Matt Griffin

A Bacteroides fragilis protease activates host PAR2 to induce intestinal pain and inflammation Lakemeyer and colleagues analyze the secretome of gut bacteria to identify factors that target host PAR2. They find that the Bacteroides fragilis protease Bfp1 cleaves and activates PAR2, disrupting i...

After a long journey and much hard work from many talented scientists, our paper is finally out. Take a look if you are interested in proteases and host microbe interactions in the gut. www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

Faculty opening in Cornell Chemistry at the Assistant Professor level in the area of chemical biology, broadly defined! academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30338 #chemjobs

Targeting Sialidase to PD1 Enhances T cell Function and Tumor Control Immune therapies targeting the PD1 axis have transformed outcomes in cancer treatment by enhancing T cell-mediated immune responses. However, many tumors evade immune clearance through orthogonal esca...

🔥 HOT OFF THE PRESS 🔥

Today in ACS Central Science @pubs.acs.org , we report an anti-PD1 #sialidase conjugate that degrades #SialicAcid on PD1+ T cells, inflaming tumors and controlling their growth beyond SOC PD1 blockade in melanoma models #Glycotime

pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

Host glutathione is required for Rickettsia parkeri cell division and intracellular survival Nature Communications - Rickettsia species are bacterial pathogens that obligately reside in the host cell cytosol. Here, Sun et al. report that Rickettsia use host glutathione as a nutrient source...

I'm excited to share the final version of some fun work from our lab. A few interesting phenotypes - depleting host glutathione causes intracellular Rickettsia to form long chains and get restricted by antibacterial autophagy. Congrats to the team!

urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...

🔥 Job alert! We are looking for an enthusiastic PhD candidate in the new Chemical Glycobiology Lab at @tudresden.bsky.social! Master in Chem or similar, experience in organic chem including chemoenzymatic, and most importantly: enthusiasm!

Deadline 8th July:

www.verw.tu-dresden.de/StellAus/ste...

First BlueSky post to share that the First #preprint from the Kamariza Lab is live! We develop a trehalose-based assay to report drug resistance in Mycobacterium #tuberculosis. Check it out on bioRxiv: biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
#TB #diagnostic

Discovery of FoTO1 and Taxol genes enables biosynthesis of baccatin III - Nature An approach that combines single-nucleus RNA sequencing and multiplexed perturbation identifies genes that enable the biosynthesis of direct precursors of the anti-cancer drug Taxol, whose curren...

Exciting new work from Sattely lab with collaborator @pollyfordyce.bsky.social and coworkers @stanford-chemh.bsky.social, solving they biosynthesis of taxol!

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

By deep characterisation of 186 N-glycan standards, we @thencfg.bsky.social have made the most comprehensive targeted LC-MS glycomic assay to date.
Non-reduced native glycan analysis is key.
We hope this enables anyone with QqQ and interest in #glycotime to measure specific N-glycan structures.

Dear uLIPSTIC users,

We have been getting reports that, under some more inflammatory settings like TB or chronic LCMV infection, uLIPSTIC-expressing lymphocytes adoptively transferred into cre-negative uLIPSTIC hosts may be rejected at later timepoints (>1 wk).

The peptidoglycan of Borrelia burgdorferi can persist in discrete tissues and cause systemic responses consistent with chronic illness Polymeric Borrelia burgdorferi peptidoglycan cell wall can persist in murine livers for weeks to months after direct injection or infection.

New paper alert-outstanding postdoc Mecaila McClune has deeply enriched our understanding of #Lymedisease pathogenesis through live, real-time peptidoglycan #glycotime tracking. Her work draws curious parallels to #LongCovid & infection associated chronic illness
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New molecular label could lead to simpler, faster tuberculosis tests MIT chemists found a way to identify a complex sugar molecule in the cell walls of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the world’s deadliest pathogen. This labeling could lead to simpler, faster TB tests.

Lead author @ssmelyansky.bsky.social spearheaded a strategy to label a single sulfur-containing glycan called ManLAM on the cell envelope of the bacteria that cause #TB. news.mit.edu/2025/new-mol... or here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 🧪 #glycotime @mitchemistry.bsky.social

Has anyone worked with Wyatt Technology recently? We've been trying to get in contact by website, email, and phone for the past few weeks with no response...

Congrats, Rémi!

Cooperative role of PACT and ADAR1 in preventing aberrant PKR activation by self-derived double-stranded RNA - Nature Communications Uncontrolled activation of PKR by endogenous double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) is detrimental to cells, as it leads to global translational shutdown. Here, we show that PACT and ADAR1 establish a threshold ...

Today, we report our new study demonstrating that PACT functions as an inhibitor rather than an activator of PKR, and works together with ADAR1 to suppress aberrant activation of PKR by self-derived double-stranded RNA. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Engineered Proteins and Chemical Tools to Probe the Cell Surface Proteome The cell surface proteome, or surfaceome, is the hub for cells to interact and communicate with the outside world. Many disease-associated changes are hard-wired within the surfaceome, yet approved drugs target less than 50 cell surface proteins. In the past decade, the proteomics community has made significant strides in developing new technologies tailored for studying the surfaceome in all its complexity. In this review, we first dive into the unique characteristics and functions of the surfaceome, emphasizing the necessity for specialized labeling, enrichment, and proteomic approaches. An overview of surfaceomics methods is provided, detailing techniques to measure changes in protein expression and how this leads to novel target discovery. Next, we highlight advances in proximity labeling proteomics (PLP), showcasing how various enzymatic and photoaffinity proximity labeling techniques can map protein–protein interactions and membrane protein complexes on the cell surface. We then review the role of extracellular post-translational modifications, focusing on cell surface glycosylation, proteolytic remodeling, and the secretome. Finally, we discuss methods for identifying tumor-specific peptide MHC complexes and how they have shaped therapeutic development. This emerging field of neo-protein epitopes is constantly evolving, where targets are identified at the proteome level and encompass defined disease-associated PTMs, complexes, and dysregulated cellular and tissue locations. Given the functional importance of the surfaceome for biology and therapy, we view surfaceomics as a critical piece of this quest for neo-epitope target discovery.

Excited to share that our cell surface proteome review is now online on Chemical Reviews! 🥰 We highlight recent advances of techniques mapping cell surface protein expression, protein-protein interactions, extracellular PTMs and MHC complexes. @jimwellsucsf.bsky.social pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

A bioluminescent probe to track RNA New ‘RNA lantern’ lets scientists peer into cellular dynamics in real time

Jennifer Prescher’s “RNA lantern” is one example of a probe that uses new, brighter luciferases. The technology, which was described in a paper in Nature Communications in November, requires only one probe per RNA strand. cen.acs.org/acs-news/acs...

Please vote and support our work @ucirvine.bsky.social!!
@statnews.com

Engineered commensals for targeted nose-to-brain drug delivery Shen et al. investigate the use of Lactobacillus plantarum, a commensal bacterial strain, as a chassis for targeting the olfactory mucosa to facilitate precise nose-to-brain delivery of therapeutic mo...

Engineered commensals for targeted nose-to-brain drug delivery www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

A bioluminescent probe to track RNA New ‘RNA lantern’ lets scientists peer into cellular dynamics in real time

At #ACSSpring2025, Jennifer Prescher, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of California, Irvine, described how her team is developing bioluminescent RNA tags to help visualize RNA. cen.acs.org/acs-news/acs... #chemsky🧪

Reversible histone deacetylase activity catalyzes lysine acylation - Nature Chemical Biology Tsusaka et al. discover that histone deacetylases, which are well known to remove protein modifications, such as lysine acetylation and β-hydroxybutyrylation, can also reverse their chemical activity ...

I could not be more excited to have our lab's first story online where we report our discovery that HDACs ~reverse~ their activity to ADD acyl groups to lysine! We found this for our favorite ketone body, BHB, but this pathway controls other lysine modifications too!🧵

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

A new means of selectively imaging the inner mycolate of mycobacteria using a compound that covalently modifies an enzyme intercepts to create a new intermediate with the Kim lab, @thebrysonlab.bsky.social and the Bernhardt lab. #TB

2025 SoCal Undergraduate Chemistry Research Symposium - Sign Up Form Thank you for your interest in attending the 2025 SoCal Undergraduate Chemistry Research Symposium. The event will be held on August 7, 2025 from 9:30 AM to 3:00 PM. Please plan to attend the entire e...

Doing exciting undergrad research in SoCal over the summer? Join us at UC Irvine for our annual SoCal Undergraduate Chemistry Research Symposium on Aug 7 to present your awesome work! More event info can be found at sites.uci.edu/ugradchem/.

Register here by July 11: forms.gle/6UfTMZ5XcQcM...

Mapping the nanoscale organization of the human cell surface proteome reveals new functional associations and surface antigen clusters The cell surface is a dynamic interface that controls cell-cell communication and signal transduction relevant to organ development, homeostasis and repair, immune reactivity, and pathologies driven b...

Excited to share this new work led by postdoc Brendan Floyd, deep mapping of cell-surface protein interactomes of T and B cells reveals maverick mitochondrial proteins and immune modulatory complexes.

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

YouTube video by Association of American Universities Facilities and Administrative (F&A) Costs Explainer

Make sure you, your trainees, and anyone else who might listen to you understands what "indirects" actually are, how they are established, and what Universities contribute. H/T @rodallab.bsky.social

Please share widely!

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

Happy Saturday. If you're working on your NIH specific Aims for a February submission, don't include a figure. grants.nih.gov/grants-proce....

Glycan analysis probes inspired by human lectins for investigating host-microbe crosstalk Human lectins are critical carbohydrate-binding proteins that recognize diverse glycoconjugates from microorganisms and can play a key role in host-microbe interactions. Despite their importance in im...

Really enjoyed the opportunity to have the @kiesslinglab.bsky.social collaborate with the Imperiali Group on exploring human lectin interactions with glycans. #glycotime Some initial findings are here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Discovering microbiota functions via chemical probe incorporation for targeted sequencing Our microbiota plays crucial roles in immune development and homeostasis and has been implicated in virtually all major diseases of the 21st century. …

Christmas came early for the lab with the publication of our Current Opinion piece. Led by the lab's first (and 🦋-less) grad student, Natalie Falco, we summarize exciting new methods to profile biological functions within microbiota populations using chemical probes. Check it out!

Thank you to @naturecancer.bsky.social for the shoutout, we are delighted that our work is one of the 12 studies highlighted for 2024! Watch out for more exciting science to come in 2025 from my group!

Today we report that an engineered skin bacterium, swabbed gently on the head of a mouse, can unleash a potent antibody response against a pathogen. Could lead to topical vaccines that are applied in a cream. @djenetbousbaine.bsky.social led the charge... @natureportfolio.bsky.social 1/55

Here is a thread showcasing my GitHub repositories: 1) Friends Don't Let Friends Make Bad Graphs. An opinionated essay on good and bad graphs.

My popular one by a long shot with 6.4k stars and 248 forks. github.com/cxli233/Frie...