Lander Lab

We identified the maltoside detergent DM as an effective and easy solution to address preferred orientation in cryo-EM. Helped me switch from graphene grids. Special congrats to Maria Rafiq! @landerlab.bsky.social @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social @wisemanlab.bsky.social #cryoEM doi.org/10.64898/202...

Helical Reconstruction of Amyloids in cryoSPARC? We present guidelines, limitations & future perspectives for processing amyloids in cryoSPARC @structurabio.bsky.social. Great collaboration of the Kelly Lab and @landerlab.bsky.social #cryoEM #amyloid www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

So happy to see these developments! Particularly the structure of the 29 kDa heterodimer of hemoglobin! Well done Oli & co! Of course can’t overlook the importance of sample prep and data collection - credit to Mark Herzik and Mengyu Wu

Check out our new preprint from the @landerlab.bsky.social, Stagg-Lab and Cianfrocco-Lab: CryoSift - An accessible and automated CNN-driven tool for cryo-EM 2D class selection www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Happy testing: cryosift.org #cryoEM #CNN

Thanks for highlighting this great story! @landerlab.bsky.social and I wrote a PREreview about the preprint: prereview.org/reviews/1581...

Exited to share my first PostDoc contribution! Like Magellan explored the globe, you can explore your cryoEM data with Magellon. Congrats to all involved. Scott Stagg Lab & Michael Cianfrocco Lab @landerlab.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🌎❄️🔬

In this feature, Gabe Lander (@landerlab.bsky.social) and Adrian Koh discuss how they are working to improve cryo-EM technology >>> www.biotechniques.com/proteomics/s... @scripps.edu 🧪

🚨New preprint!🚨 #teamtomo We expanded Surface Morphometrics to quantify membrane thickness from cryo-ET—revealing local variation across organelles. Led by the lab’s first grad student, @mmedina300kv.bsky.social (defending Monday! 🍾) w/ @attychang.bsky.social @hamid13r.bsky.social & @tomo.science

Our latest review is out in COSB! Led by Zeba Rizvi @zrizvi.bsky.social,‬ we explore how cryo-EM has brought new insights to Cullin RING ligases - from conformations to allosteric control, cryo-EM has massively improved our understanding of these dynamic molecular machines. tinyurl.com/y4sza8dh

Social media has been great in helping us identify contaminants or cofactors in the past - Any ideas what this complex might be in our HEK293 FLAG pulldown? (We should put together a repository of common contaminants in different cell types)

Finally recovered from 2 weeks of #cryoEM What a blast! After 3 times TA-ing for CSHL, I can’t begin to describe the joy it has brought me to teach and learn at this amazing course. Thanks to @jencash.bsky.social @landerlab.bsky.social @matthijnvos.bsky.social et al. for bringing this to life!

A pie graph worth keeping in mind as the NIH budget plummets jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... for 356 new FDA drugs approved

Read of the week. Is this future of freezing cryo-EM grids - Foam Film Vitrification without blotting? Congrats to Russo and Löwe labs!

Big congrats to Dr. Kelly Chen on completing her PhD! She wrangled human ClpXP into submission with CryoEM, and now she's off to tackle new challenges at Genentech. We couldn’t be more proud of all she’s accomplished, and we all wish her all the best in this next chapter of her scientific journey.

That’s a wrap on the 2025 Cold Spring Harbor CryoEM course! Huge thanks to the amazing students for your enthusiasm, the TAs for your dedication, and the invited lecturers for sharing your expertise. Keep pushing the boundaries of single particle EM - excited to see what you all accomplish next!

Congrats to Group 1, winners of the 2025 CSHL #CryoEM course! They reconstructed a 1.9 A structure from 100 images, the built and refined an outstanding atomic model with great validation metrics. They are the recipients of the new Cryo Champion Chalice, adorned with $2,467 worth of used autogrids!

CSHL 2025 #CryoEM course update - final hour of the competition and the teams are refining their atomic models. Amazing what these students have done with 100 micrographs in just a few hours!

It’s the last full day of the CSHL #CryoEM course! Last leg of the competition - solve the structure of a mystery protein and generate an atomic model with a complete Table 1 (sequence not provided). Students are learning that ChatGPT isn’t much help when trying to identify symmetry of a structure…

Brace yourselves, Matthijn Vos @matthijnvos.bsky.social has arrived! EM expert & head of the NanoImaging Core at the Institut Pasteur, he's known for his razor-sharp critiques and brutal honesty. But beneath the grumpiness? A brilliant scientist and an invaluable colleague. Welcome, Matthijn!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day from the CSHL #cryoEM course! Data collection day for the final competition, but it looks like some mischievous leprechauns got into the microscope and messed up the autoloader… A tough but valuable lesson for the students: sometimes your resolution is limited by bad luck…

Day 11 of the CSHL #CryoEM course: depositing data and new developments at the EMDB with Jack Turner, @jencash.bsky.social showed how to make graphene oxide grids, and learned how to make local resolution maps. Competitive data collection starts tomorrow!

We’ve seen some good grids and some bad at the CSHL #CryoEM course, but I think we all agree that @miroastore.bsky.social should be awarded the 2025 “worst grid” award. But for someone who never held a pipette prior to this course he also deserves the “most improved” award - keep it up Miro!

Saturday night and the lab is in full swing as the participants of the CSHL #CryoEM course prepare for the final competition - solve the structure of a mystery protein in less than 4 hours.

Outstanding lecture on EM validation by Oli Clarke @olibclarke.bsky.social this morning at the CSHL #cryoEM course.

Today at the CSHL #CryoEM course: we began with an excellent overview of atomic model validation by Christopher Williams, then an in-depth modeling tutorial by @jencash.bsky.social, a masking and local refinement tutorial by Kelli H, and tonight the students begin flying solo on the Krios!

Sad news about Karen Davies' passing. Karen was an inspiration in bioenergetics and cryoET. Her pioneering postdoctoral work on ATP synthase and respiratory supercomplexes marked turning points in the field. I created Scholar profile to acknowledge her contribution scholar.google.com/citations?hl...

Our first competition at the CSHL #CryoEM course - each student tries to make a perfect grid of ryanodine receptors. We’ll be checking atlases after dinner… who will be tonight’s big winner? Thanks to @olibclarke.bsky.social for providing sample and gold grids!

Always here to be a resource for the #cryoEM community. It was great introducing what structural biology can do for science and how NYSBC as a service center can support the next generation of scientists. I look forward towards their research journey. Curious? Let us know more: cryoemcenters.org

Day 6 of the CSHL #CryoEM course: field trip to the city! Visited the New York Structural Biology Center, where Ed Eng @edwardteng.bsky.social introduced everyone to the EM sample prep and collection resources available at nccat.nysbc.org. Then a tour of the new technologies being developed there!

Great #postdoc opportunity to join @annebertolotti.bsky.social’s group in the LMB’s Neurobiology Division, working on innovative approaches to rescue mice from protein misfolding in neurodegenerative disease. More info: www.nature.com/naturecareer... Apply by 03 APR #PostdocJobs #ScienceJobs

Day 5 of the CSHL #cryoEM course: clipping and loading autogrids. Thanks to SubAngstrom for supplying us with rings and clips for the course! Kelli H also gave an amazing tutorial on 3D mask creation, which we put to use for a signal subtraction tutorial run tonight by Katerina Naydenova.

A DNA repair enzyme that some cancers rely on to survive could be the key to more precise treatments. The @landerlab.bsky.social has captured the first images of Pol-theta in action, revealing how it repairs DNA—offering a blueprint for better cancer therapies.

Day 4 of the CSHL #CryoEM course - A great lecture on advanced processing strategies from Justin Kollman, then more hands-on training! Freezing cryo samples with the Leica GP2, TFS Vitrobot, and manual plunger; preparing and checking negative stain grids; and checking alignments on the Krios.

Everyone crowding around Matthijn Vos for an introductory demo on the Krios on day 3 of the CSHL #CryoEM course

Thank you to Christina Woo for presenting such a data-packed, standing-room only seminar in Molecular Therapeutics @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social this week! Awesome work!!!

Today at the CSHL #CryoEM course Lauren @lalexandrescu.bsky.social showed everyone how to make their own Quantifoil-style holey cryo-em grids! Thanks to @johnrubinstein.bsky.social for introducing us to this technique - I predict it will be adopted by many other labs!

We couldn't get out to #StandUpForScience with everyone else, but lots of great science discussed today at the CSHL #CryoEM course - intro to electron microscope optics with Alex de Marco, Fourier transforms & CTF with Tim Grant, and direct detectors with Katerina Naydenova.

BTW welcome to Bluesky, Yifan Cheng @cryosp.bsky.social Professor at UCSF, HHMI investigator, #CryoEM pioneer, and aggregator of fish, chicken, and cannolis on a single plate.

Amazing Day 1 of the CSHL #CryoEM Course! Yifan Cheng @cryosp.bsky.social kicked things off with a historical perspective and discussing dynamic allostery, Kelli Hvorecny gave a workflow overview, Lauren Anderson introduced ChimeraX @www.cgl.ucsf.edu, and Katerina Naydenova ran a RELION tutorial.

Welcome to the participants of the 2025 #CryoEM course at Cold Spring Harbor Lab @cshlaboratory.bsky.social ! It's going to be a great 2 weeks immersed in all aspects of single particle cryoEM methods.

Congrats to our postdoc Jan-Hannes Schaefer @jhschaef.bsky.social on being awarded a fellowship from the Walter Benjamin Program! Jan is collaborating with the Kelly lab here at Scripps Research @scripps.edu to understand how transthyretin forms amyloids that lead to heart disease.

Congrats to Chris Zerio on publication of his study showing how cancer-associated Polymerase Theta undergoes both composition and conformational rearrangements to bring together broken strands of DNA for repair. Great collaboration with MOMA therapeutics. Now in peer-reviewed form: rdcu.be/ebFya

We have an exciting opportunity for a new independent group leader with an interest in structural/molecular biology and machine learning to join our Division of Structural Studies at the @mrclmb.bsky.social! 🥳 Re-posts appreciated. www.nature.com/naturecareer...

Just because it's a homo-oligomer, don't assume it's symmetric! @benjabsnt.bsky.social & collaborators used cryo-EM to study the transthyretin (TTR) tetramer (55 kDa), shedding light on its misfolding pathways linked to amyloid disease. Now in peer-reviewed form: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Protein production for cryoEM structure determination just got a lot cheaper - high resolution structure from half a plate of HEK cells with the "MIcro ISolation (MISO)" microfluidics-based approach. Congrats to the Brunner and Efremov labs in Brussels! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I'm happy and humbled to take on a new role with @rcsbpdb.bsky.social. I'll be continuing David Goodsell's work on the Molecule of the Month, starting with my first article on Assembly Line Polyketide Synthases! Check it out (animation included!) pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/301

After a remarkable 300 columns, David Goodsell has retired from the Molecule of the Month. We are very grateful for his service. @jiwasa.bsky.social will continue the series, beginning with January's article on Assembly Line Polyketide Synthases Details: cdn.rcsb.org/rcsb-pd...

Last chance to apply to the Cold Spring Harbor #cryoem course this March (application deadline is Jan 15th)! Learn all about sample prep, microscope operation, and image processing at this fun 2-week course @jencash.bsky.social @cshlnews.bsky.social meetings.cshl.edu/courses.aspx...

1/ 🚨We’re thrilled to share our latest study: "Cellular Function of a Biomolecular Condensate Is Determined by Its Ultrastructure" 🌟 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... How do biomolecular condensates achieve their cellular roles? It comes down to their internal structure. 🧵⬇️

A huge week for Prakhyat, our joint @scripps.edu student with the @wisemanlab.bsky.social! He was awarded an AHA earlier in the week and today he passed his PhD candidacy exam! Because Prakh is so chill, we celebrated with chocolate-coffee liquid nitrogen ice cream. 😎