Lukasz Bugaj

Congratulations Rita!!

Trump Administration Puts New Chokehold on Billions in Health-Research Funding The National Institutes of Health can’t award grants to outside researchers under a new White House restriction.

Absolutely outrageous interference in NIH extramural funding by OMB dropping this evening. Damaging to our nation’s world leadership, innovation, and training today and for years in the future. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Don’t miss this great opportunity for a wonderful workshop run by NCI to discuss genetic tools and omics to better understand cancer. Join us to learn and contribute to unraveling the complexities of cancer. Let’s do this together! Details 👇🏼

Last day to apply!

Explore how synthetic & systems biology can advance our understanding of cancer initiation at NCI’s virtual S³ Innovation Lab!

Synthetic biologists particularly encouraged to apply!

Application deadline now June 5:
apply.knowinnovation.com/s3-cancer-in...

Final #SynSysBio4SpatialCancerResearch workshop (#3) on Tuesday! Drug response and resistance

Featuring: Gordon Mills, Kathryn Miller-Jensen, Matt Thomson, Brian Brown, Stacey Finley, Andriy Marusyk, Pulin Li, Karmella Haynes, Arjun Raj, Justin Prichard

events.cancer.gov/nci/syntheti...

Join us Thursday (tomorrow!) for session 2: Tumor-Immune Interactions.

Including: Thea Tlsty, Karin Pelka, Evanthia Roussos Torres, Rogelio Hernandez-Lopez, Elizabeth Wayne, Jose Reyes, Xiaojing Gao, Tullia Bruno, Lucas Pelkmans, Josh Leonard

events.cancer.gov/nci/syntheti...

A screenshot of the termination notice showing "Outstanding Investigator Grants"

A screenshot of the termination notice with "This award is terminated effective the date of this award, due to unsafe antisemitic actions that suggest the institution lacks concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students." highlighted

Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab

Opinion | The Science I Would Be Doing if I Weren’t in ICE Detention

“Maybe if people see [images from my research], they will understand why I want to get back to work.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/o...

First session *tomorrow*, on Tumor Initiation.

Speakers: Lau, Dumitrascu, Snyder, Schutt Ibsen, Cukierman, Burdziak, Stevens, Bugaj, Lander, Khalil

Join us for this interactive event!
events.cancer.gov/nci/syntheti...

#SynSysBio4SpatialCancerResearch

including: Ken Lau, Thea Tlsty, Gordon Mills, @tme-caf-ecm.bsky.social, Arthur Lander, @mokhalil.bsky.social, @lucaspelkmans.bsky.social, @josh-leonard.bsky.social,
@arjunraj.bsky.social, Matt Thomson, many more

pleasure to co-organize w/ @zevgartner.bsky.social, Laura Heiser, @ajitjohnson.com

Congratulations Ophir! Quite a past couple weeks for your group!

congrats to you and your group George!

Are you interested in synthetic and systems biology approaches to study #spatiotemporal processes in cancer? Join NCI for virtual workshops on May 13, 15, & 20 (next week!) from 12:00–4:30 PM ET:

registration: events.cancer.gov/nci/syntheti...

#SynSysBio4SpatialCancerResearch

thanks Priya! Sitting next to you trading puns for 4 years was formative:)

Hah! What a great pic. Missed opportunity by ACS.

Yes!! Congrats John!!

We like Aviatar because it does with 1 protein what used to require 2, in a modular manner that is straightforward to engineer.

Also, check out Dennis's recent preprint on BcLOV4, a naturally-evolved membrane-binding 'Aviatar' that inspired us to expand the concept to other compartments

We also developed a "universal" Aviatar that can localize to any GFP-tagged compartment using a weak nanobody, and we used it to localize to stress granules through endogenously-tagged G3BP1

Aviatar regulated actin polymerization at the membrane and revealed compartment-specific differences of RTK fragments commonly mislocalized in cancer

Aviatar can target any desired compartment for which a weak binder can be found. We show common targets: plasma membrane, endosomes, Golgi, ER, and microtubules.

In Aviatar (Avidity assisted targeting), a single light-sensitive protein translocates from the cytoplasm to an unmodified subcellular compartment. Light induces clustering, clustering turns a weak binder to a high-avidity assembly, and Aviatar flies to its target location.

Proteins often bind targets using avidity, the combined interaction strength of multiple weak binders. Now we’ve harnessed this principle for compact, *single*-component optogenetic tools for translocation. Lead by phenom PhD student @dennishuang.bsky.social #synbiosky🧵

📝 tinyurl.com/aviatar

Pulsatory response of the BcLOV4 photoreceptor through intramolecular feed-forward regulation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.08.647774v1

Super clever, turning biosensors into bio-actuators. 👏👏👏

Pooled tagging and hydrophobic targeting of endogenous proteins for unbiased mapping of unfolded protein responses Sansbury and Serebrenik et al. use pooled gene tagging with in situ sequencing and high-throughput image analysis to generate a cell pool with endogenous HaloTag fusions. Hydrophobic targeting is then...

Check out our paper, now extensively revised and published in @cp-molcell.bsky.social! This has been a real tour de force led by Stephanie Sansbury and @ysereb.bsky.social and we are very excited about the findings and future potential of this approach
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

An optogenetic toolkit for robust activation of FGF, BMP, and Nodal signaling in zebrafish Cell signaling regulates a wide range of biological processes including development, homeostasis, and disease. Accessible technologies to precisely manipulate signaling have important applications in ...

Happy to share a new preprint from my lab! We characterize the on/off kinetics, light dosage-dependence, and more for a suite of optogenetic signaling activators in zebrafish embryos 💡 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Phenomenal conceptual and experimental work by Dennis and a fantastic collaboration with @nmrkaygee.bsky.social and @malvinf.bsky.social at ASRC @CUNY, who are uncovering the structural underpinnings of BcLOV4 light- and temperature-dependent dynamics

New preprint! We found dynamic signal processing (IFFL) in a single protein, which pulses in response to step inputs. New insights for capability of protein computation + implications for new opto and thermo probes

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

Check out the 🧵 from first author Dennis Huang:

Large-scale control over collective cell migration using light-activated epidermal growth factor receptors Programmable control over tissue movement is a fundamental challenge for tissue engineering and wound healing. Suh, Thornton, et al. discovered that a light-controlled EGF receptor controls long-range...

I'm so happy to report that our preprint on light-induced collective cell migration has now been published in Cell Systems! This project was a lot of fun and will be the basis for a lot of our ongoing & future work.