News
New paper in The EMBO Journal
Molecular architecture of 40S translation initiation complexes on the hepatitis C virus IRES
The EMBO Journal (2022) e110581https://doi.org/10.15252/embj.2022110581
Here is an annotated abstract:
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Dieter Typke † August 30, 2021
With Dieter Typke another long-year colleague and friend passed away.
When I started this blog I did not have the foresight that it would, when carried on long enough, become a litany of obituaries for friends and colleagues, and some colleagues that have become friends. But this is a logical consequence of aging and the random nature of our human frailty, and upon reflection I might have thought of this as a serious risk...
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John Spence: April 4, 1943 – June 28, 2021
It was with great sadness that we learn about John’s death, at age 75.
John has made many seminal contributions to electron optics, electron microscopy and, lately, to the development of the X-ray free-electron laser technology. Although his main contributions have been in materials science, his book on electron optics has been the Bible, as a thorough introduction and reference work, for electron microscopists...
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Alexander Sergeevich Spirin
Alexander Spirin was an eminent Russian biochemist, who was one of the early pioneers in ribosome research. His lifelong research interests were nucleic acids and protein synthesis. Among his many early achievements he predicted the existence of messenger RNA, and showed that the RNA content of ribosomes does not code for protein, but is structural...Read More
Just accepted by Proteomics
A time-resolved cryo-EM Study of S. cerevisiae 80S Ribosome Protein Composition in Response to a Change in Carbon Source
Ming Sun, Bingxin Shen, Wen Li, Parimal Samir, Christopher M Browne, Andrew Link and Joachim Frank (2020). PROTEOMICS DOI: 10.1002/pmic.202000125
ABSTRACT
The role of the ribosome in the regulation of gene expression has come into increased focus. It has been proposed that ribosomes are catalytic engines capable of changing their protein composition in response to environmental stimuli. We employed time-resolved cryo-electron microscopy...
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GABA Receptor Paper in NATURE – example of a successful technology transfer
Structure of human GABAB receptor in an inactive state
Jinseo Park, Ziao Fu, Aurel Frangaj, Jonathan Liu, Lidia Mosyak, Tong Shen, Vesna N. Slavkovich, Kimberly M. Ray, Jaume Taura, Baohua Cao, Yong Geng, Hao Zuo, Yongjun Kou, Robert Grassucci, Shaoxia Chen, Zheng Liu, Xin Lin, Justin P. Williams, William J. Rice, Edward T. Eng, Rick K. Huang, Rajesh K. Soni, Brian Kloss, Zhiheng Yu, Jonathan A. Javitch, Wayne A. Hendrickson, Paul A. Slesinger, Matthias Quick, Joseph Graziano, Hongtao Yu, Oliver Fiehn, Oliver B. Clarke, Joachim Frank &
Qing R. Fan
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New paper in Nature
Structure of human GABAB receptor in an inactive state.
Jinseo Park, Ziao Fu, Aurel Frangaj, Jonathan Liu, Lidia Mosyak, Tong Shen, Vesna N. Slavkovich, Kimberly M. Ray, Jaume Taura, Baohua Cao, Yong Geng, Hao Zuo, Yongjun Kou, Robert Grassucci, Shaoxia Chen, Zheng Liu, Xin Lin, Justin P. Williams, William J. Rice, Edward T. Eng, Rick K. Huang, Rajesh K. Soni, Brian Kloss, Zhiheng Yu, Jonathan A. Javitch, Wayne A. Hendrickson, Paul A. Slesinger, Matthias Quick,...
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A Brief Guide to Three Papers from Our Group Related to Structural Heterogeneity
Structural heterogeneity has been long recognized as a problem for structure research by cryo-EM. Different molecule species, or molecules in different conformational states or binding configurations may co-exist.
Without resolving this heterogeneity, reconstructions are blurred, and are invalid as representations of any one physical structure. Existing, widely used approaches to resolving heterogeneity, such as Relion, are based on the assumption that the structure exists in a few discrete conformations. Beginning with a paper we published jointly with the group of Abbas Ourmazd at the University...
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The Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta
Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis
1893 – 1972
I recently was invited by the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta to give the convocation address (see http://franxfiction.com/convocation-speech-at-indian-statistical-institute-jan-23-2020/).
I...
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The Electron Microscope – from a Sketch in 1931 to Reality
A sketch circulated by Pablo Guerra Lahoz on Twitter prompted me to put together this brief chronicle of the invention that has changed our lives in so many ways. What I didn’t realize was that Ernst Ruska started his studies at the Technical University Munich in 1929, where I got my Ph.D. in 1970. He went to the Technical University of Berlin in 1927 where he finished his Ph.D. in 1933. He hypothesized that electrons with their much smaller wavelength could be used to image objects with much higher resolution than light microscopes. The sketch dated March 9, 1931 is a testimony of brilliance.
For...
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