Steven Boeynaems

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

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

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...

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.

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

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...

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

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

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.

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 🧪

Classic

🚨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...

👇

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

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

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/...

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

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

youtu.be/DxSrU-rqs7A?...

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 🧵

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

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

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...

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

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

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.

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

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...

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...

Ain't no party like a bœuf bourguignon party.

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...

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.