fitzpatricklab.bsky.social

Pulsed #lasers integrated with #cryoEM: @fitzpatricklab.bsky.social postdoc Daniel Du aims to boost contrast in #cryoET zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/making-world-s-best-microscopes-biology-better zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/science-life-daniel-du elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/109793v1

Amyloid-mediated RNA uptake by sperm for embryonic delivery pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42933403/ #cryoEM

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Protein fibers, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s, spotted making deliveries to sperm | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

Amyloid fibers helped deliver RNA into sperm; resulting embryos could make at least 10 times more green fluorescent protein than when sperm received RNA without the fibers. doi.org/hcpx7k

Online Now: Amyloid-mediated RNA uptake by sperm for embryonic delivery Online now:

Amyloid fibers are best known as hallmarks of neurodegenerative diseases. But they recently turned up in a surprising place: in sperm, shuttling genetic material. New research from the @fitzpatricklab.bsky.social lab holds potential for gene-editing technologies. tinyurl.com/37pdmhf8

Brooklyn, as ever

Brooklyn, as ever

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🔎 A classic #cryoEM particle curation conundrum: 2D or 3D classification? "Decoy Classification" using Heterogeneous Refinement in #CryoSPARC curates particles directly in 3D, helping remove junk particles while preserving valuable views. Read more in the CryoSPARC Blog 👉 bit.ly/3SXfwS0

ʙɪɴᴅᴄʀᴀꜰᴛ2 is out, and we're not waiting for the paper. The full code drops today, free for academic and industry use. We're releasing it early so you can start designing right now, and bring its full power to the current Adaptyv competition. github.com/PacesaLab/Bi...

~50% of fertilized human eggs stall in pre-implantation. Imaging 150+ eggs revealed error-prone 2nd mitotic divisions are key. Centriole overduplication can be reduced with PLK4 inhibition. PMID:42276044, Cell 2026, @Cell https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(26)00637-9 #Medsky #Pharmsky 🧪

Today in Nature @nature.com, we report a new approach to studying human brain development and modeling disease in vivo. Open article link below 👇

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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/...

Stunning cryo-ET analysis from the Harrison Lab capturing every stage of how non-membrane viruses infect animal cells www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Imaging large fields-of-view at high resolution in cryo-ET with square beam montaging https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.27.747605v1

In-cell structures visualize human pre-ribosome assembly in the nucleolus https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.01.729245v1

One cell, one tomogram! Our montage tomography workflow, MOSAIC, is out in Structure, and MontageMaker is on GitHub! MOSAIC: www.cell.com/structure/fu... MontageMaker: github.com/MPI-Dortmund... Big thanks to @maikaboiero.bsky.social, Adriana Prajica, Gavin Rice, and @raunser-lab.bsky.social!

🚀 Can automation solve preferred orientation in your #cryoEM datasets? After automating processing across 21 GPCR datasets in #CryoSPARC, we updated the workflow to be even more robust to preferred orientation, achieving improved map quality over manual processing. Read more 👉 bit.ly/3RyOIGG

CryoSPARC workshop in Toronto! Beyond consensus refinements: Advanced cryo-EM data processing with CryoSPARC Sept 24-25, 2026 (part of the Canadian Cryo-EM Nexus) Register here: cvent.me/dL1wem Please see details in the link or the image Alt text @structurabio.bsky.social @sickkidsto.bsky.social

Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Huge thanks to my collaborators, mentors @irinadudanova.bsky.social and @takakikomiyama.bsky.social , and funders (DFG, NIH, ERC, Joachim Herz Fndt., CZI, Simons Fndt.) who made this possible. It’s been a long, exciting road and there’s more ahead. Onward!

@cmholab.bsky.social @columbiamed.bsky.social solve decades-old mystery of how malaria parasites invade human cells | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

Incredibly proud of Messi Haile @mehsehret.bsky.social, a founding member of the Ho Lab, for her beautiful work uncovering the inner workings of a central piece of the malaria parasite invasion machinery: the malarial moving junction, out today in @cellpress.bsky.social! tinyurl.com/4p3md2eb 🦠❄️🔬

Galvanin (TMEM154) is an electric-field sensor for directed cell migration: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

What is the best way to distribute the electron dose across your tilt series in cryo ET? Thanks to Maarten Tuijtel, we finally know --> head over to eLife for the publication! doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

the-one-percent.qedscience.com Thanks to #qed for including our preprint entitled "Amyloid-mediated RNA uptake by sperm for embryonic delivery" in the most compelling preprints of 2025! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Now in Nature SMB: how do proteins fold while still being made? We solved all-atom structures of two ribosome-tethered folding intermediates—invisible to cryo-EM, seen only by ¹⁹F NMR. Thank you @julianstreit.bsky.social, John Christodoulou & co-authors! nature.com/articles/s41594-026-01814-7

Hats off to JC and team, amazing work

Microscopy nerd alert: two scopes in California can now do phase contrast cryoEM - potentially fixing the tech's very low signal/noise ratio. The phase filter they used is a laser. Which is also the brightest thing in the solar system (outside of the inside of the sun). cen.acs.org/analytical-c...

Scientists detail a previously unknown pathway by which our bodies fight infections--directly inside infected cells. Read more in Molecular Cell: www.cell.com/molecular-ce... Tyler Rhinesmith, Leo James, & colleagues @cp-molcell.bsky.social

Automation of #CryoEM SPA from raw movies in @cryosparc.bsky.social to the generation of high-resolution density maps Resolution improved in 80% of the targeted #GPCR datasets The pipeline in this paper is available for download and use: biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Incredibly excited and grateful to be joining the Burroughs Wellcome Fund family! Thank you @bwfund.bsky.social and the selection committee members for supporting and believing in our vision and congrats to the other 2026 PATH Investigators!!! 🥳

Exciting to see momentum building around our concept of inverse agonist-bound GPCR–G protein complex structures (PMID: 39775170). Great work from the groups of Can Cao & Xiaoguang Lei: a clinically viable MRGPRX4 inverse agonist for chronic itch with therapeutic potential. Congrats to all!

Effective laser phase plates should be transformational for cryo-EM and this proof of principle study shows a pulsed system successfully intergrated in a SEM. A powerful step towards functional systems in a cryo-TEM

Neuroscientists are always looking for new tools that can bring the brain into sharper focus. For postdoc Daniel Du, that means shooting lasers at state-of-the-art microscopes to take better snapshots of the building blocks of the brain: zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/science-life...

How do you make one of the best microscopes in biology even better? Postdoc Daniel Du of the Fitzpatrick lab zapped electrons with a laser. The new research in @elife.bsky.social with Cornell’s Maxson lab promises improved snapshots of the brain: zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/making-world...

🚀 CryoSPARC v5.0 BETA is here! We’re excited to deploy another major #CryoSPARC release to help enable and accelerate #cryoEM data analysis. v5 has a redesigned underlying software system and many new features - highlights in thread! Full changelog: cryosparc.com/updates/v5.0.0

Frozen Bryant Park fountain in snowy NYC!

A combined approach using light microscopy and ion beam milling enhances the precision of cryoET sample preparation, enabling more accurate targeting of small, rare structures within cells. doi.org/hbkb94

Reversible lipid-mediated pH-gating of connexin-46/50 by cryo-EM pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41526355/ #cryoEM

Amyloid-mediated RNA uptake by sperm for embryonic delivery https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.10.693493v1

Excited to share our latest research, out today in Cell (@cellpress.bsky.social) Using cryo-EM and cell-based studies, we reveal how large nutrient sensing protein complexes form at the lysosomal membrane to turn off mTORC1 and halt anabolic signalling. Read the paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

Another member of the Fitzpatrick/Shapiro quad @zuckermanbrain.bsky.social embarks on setting up his lab! If you wish to use #cryoEM #cryoET to study how viruses enter & evade the immune system, & design antibody-based vaccines, check out the Roark lab: isb.med.upenn.edu/research/cryoem-and-cryoet

Organelles do NOT have a single uniform pH. And if you think they must, because “protons diffuse fast,” this paper is for you. A thread on why that assumption is wrong; and what we found instead. 🧵 1/n

Thrilled to see our review article "The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins" highlighted on the cover of Nature Reviews Neuroscience 🤩. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @msarscentre.bsky.social 🧠✨🧬🌊🪼🧽

A quick tutorial on the DAQ structure validation score for protein models derived from cryo-EM. DAQ evaluates amino acid–level accuracy in your model. Consider including a DAQ validation report in your next publication! www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRAT...

I’m very happy (and grateful!) to share that I’m featured in a Nature Cancer Viewpoint about starting my lab at CNIO. In the Lab (www.rcglab.com) we’re combining AI, protein design and structural biology to study protein structures and design novel protein therapeutics for cancer. 🔬