Steven Boeynaems

Steven Boeynaems

@boeynaemssteven.bsky.social

Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital. Houston, TX Science: disorder, condensates, repeats, cell stress, neurodegeneration, drug discovery, synbio Non-science: art, fashion, cooking www.boeynaemslab.org

542 Followers 268 Following 36 Posts Joined Nov 2024
5 days ago
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We have a new paper out today from superstar Nora Herzog!

A virus that fluidizes the nucleus to enable replication!

Check it out here:

lnkd.in/e-xV8acK

This was an amazing collaboration with Ian Mohr and Angus Wilson

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6 days ago
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Evolution navigated billions of challenges to get to us to where we are today. Directed evolution compresses this to a 1D axis.

Imagine if you could sample 200 dimensions at once, with data to boot 📈

First @chorylab.bsky.social PACE preprint on our new system to tackle this: bit.ly/turboprance

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2 weeks ago

Papers are like buses... You wait for ages, then two come along at once.

Huge congrats to @bornanovak.bsky.social and @jefflotthammer.bsky.social for pushing and driving every aspect of this work, preprinted ~1 year ago to the day (Friday before BPS), now published!

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

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3 weeks ago

Pleased to share the final version of this behemoth of a paper, now finally published. I guess I can retire now?
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

More functional data, many thousands of words removed, and a few other updates from last year's preprint.

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1 month ago
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How does molecular valency shape condensate assembly and function? We used the CO2-fixing organelle in algae—the pyrenoid—to find out… 🧵

Preprint here!:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

@cellarchlab.com @phaips.vd.st @biologyatyork.bsky.social
#Rubisco #PhaseSeparation #Condensates #Pyrenoid

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1 month ago
Graphical abstract of pre-print

Does targeting enzymes and substrates in a condensate lead to rate enhancement? No. Here, we investigate how the condensate environment can inhibit an enzyme reaction.

Spoiler: Mass-transport limitations. We find a strong correlation between diffusion and reaction rates.

doi.org/10.64898/202...

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1 month ago
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Science update from my postdoc Peiyuan Chai - his work “glycoRNA complexed with heparan sulfate regulates VEGF-A signaling” is now published @nature.com uncovering a new layer or glycoRNA-regulation of growth factor mediated control physiological processes rdcu.be/e1bBX

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1 month ago
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Pre-assembly of biomolecular condensate seeds drives RSV replication Nature - Viral ribonucleoprotein–viral protein networks form pre-replication centres that nucleate viral factories and drive respiratory syncytial virus replication.

Now out in Nature! We visualize infection of the RNA virus RSV in real-time with single-vRNP resolution to understand how RSV establishes viral factories, biomolecular condensates that act as sites of viral replication. A huge collaborative effort led by Dhanushika Ratnayake!

rdcu.be/e1bBW

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1 month ago
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New preprint on technologies to scale up CRISPR screens.

We use them to map 665,856 pairwise genetic perturbations and outline a path to comprehensive interaction mapping in human cells.

We also introduce an approach for cloning lentiviral libraries with billions of elements.

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1 month ago
This is figure 1, which shows that ASCT enables high-throughput assessments of bacterial viability.

A paper in Nature Microbiology presents Antimicrobial Single-Cell Testing, a large-scale live-cell imaging approach that quantifies bacterial killing in real time at single-cell resolution, which can predict treatment outcomes. go.nature.com/3Nwnez8 #microsky 🧪

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2 months ago

Classic

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2 months ago
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🚨Preprint 2/2: Several studies implicate condensates in RTK fusion onco-signaling. So we were surprised to find that condensates are entirely dispensable😮(!). A study from proteins to mice, by dynamic duo @davidgonzmar.bsky.social and @trmumford.bsky.social.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

👇

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2 months ago

The vault associates with membranes in situ https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.12.693869v1

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3 months ago
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VAPB is a critical regulating factor in cGAS-STING–mediated innate immune responses
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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3 months ago
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Shapeshifting gates guard the cell nucleus An international study led by the University of Basel has discovered that nuclear pore complexes – tiny gateways in the nuclear membrane – are not rigid or gel-like as once thought. Their interiors ar...

🧪An international study led by Prof. Roderick Lim has discovered that nuclear pore complexes—gateways in the nuclear membrane—are not rigid or gel-like as once thought. Instead, their interiors are constantly moving and rearranging. @unibas.ch @snsf.ch 👉
www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/news/detail/...

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3 months ago
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Protein surface chemistry encodes an adaptive tolerance to desiccation Desiccated cells lose over 85% of their water content and experience widespread biomolecular dysfunction. Romero-Pérez et al. show that the yeast proteome contains a subset of proteins that are desicc...

Now published in @cp-cellsystems.bsky.social - we look at the chemical features that make proteins tolerant to dehydration, and the functions these proteins fill. 🏜️🚱 tinyurl.com/bsfy56yt

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3 months ago
YouTube
True Facts: Electric Nematodes and Flying Spiders YouTube video by Ze Frank

youtu.be/DxSrU-rqs7A?...

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3 months ago

So happy to announce our new preprint, “A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes.” We cultured a novel amoeba from Lassen Volcanic NP (CA, USA) that divides at 63°C (145°F) 🔥 - a new record for euk growth!
#protistsonsky 🧵

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3 months ago

Excited to share our new pre-print collab w. @rdaslab.bsky.social

Study led by Ved Topkar brilliant MD/PhD student who used biochemistry and bioinformatics to probe the relationship between Mbp mRNA structure & transport/local translation in oligodendrocytes!

biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

1/8

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3 months ago
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New preprint! We measured temperature- and pH-induced aggregation for over 18,000 natural and de novo designed protein domains!

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3 months ago
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Excited to share our new preprint in collaboration with Ahmet Yildiz's lab. Check out how our team uncovers a novel binding footprint and motor regulation mechanism for MAP9 Congrats to Burak Cetin and @aryantaheri.bsky.social

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

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3 months ago
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How do cells adapt morphology to function? In a 🔥 preprint by @zjmaggiexu.bsky.social , with @dudinlab.bsky.social and @amyweeks.bsky.social , we identify a self-organizing single-cell morphology circuit that optimizes the feeding trap structure of the suctorian P. collini. 🧵 tinyurl.com/4k8nv926

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3 months ago
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Nuclear-import receptors remodel the dilute phase to suppress phase transitions of RNA-binding proteins with prion-like domains. RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) with prion-like domains, including FUS, hnRNPA1, and hnRNPA2, assemble into functional, metastable condensates that organize ribostasis, but can also transition into self-t...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @rohitpappu68.bsky.social and Jim Shorter latest banger just dropped

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3 months ago
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MISO: microfluidic protein isolation enables single-particle cryo-EM structure determination from a single cell colony.

Or from a single dish of HEK cell culture in the case of two membrane proteins.

Out in Nature Methods now! lnkd.in/gpyBSceg

Wonderful collaboration with the Efremov lab.

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3 months ago

Ancestral neuronal receptors are bacterial accessory toxins https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.11.687626v1

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3 months ago
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Regulation of inflammatory responses by pH-dependent transcriptional condensates BRD4 functions as an intracellular pH sensor through a conserved histidine-rich intrinsically disordered region. Inflammation-associated acidification triggers a pH-dependent switch in transcriptional...

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

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3 months ago

Happy that our paper just got accepted. Also happy that it's been available as a preprint for more than 1.5 years on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social, updated 3x with new experiments, with >7,500 full-text downloads and 20 citations. Before publication. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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4 months ago

Ain't no party like a bœuf bourguignon party.

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4 months ago
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An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments

Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors!

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

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4 months ago
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Our latest paper has just been published in Cell!

doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

We developed a new method called MCC ultra, which allows 3D chromatin structure to be visualised with a 1 base pair pixel size.

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