Virginie Hamel & Paul Guichard Lab at University of Geneva
#cryoEM/ET❄️ and #UExM ⚗️ #ExpansionMicroscopy #TeamTomo
Genève, Suisse 🇨🇭
https://mocel.unige.ch/research-groups/guichard-hamel/overv
We are updating our Expansion Microscopy (U-ExM) website with :
- Protocols tips to help you get started
- Examples of applications across different biological systems.
- work in progress - an antibody database
👉 mocel.unige.ch/research-gro...
Today I am sharing a new preprint and accompanying blog post. Hundreds of published papers include impossible western blots showing protein expression in cell lines that have deleted or mutated genes. These clumsy mistakes are widespread and repeated by LLMs.
Our Dept. of Genetics and Developmental Biology at the Institut Curie in the heart of Paris is hiring a new junior PI.
It has a nice start up package and excellent I. Curie facilities.
Please spread the word:
Deadline Dec. 18th!
jpi-recruitment-curie-umr3215-u934.curie.fr
Call for a group leader in Evolutionary Biology
The IGFL @igflyon.bsky.social in Lyon, France, is recruiting a group leader in Evolutionary Biology. An exciting place for exploring the interfaces of evolution with physiology and development. #EvolBiol#ecoevo#evodevotinyurl.com/evolbiol
Glad my voice could contribute to this special issue of Molecular Cell on AI in molecular biology. I see a lot of promise though some perils do exist! Several other voices' opinions to read there: Ellen Zhong, Jianyi Yang, Quan Chen, Alan Wong and Judith Zaugg.
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming molecular biology. In this issue of Molecular Cell, we highlight recent advances at the intersection of AI and molecular biology, spanning structure prediction, design, genome engineering, and functional genomics.
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
Our new collaborative paper on how PACRG and FAP20 synergistically stabilize microtubule doublets! Brilliantly led by Daria Khuntsariya, with cryo-ET by Umut Batman and subtomogram averaging and analysis by Souradip Mukherjee and Florent Lemaitre. Congrats to all!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
🎥 Recordings from the recent Wellcome-MRC In Situ Cryo-ET Course 2026 are now available on YouTube!
From sample preparation and cryo-FIB milling to data collection, image processing and STA, check it out here:
www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...#CryoET#CryoEM#StructuralBiology#eBIC#Microscopy
☕ @lgudlin.bsky.social, @krunovuk.bsky.social, Novak et al propose spindle scaling in response to chromosome crowding consistent across eukaryotes; metaphase plate width scales with genome size following a power law with an exponent of ~1/3. @ivatolic.bsky.socialwww.nature.com/articles/s41...
Everyone welcome to this Thursday's DSSS talk to be held by Prof. Dr. Sophie Martin from the University of Geneva:
▶️Title and abstract: www.bio.mpg.de/events/44195...
📆: Thursday 15th October at 11am
📍: MPH lecture hall, Max-Planck-Ring 6
#DSSS
Nikon just announced it has withdrawn first place in this year’s #SWiM after finding winning video did not comply with its generative AI rules.
www.nikonsmallworld.com/news/nikon-s...
Letter still open until Monday- this is a starting point to engage & discuss how AI is transforming microscopy 🔬
Microscopy images are scientific evidence, and that image processing must be transparent and faithful to the underlying biology. Reinforce those standards, especially now-insist Nikon uphold them. #NikonSWiM2026
Read the letter: tinyurl.com/OpenLetterSW...
Add your name: forms.gle/TyGRELnCxq5z...
Happy to share our latest work showing that fungal cell fusion not only requires local cell wall digestion but also inhibition of cell wall repair!
PAK-family kinases promote cell fusion irreversibility by preventing cell-wall repair
doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...
Led by @juliacoronasserna.bsky.social
🔬 We're hiring a Laboratory Manager!
Join our growing international team at the Max Planck Center for Physics and Medicine in Erlangen!
🧬 Cell & molecular biology
🧪 Lab coordination & experimental research
📩 Apply now: [https://www.fau-jobs.de/jobposting/8173a98034c48d53d57bce14503883cbdbf6f3b80]
📣Our department is hiring a new group leader!📣
Want to start your team in a vibrant scientific environment in the center of Paris? I was very lucky to do that 10 years ago, reach out if you have any question.
Apply by December 18th:
jpi-recruitment-curie-umr3215-u934.curie.fr
Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel – awarded the 2026 medicine prize – discovered a remarkable protein, channelrhodopsin, in a single-celled alga.
Hegemann wondered how Chlamydomonas, a single-celled alga, is able to swim towards a light source.
If you’ve always been curious about how algae fix carbon, @phaips.vd.st, @cellarchlab.com and I have put together the quickest route into pyrenoids. And if you don’t feel like reading at all, we have an accompanying poster
doi.org/10.1242/jcs....
Strikingly, @claudioalfieri.bsky.social and his team demonstrate that using cryo-tides, they can obtain high-resolution structures of APC/C, which otherwise requires carbon support.
I spoke with @nature.com about the Nikon Small World controversy. As AI becomes part of scientific imaging, we need greater transparency about what was measured, inferred or generated. It's not about excluding AI. It’s about preserving trust in scientific evidence.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
What if any dataset, any size, any number of dimensions, opened in a browser tab from a link? 🔬🧪💻
Luxar is out today: write it in Python, share it as a link, explore it in any browser. Open source. 🧵 @biohub.org
Preprint: doi.org/10.5281/zen...
Code: github.com/royerlab/luxar
This is the updated part. Looks like the movie is an AI-generated fluorescence image from a non-labeled acquisition technique. No indication that the Small World jury and organizers have requested and verified the raw data (as mentioned as a possibility in the competition rules)
Nikon's response to me on Linked in: "We’ve updated our detailed article with insights from the winner, which may answer some of your questions. We encourage you to check out the link to dive deeper into the technical details" 1/n
www.nikonsmallworld.com/masters-of-m...
From the new info my bet is fluo labeling inference pushed to 11. Hallucinating nonsensical DAPI nuclei, mitochondria stain, membrane labeling from a kind of phase contrast image: wrong localization, wrong scale, wrong movement. Keeping this movie as SWiM winner is a disgrace to the competition
Do you want to label the nuclear envelope? Do you work on a non-model species? Try Concanavalin A!
We tested ConA on various species across the eukaryotic tree and find it is a very useful ExM-compatible marker for the NE and ER.
Read all about it in our preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Can light build centrosome-like activity? 💡🔬
Yes! We introduce LISA (Light-Induced Spindle Assembly), now in @emboreports.org. By clustering Aurora A with optogenetics, we build centrosome-like activity that nucleates microtubules and rescues spindle defects after centrosome loss. shorturl.at/9h3VQ
First day here and I brought a paper. Three years of cryo-FIB-ET on human airway cells, nine proteins identified and two new PCD genes at the end of it. Grateful to the teams in Munster (Omran Lab), Boston (@alanbrownhms.bsky.social, Hawkins Lab) and Geneva (@centriolelab.bsky.social).
Millions of beating cilia keep airways clean. At the base of each is the transition zone (TZ), a gate that controls which proteins enter and leave. In our paper out today in Science, we used cryo-FIB-ET to image the TZ inside human airway cells www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Millions of beating cilia keep airways clean. At the base of each is the transition zone (TZ), a gate that controls which proteins enter and leave. In our paper out today in Science, we used cryo-FIB-ET to image the TZ inside human airway cells www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Dear #CryoEM and #Microtubule enthusiasts,
I’m thrilled to have been part of this exciting journey:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We discovered and characterized a manchette-like microtubule machinery in Xenopus spermatids, likely involved in sperm reshaping and membrane reorganization.
(1/3)
Very happy to see our Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology Roadmap out! A fantastic collective effort, led by Carsten Janke and Zdenek Lansky, together with an amazing group of colleagues, and sparked by inspiring discussions at the Fondation des Treilles.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Endocytic clathrin coats are surprisingly dynamic: triskelia turn over in seconds. How is the turnover regulated and what is it for? Read Anne-Laure Boinet's preprint with @rouxlab.bsky.socialwww.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
My department @eth-dbiol.bsky.social at ETH Zurich is hiring for a tenured professor in mol cell bio and biochemistry (associate/full). The position is within the Institute of Biochemistry (www.bc.biol.ethz.ch) and it is fairly open within their scope of research. www.nature.com/naturecareer...
Zhenjie Wang, Zhe Feng et al. uncover the molecular basis of Ana1-driven #centriole elongation in #Drosophila#spermatogenesis, showing that Ana1/CEP295 promotes longitudinal centriole extension through direct interactions with both Cep135 and #microtubules. rupress.org/jcb/article/...
📣 Abstract submission and early registration are now OPEN for the 7th European Cilia Conference—an official EMBO workshop!
📅 8–12 March 2027
📍 Stresa, Italy
Submit and register:
meetings.embo.org/event/27-ciliawww.eurocilia.eu#EMBOCilia#Cilia2027
~50% of fertilized eggs arrest during human pre-implantation. Imaging 150+ embryos revealed error-prone 2nd mitotic divisions; centriole overduplication can be suppressed with PLK4 inhibitor. PMID:42276044, Cell 2026, @Cellhttps://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(26)00637-9#Medsky#Pharmsky 🧪
🔬 #JobAlert Interested in doing a PhD with us in #SyntheticBiology on the Reconstitution of Oscillatory Microtubule-Motor Systems? Check shorturl.at/wis5P (note the eligibility criteria) or/and get in touch with us shorturl.at/WmgOD. Deadline: 31 July 2026
#WeAreHiring#AcademicJobs#ScienceJobs