Earlier this month, I defended my PhD in front of friends and family. I’ve dreamed of this moment forever and I’m glad it came true. Thanks to my mentors, Drs. Paulson and Sharkey, and my committee! I will be starting a postdoctoral position in Dr. Roy Parker’s lab at CU Boulder.

RT @Dr_Sprggs: How it started vs how it’s going…. On Sept. 1, 2017, I started as a new postdoc in @UMCDB and today I’m faculty. I feel trul….

RT @RobertoZoncu: Excited to share ‘Leucine Aminopeptidase LyLAP enables lysosomal degradation of membrane proteins’, by phenomenal superst….

RT @IndiaBioscience: We’re excited to announce the release of our latest collection of 4 biomolecules—F-ATPase, RuBisCo, RAG-1/2, and GFP -….

RT @KoiralaLab: We are excited to introduce first-of-a-kind immunofluorescent probes to visualize RNA in cells! @NAR_Open .Synthetic anti-R….

RT @Patrick18287926: New preprint! We predict 9,452 human-pathogen protein interactions, tripling structural knowledge for key pathogens.….

If you’d like to talk to me about this work, I’ll be at #ASCB2024 board B98 this morning!.

RT @edchuong: Paper Link: "Regulation of human interferon signaling by transposon exonization"

RT @ScienceMagazine: This light-sheet microscopy three-dimensional rendering shows a first-of-its-kind mouse whole-brain mRNA analysis at s….

Just created a new BlueSky account - @harimohan.bsky.social. If you’re on there, we should connect!.

RT @mikhailshapiro: Can we make Acoustic Proteins with different "colors" the way the developers of GFP made BFP, YFP, etc?🌈.Yes, via #dire….

@alexmgreer @BarmadaLab @Castaneda_lab @smslmoon @LisaSharkey20 Read more - … 8/8.@Pha_Tran_Papers @biorxiv_cellbio @UMichCMB.#condensate #ALS.

retrovirus-like proteins! Huge thanks to all co-authors, including @alexmgreer and @BarmadaLab. Big shoutout to @Castaneda_lab and @smslmoon for their guidance. And lastly to my advisors, Hank Paulson and.@LisaSharkey20 for helping me explore these fascinating ideas! 7/8.

transports RNA and proteins like tau, shown by @JasonSynaptic lab and others. Our work also uncovers how these "accidents of evolution" have co-opted key roles in stress response and proteostasis, especially in UBQLN2 biology. Stay tuned for more weird biology involving 6/8.

PEG10. This took so much time and effort but was worth it. We found several stress granules that had VLPs in them or within close proximity! So what does this all mean? PEG10 VLPs could transport proteins and RNA to and from pathological condensates similar to how Arc 5/8

PEG10 also shuttles select extracellular vesicle proteins, e.g. ATXN10, to stress granules. Since PEG10, like Arc, makes virus-like particles (VLPs) that are secreted in these vesicles, we decided to look closer at stress granules. We did cryo-CLEM using fluorescent G3BP1 and 4/8

RTL8 is critical here because it allows UBQLN2 and PEG10 to interact. These are dual-purpose interactions - RTL8 and PEG10 use them to recruit UBQLN2 to stress granules! Not having PEG10, RTL8, or UBQLN2 accelerates stress granule disassembly and alters their composition. 3/8

We started by looking at an unlikely partnership between the proteostasis factor, UBQLN2, implicated in ALS, and a pair of retrovirus-like proteins, RTL8 and PEG10; PEG10 is increased in ALS and Angelman’s syndrome. We show that UBQLN2 & RTL8 work together to regulate PEG10. 2/8.

Our preprint uncovering how endogenous retrovirus-like proteins reshape fundamental stress granule features is now online! So many awesome discoveries, the coolest being virus-like particles within stress granules! Cryo-CLEM work was led by Martin from @s_mosalaganti lab 1/8

RT @Pha_Tran_Papers: Endogenous retrovirus-like proteins recruit UBQLN2 to stress granules and alter their functional properties. https://t.….