Roberta Colapietro

Interessante Forschungsthemen, tolle Wissenschaftler:innen und ein volles Uebel & Gefährlich, was will man mehr?
Danke an das fantastische Publikum, unsere bezaubernde Moderatorin Insina und das tolle Team vom Uebel & Gefährlich!
Wir freuen uns auf das nächste Mal im Uebel & Gefährlich am 24.03.2026

I know this might come from a privileged place: I love drawing, and not everyone has an iPad or skills/time to create custom illustrations for a scicomm talk. But one of the best things about science slams was seeing the wildly creative workarounds: perfectly timed memes, chaotic collages…

Very unpopular opinion: I’ve presented at a couple of science slams recently, and I’ve noticed more and more slammys heavily relying on AI-generated images. It always makes me cringe a little :(

Although my Inktober dreams flopped, I’m happy to recommend you some scientists who were far more consistent and created amazing art 👇

@elliejameson.bsky.social makes incredible bacteria and phage illustrations 🦠
@irinabezsonova.bsky.social brilliantly reinvented props for protein-themed drawings 💪🏻

Uncoupling of behavioral and metabolic 24-h rhythms in reindeer Meier et al. report a seasonal uncoupling of metabolic and behavioral 24-h rhythms, with high metabolic rhythmicity in winter and spring. Together with reduced rhythmicity in summer and fall, this sea...

While several studies show reindeer lose circadian rhythms in behaviour and sleep during the polar winter, a study from last year suggests their metabolic rhythms are preserved, as separating competing metabolic processes helps save energy when food is scarce 🍽️
🔗 www.cell.com/current-biol...

This drawing ties into both prompts for #day5, #deer, and #day19, #arctic. It’s a cute take on how animals in polar regions, like Arctic reindeers, lose some of their circadian rhythms when the day/night cycle disappears in summer or winter 🦌

Ink cartoon of a tired reindeer holding a coffee mug. The drawing is black and white, except for the red nose.

October has long gone, along with my unrealistic dream of doing a #circadian -themed drawing every day for #Inktober 🖋️
I did manage to finish one drawing though, and since also small achievements are worth celebrating, I thought I’d share it ✍️

What about luciferase for the firefly prompt?

And don’t forget to check out the @berlinscienceweek.bsky.social programme 📆
So many great events coming up, including more talks from @berlin-soapbox.bsky.social on 9.10 🧑‍🔬

👉 berlinscienceweek.com/programme

#BerlinScienceWeek25 #scicomm #science #WomenInSTEM #PrideInSTEM #circadian #chronobiology

Curious what happens when you throw off a cell’s groove? Or which props you can use to talk about circadian rhythms (spoiler: not just a 🕒)? Or whether you got the reference in the title right? 👑🦙
Then join us this Saturday, 12-2 pm, at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin @mfnberlin.bsky.social 🧑‍🔬

In the middle, there is an AI-generated picture of a duck. Below it, there is a human-illustrated Duck, looking at the other duck in shock, and saying "Wtf is this?"

AI-generated content is flooding the internet, and we're entering a new era of information overload. Watch our latest video to find out how AI slop affects the internet and why kurzgesagt videos will always remain human-made: https://kgs.link/AISlop

This October I’m drawing one molecule a day inspired by proteins in pdb @rcsbpdb.bsky.social

Day 2/31
Prompt WEAVE

N-terminal domain of a Fibrion - a building block of silk fiber produced by silkworms.

Pdb: 3UA0

Next prompt is CROWN and I would love your suggestions!

This October I’m drawing one molecule a day inspired by proteins @rcsb.bsky.social

Day 1/31
Prompt MUSTACHE
Pdb 2QZI

Let’s start with something fun:
Mr. Potato head’s ‘stache is made of Androgen Receptor that binds testosterone and helps maintain his male phenotype

Next prompt: WEAVE
suggestions?

Thanks Lena! I am delight-ochondria to hear that 😍 (though this last pun is a bit of a stretch 😂)

Absolutely amazing 😨🤩

A cartoon illustration featuring many mitochondria characters, each paired with a pun ending in “-ochondria.” Examples include “fight-ochondria” (two mitochondria boxing), “spy-ochondria” (in disguise with a trench coat) and “night-ochondria” (under the moon and stars).

That’s all the #mito news for today! And what better way to wrap up a mitochondria dump than with a mito-drawing I made a while ago? Did you catch all the references? Do you have a favorite mito?
For now, I’ll just say: good nightochondria 😴

#mitochondria #blueskyart #scicomm #WissKomm #scienceart

2-hydroxyglutarate mediates whitening of brown adipocytes coupled to nuclear softening upon mitochondrial dysfunction - Nature Metabolism CLPP-deficiency-driven mitochondrial dysfunction in brown adipose tissue leads to the accumulation of d-2-hydroxyglutarate, in turn promoting lipid-droplet enlargement by altering gene expression and epigenetically regulating nuclear stiffness.

I hope this cover art captures the paper’s essence and pays tribute to the true molecular painter here: 𝘊𝘭𝘱𝘱 🧑‍🎨
You can read the paper here 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s42...

#mitochondria #lipiddroplets #lipids #RNAseq #metabolomics #proteomics #multiomics @cecad.bsky.social @unicologne.bsky.social

After first seeing the image, I could not help but see a flower, so I shaped the cover art around one. In this version of #vangogh ’s sunflowers, the yellow petals represent healthy mitochondria around a stiff nucleus, while red petals show stressed mitos pressing against a softened nucleus 🌻

Even cooler: mitochondrial stress also softens the nucleus. You can see it in the image below: on the right, the blue nucleus in cells lacking 𝘊𝘭𝘱𝘱 is dimpled by multiple red mitochondria 🔬

When 𝘊𝘭𝘱𝘱, a key mitochondrial quality-control gene, is knocked out, mitochondria become stressed and send signals to the nucleus via the metabolite 2-hydroxyglutarate (2-HG). Signalling by 2-HG nudges the cell to build bigger #lipid droplets, whitening the BAT ⚪

Harshita's paper broadens our understanding of how damaged #mitochondria make brown adipose tissue (BAT) “whiten,” a process observed in conditions such as obesity and aging 🧓🏽

Remember Harshita from the previous thread? She’s not just my science-slam buddy. She’s also the first author of a recent paper I tried to design the cover art for. The cover didn’t get accepted, but it may deserve a spot in #blueskyart 🎨
More in the thread below 👇

YouTube video by Science-Slam.com Mitochondria | Science Slam mit Harshita Kaul & Roberta Colapietro

I’m really cringing rewatching the video, but I’ll share it anyway. Not just for your Schadenfreude, but also for feedback: what messages stand out? Anything we could’ve communicated better in 10 minutes? 🔗 youtu.be/-FFBiwrFrwg

#scienceslam #science #Forschung #Wissenschaft #Wisskomm #slam #mito

Cover of the book "Power, Sex, Suicide" by Nick Lane.

I stress 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘸 because preparing for this slam pushed me to finally read 'Power, Sex, Suicide' by Nick Lane. That book made me realize how the origin of mitochondria is way more complex than simply “one bacterium swallowing another.” Highly recommend ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

First #mito -related news of the day: the video of my latest #scienceslam is out! I did it with my former lab neighbour Harshita. We tried to introduce the audience to the mitochondrial theory of aging by acting as two bacteria that 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘸 came together to form a eukaryotic cell 👯

⚠️ Mitochondria dump today ⚠️
Over the past month I’ve received some mito-related news. Since I haven’t shared them yet on Blue̶̶n̶̶a̶̶t̶̶i̶̶v̶̶e̶sky (#academicdadjoke), brace yourself for some mitochondria content today 🔜

🎉 Iscrizioni aperte!
Sei una persona che fa ricerca e ti piacerebbe incontrare studenti e studentesse in tutta Italia?
È il momento giusto: sono aperte le iscrizioni al progetto Penne 2025/26!
📩 Come? Compila il form qui 👉 forms.gle/tAWtfxmcJptf...
Unisciti a noi!

Ich hab den Link meinen Freunden in Köln weitergeleitet 🤩 ein paar haben gefragt, ob du das in Zukunft auch auf Englisch machst 🥹

We are currently recruiting a bioinformatics/computational biology postdoc to join the infrastructure project of a newly funded large research consortium (SFB-TRR) on Circadian Medicine between Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Universität zu Lübeck ⌚ ⏰ ⏱️ 🕰️ !

And the absolute winner 👑

First 3 words that come to your mind when you think about a scientist?

Evolutionary - chemist - SECURE JOB
(We should tell this child the truth…)