happy to share a sneak peek of our foray into plant proteins: A fluorescence image of phase-separated condensates of an intrinsically disordered protein from Arabidopsis (prepared & imaged by my PhD students Snehasis Sarkar & Muskan Koundal). I'll share more details later.
Happy Fluorescence Friday!

Thank you so much, CBS Montpellier! I had an exciting visit and stimulating discussions with the colleagues at CBS!

Yesterday, I had a great visit/seminar/discussion at the University of Lorraine, Metz, then arrived in Paris in the evening & had a breathtaking view of Paris from Eiffel Tower. Now at Paris CDG airport & will fly to Delhi. Had a wonderful time in France. Au revoir Paris/France/my friends in France!

Had an amazing 2-day stay in Montpellier & gave 2 seminars at IBMM, Université de Montpellier & CBS (Centre de Biologie Structurale), CNRS. Thanks to my amazing hosts, Joseph Chamieh (IBMM) & Emmanuel Margeat (CBS). I just arrived in Paris and on my way to Metz to visit the Université de Lorraine.

Goodbye, Marseille! Had an exciting scientific visit & enjoyed breathtaking views of the Mediterranean Sea! Now on the train to Montpellier to visit/speak at the Institut des Biomolécules Max Mousseron (IBMM) CNRS, Université de Montpellier in the next 4 hours. See you all at IBMM, CNRS Montpellier!

Yesterday, I taught biological phase separation at CNRS Marseille (photo credit: my former student, Harshita). Had an amazing lunch with students/postdocs of my host, Sonia Longhi. Had a wonderful dinner with Harshita near Marseille Port. Looking forward to visiting Nice & Cannes during the weekend.

Had busy last two days - gave a seminar at CNRS Marseille (photo credit: Harshita) & had discussions with scientists. Had a quick visit to Prado Beach & an amazing dinner at my host's (Sonia Longhi) beautiful house near Cassis (overlooking the Mediterranean Sea). Today, I'll teach phase separation.

Flying to Paris tomorrow. Looking forward to visiting and speaking at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Aix-Marseille Université, Institut des Biomolécules Max Mousseron, Centre de Biologie Structurale, CNRS/Université de Montpellier, and Université de Lorraine, Metz.

Congratulations to Lisha Arora @aroralisha20.bsky.social (15th PhD of my lab) and Rakshana, Ayush & Keshav (BS-MS) for receiving their degrees during commencement at IISER Mohali. We had a wonderful send-off dinner at The Lalit Chandigarh (where we also celebrated our latest Science Advances paper).

I'm so delighted to see my former PhD student, Priyanka Dogra, being featured by St. Jude Research @stjuderesearch.bsky.social. Priyanka's postdoctoral work at St. Jude aims to fight cancer at the cellular level by investigating nucleolar phase separation.

www.stjude.org/research/pro...

Chaperone-mediated heterotypic phase separation regulates liquid-to-solid phase transitions of tau into amyloid fibrils A chaperone tasked with protein quality control tunes the phase behavior of tau and prevents its pathological phase transitions.

Happy to share our latest paper published in Science Advances @aaas.org. Congratulations to my incredible students, Sandeep @sandeeprai.bsky.social, Roopali @roopsiek.bsky.social (co-first author), Anusha @anushasarbahi.bsky.social & Ashish @ashishjoshi.bsky.social.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Thank you!!

Thank you

Chaperone-mediated heterotypic phase separation regulates liquid-to-solid phase transitions of tau into amyloid fibrils A chaperone tasked with protein quality control tunes the phase behavior of tau and prevents its pathological phase transitions.

Happy to share our latest paper published in Science Advances @aaas.org. Congratulations to my incredible students, Sandeep @sandeeprai.bsky.social, Roopali @roopsiek.bsky.social (co-first author), Anusha @anushasarbahi.bsky.social & Ashish @ashishjoshi.bsky.social.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

With @tanjamittag.bsky.social we asked if A1-LCD condensates are protective or crucibles for amyloid fibril formation. Their interfaces enable fibril nucleation but their interiors suppress fibril formation. Insights were transferrable to stress granules in cells.
doi.org/10.1016/j.mo...

A marathon revision meeting in October 2024 during my invitational professorship last year at Tohoku University in Japan.

📢Stay tuned for our latest paper that will be published on June 6.
We submitted the manuscript in July 2024.
We had a 3-country, 4-time zone epic revision meeting in Oct 2024 (see the screenshot).
This paper was accepted on May 1.
I submitted proof corrections last week from Academia Sinica, Taiwan.

I had a lovely one-week stay at Academia Sinica, Taipei. I gave a seminar, taught phase separation/single-molecule FRET & gave a plenary lecture at Taiwan Biophysics conference. I enjoyed speaking/teaching/discussing science with very talented scientists here. Thanks to my incredible host Ruby Chen.

Thank you so much!

Treatment of acute myeloid leukemia models by targeting a cell surface RNA-binding protein - Nature Biotechnology An RNA-binding protein on leukemia cells provides an effective target in mouse models.

Check it out - amazing new work by @raflynn5.bsky.social and Kostas Tzelepis labs, discovery of a cell surface RNA/glycoRNA binding protein that is also a cancer antigen, new target for antibody therapy!

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

The 15th PhD from my lab:
Today, Lisha Arora defended her PhD thesis. Congratulations to Dr. Arora! @aroralisha20.bsky.social
Thanks to Samir Maji (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay) for serving as the external examiner, and the doctoral committee members, Sanchita Sengupta and Raj Kumar Roy.

My former PhD student, Ashish Joshi, visited our lab last week. He just reached San Diego to join Keren Lasker's lab at The Scripps Research Institute @scripps.edu
It's amazing; now 3 of my former PhD students, including Debapriya Das & Anamika Avni, are postdocs at Scripps, my postdoc alma mater.

Here is a video:

Today, I was super excited to see live C. elegans worms with my students using our new stereomicroscope in my lab. Thanks to my colleague Jogender Singh & his lab for providing us with a plate. My students, Deepti, Snehasis, and my postdoc, Arpita, taught me how to watch worms.
Exciting times ahead!

Attn. Participants of the IDP Subgroup Symposium at the Biophysical Society meeting TODAY at 1:30 PM PST:
I'm happy to share the latest program (Venue: Petree Hall C, Los Angeles Convention Center). We'll have our subgroup dinner tonight at Sol Agave L.A. LIVE. See you soon!

We had a wonderful my lab alumni dinner at a Southern Thai food restaurant in Hollywood yesterday (Feb 14). Thanks to Priyanka, Debapriya, Ashish & Anamika, and my better half, Mily, for joining us at an exciting dinner. Now gearing up for the Biophysical Society meeting in Los Angeles!

Arrived in Los Angeles after 35 h. A technical snag delayed the Delhi-San Francisco flight. Managed to get the LA connection. Mt. Fuji (flew over Japan) & LA downtown before/after landing. Tonight I'm hosting my lab alumni dinner in Hollywood before Biophysical Society meeting kick-starts tomorrow.