This monthβs top posts, grouped by platform (Bluesky, X, and LinkedIn), showcase the latest cryo-EM structural breakthroughs, NIH funding reforms, and biotech market trends. While structural discoveries such as ABCD1 function, NKCC1 inhibition, and GPCR activation continue to drive drug discovery, the biotech industry faces increasing uncertainty, from declining preclinical valuations to debates over shifting policies and their potential impact.
BlueSky cryo-EM & biotech
Excited to be at #BPS2025! π Our lab is contributing to the #cryoEM symposium, showcasing how computational methods and AI are revolutionizing cryo-EM analysis. See you there! π¬π‘ #Biophysics #AI Read our papers to know more: www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
β Giulia Palermo (@giuliapalermo.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 4:11 PM
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Earlier work from our lab on human ABCD1 structures www.nature.com/articles/s42...
β Amer Alam (@alamlab.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 2:34 PM
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Take a look at our new paper! We show that YbiO can achieve a conductance equivalent to MscL, the largest known gated ion channel. We also show the presence of several subconducting states. One state is consistent with a structure we determine using cryoEM. www.cell.com/structure/fu...
β Ben Lane (@lane-b.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 1:42 PM
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Finally, my postdoc work is published in Cell Structure! π Grateful for the chance to apply deep learning to cryo-ET and learn from @haselbachlab.bsky.social about structural biologyπ¦ . Huge thanks to Lukas Herrmann for coding help and Philipp Grohs for my position and all the GPUs.
β Pavol Harar (@paloha.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 11:08 AM
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Structural basis for human NKCC1 inhibition by loop diuretic drugs. @EMBOPress Check the #cryoEM #structure of this #membrane #protein in the UniTmp database: https://pdbtm.unitmp.org/entry/9c0e
β UniTmp (@unitmporg.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 8:56 AM
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Excited to share our new preprint "Dynamic nanoscale architecture of synaptic vesicle fusion in mouse hippocampal neurons" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We combine optogenetic stimulation of neurons with in situ cryo-ET to characterize membrane dynamics during synaptic vesicle fusion βοΈπ¬β±οΈ
β Jana Kroll (@janakroll.bsky.social) February 12, 2025 at 11:05 PM
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Mystery 2D class... friendly panda or grumpy fish? #cryoEM
β Greg Madej (@greg-madej.bsky.social) February 13, 2025 at 7:18 PM
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@andrewmstern.bsky.social showed that soluble AD brain fractions contain #Abeta and #tau filaments, and we confirmed by #cryoEM that these adopt the same folds as in sarkosyl-insoluble fractions. Therefore, why would the mysterious STAs below not just be filaments? www.nature.com/articles/s41...
β Sjors Scheres (@sjorsscheres.bsky.social) February 13, 2025 at 6:30 PM
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Don't miss this workshop at a top-secret location in central London!
β Dimitry Tegunov (@dtegunov.bsky.social) February 12, 2025 at 1:21 AM
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We re-ran AF3 without templates, since we noticed it could use any template in the PDB, including the ground truth. We see the performance drops slightly in the lowest bins, but the gap to other methods still exists. We will update the preprint shortly!
β Peter Ε krinjar (@peterskrinjar.bsky.social) February 11, 2025 at 6:25 PM
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Hi all- we are searching for a new manager/operator for KCL's Cryo-EM Structural Discovery Facility: a JEOL cryoARM200 + k3 and sample preparation equipment. It's producing excellent high-resolution data using serialEM and Gatan Latitude (EPU-like)! Apply below! www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/107305-...
β Atherton Lab KCL (@athertonlabkcl.bsky.social) February 12, 2025 at 4:24 PM
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Check out our new study on water networks in high resolution cryo-EM RNA data! @ Chiu Lab @ Das Lab
β Rachael Kretsch (@rachael-kretsch.bsky.social) January 25, 2025 at 9:01 PM
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We are very pleased to share our latest preprint on the architecture of the membrane complex of the type 7 secretion system involved in bacterial competition in B. subtilis. #CryoEM #microsky
β RΓ©mi Fronzes (@fronzeslab.bsky.social) January 26, 2025 at 5:55 PM
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So has anyone put a really, truly, AI-from-scratch antibody into the clinic yet? Press releases aside, the answer is "absolutely not".
β Derek Lowe (@dereklowe.bsky.social) February 13, 2025 at 8:25 PM
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X/Twitter cryo-EM & biotech
RFK's confirmation today marks the date when healthcare policy officially jumped into its dystopian phase. You don't put someone in charge of HHS who has repeatedly denied, essentially, that water boils at 212 degrees. Data mean nothing to him. Bad tidings for #biotech.
β John Carroll (@JohnCendpts) February 13, 2025
A cut to NIH indirect funding isn't necessarily a reduction in total NIH research funding. The presumption is that if indirect funding is reduced, provided the overall NIH budget remains constant, it'll free up more money for direct research funding, including additional grants https://t.co/absB9RhknX
β Scott Gottlieb, MD πΊπΈ (@ScottGottliebMD) February 11, 2025
Cryo-EM structure of the botulinum neurotoxin A/SV2B complex and its implications for translocation
β Kato (@oxkawaka) February 11, 2025
γγγͺγγΉη₯η΅ζ―η΄ γδΌγγζ©ζ§https://t.co/5LBhzYiGmc
The pharmaceutical industry appears to be headed for the "wood chipper" said op-ed by @zeynep. "It was nice having the world's most important, most vital medical research infrastructure. But enough. To the wood chipper!" Pour one out for the NIH, FDA & CDC. Rest in peace $XBI pic.twitter.com/JdznjgUjEo
β Pearl Freier (@PearlF) February 11, 2025
Are orexins the next golden child of neuroscience? https://t.co/bnFe7grH5d
β Cheers (@raintank2010) February 11, 2025
trials for Type 2 narcolepsy are riskier
Takeda's failure: they didn't dose any higher than they did in Type 1
Structure and function of a near fully-activated intermediate GPCR-GΞ±Ξ²Ξ³ complexhttps://t.co/uiASRc4DY3
β Cheers (@raintank2010) February 11, 2025
we present direct evidence that the complex at this intermediate state initiates a rate-limited nucleotide exchange before transitioning to the fully activated complex.
Pfizer's Super Bowl commercial tonight. Knocking out cancer. π₯ https://t.co/TLIeUVz5J5
β Brad Loncar (@bradloncar) February 9, 2025
Most people outside academia don't understand how dependent researchers are on these grants - people will literally get fired without them. But, I still think we should be fair and say parts of universities could use reform - just not in this reckless way.
β Erik Lindahl - eriklindahl.bsky.social (@eriklindahl) February 8, 2025
Structural basis of inhibition of human NaV1.8 by the tarantula venom peptide Protoxin-Ihttps://t.co/we9iPYFvsN
β Kato (@oxkawaka) February 8, 2025
Here is an excellent graph which demonstrates how each one of the big Pharma companies - that were once diversified conglomerates, has unloaded its side businesses in order to focus on developing Biotech-style medicines & treatments. $NVO $BMY $AZN $PFE $ABBV $LLY $JNJ $MRK $XBI pic.twitter.com/Ife2DrZt6f
β Yair Einhorn (@yaireinhorn) February 3, 2025
Ever wondered how Pol II speed is controlled during productive elongation?
β Suyang Zhang (@Zhang_Suyang) February 3, 2025
Our study reveals that the helicase RECQL5 triggers transcription braking, while the transcription-coupled DNA repair complex restores the elongation rate. #cryoEM #transcriptionhttps://t.co/ViwoGIz74o pic.twitter.com/1xBWPIrF40
I think biotech strong this morning on exactly this point https://t.co/6hHTwBFISZ
β Dan Rosenblum (@sharkbiotech) February 4, 2025
Brutal fraud in Alzheimers research re: amyloid hypothesis. Even more brutal that it was journalists who uncovered decades of fraudulent research, not the scientists, doctors or 'experts' themselves who were smart enough to notice the painfully obvious lack of effect ofβ¦
β Dr. Jason Fung (@drjasonfung) February 2, 2025
π’Excited to introduce NanoCas -our new mini CRISPR system that can reach tissues previously out of reach!
β Lucas Harrington (@CRISPR_LuCas) January 31, 2025
By shrinking CRISPR to 1/3 its normal size, we can now edit genes in muscle, heart & brain that were difficult to access before. Summary & link to paper: pic.twitter.com/ipvUgn2qZU
Big pharma is actually the good guy.
β Gunnar Esiason (@G17Esiason) January 30, 2025
It's easy to be a skeptic until cancer, cardiovascular disease or genetic disease enters your life, and you realize most life threatening ailments aren't cured by a supremely skillful doctor in the emergency department and his or her scalpel
My take on RFK Jr is that while a disagree with many of his ideas and I think he has a questionable temperament, I do think he should be confirmed because in his case he was essentially part of the ticket and many Americans in part voted for him and for change in healthcare.
β Brad Loncar (@bradloncar) January 29, 2025
Are Weight-Loss Drugs Like Gym Memberships? The Answer Is Worth Billions - An analyst (Evercore's Umer Raffat) thinks he has cracked the code on why highflying Eli Lilly missed two quarters of Wall Street projections $LLY $NOVOB
β Bertrand Delsuc (@BertrandBio) January 29, 2025
"The drugs have stellar growth in initial sign-ups⦠pic.twitter.com/b5f1pcfzVH
When I see new obesity data, I go right to the tolerability numbers. Where new innovation in obesity Rx is needed is not greater weight loss, but better tolerability. It's amateur hour that $NVO did not provide this info today, and in fact did statistical gymnastics around it.
β Brad Loncar (@bradloncar) January 24, 2025
The BioTech segment which was hit the most in the current harsh market conditions is that of the preclinical biotech companies. While in 2021 the average preclinical BioTech company was worth $511M in 2023 that value dropped to $125M! In 2024 the value dropped even more and is⦠pic.twitter.com/7kLxJTU1h8
β Yair Einhorn (@yaireinhorn) January 24, 2025
To people who think
β Yann LeCun (@ylecun) January 25, 2025
"China is surpassing the US in AI"
the correct thought is
"Open source models are surpassing closed ones"
See β¬οΈβ¬οΈβ¬οΈ
The structure and function of the ghrelin receptor coding for drug actionshttps://t.co/5kNyNHUGPd
β BryanRoth (@zenbrainest) January 22, 2025
Cryo-EM reveals cholesterol binding in the lysosomal GPCR-like protein LYCHOS | Nat Struct Mol Biolhttps://t.co/zQj4qm0BgL pic.twitter.com/wSpSd4pVX5
β Membrane Protein PDB (@MemProtPDB) January 19, 2025
Small molecule inhibits KCNQ channels with a non-blocking mechanism | Nat Chem Biolhttps://t.co/kTDxXa0cQp pic.twitter.com/o1m6JKAC7w
β Membrane Protein PDB (@MemProtPDB) January 19, 2025
LinkedIN cryo-EM & biotech