Kaitlyn Kiernan
@kaitlynakiernan.bsky.social
Postdoc in the Sazanov lab at ISTAustria. Using structural biology to find meaning in a world ruled by microbes. 🔬🦠
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
I’m very excited to share my postdoc work in the @plaschkalab.bsky.social, where we investigated the very final act of splicing – spliceosome termination, revealing the stepwise dismantling of the spent spliceosome www.nature.com/articles/s41... (1/11)
Mechanism of spliceosome termination - Nature
A coordinated sequence of RNA helicases and associated factors dismantles normal and defective spliceosome complexes to enable intron degradation and ensure accurate gene expression.
www.nature.com
October 8, 2026 at 10:11 AM
I’m very excited to share my postdoc work in the @plaschkalab.bsky.social, where we investigated the very final act of splicing – spliceosome termination, revealing the stepwise dismantling of the spent spliceosome www.nature.com/articles/s41... (1/11)
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
1/ 🧵 Two classic mitochondrial pathways the TCA cycle and OXPHOS are taught as linked but distinct pathways. I’m happy to share our new work out in @cp-cell.bsky.social showing that in Acanthamoeba they're physically linked—with a TCA enzyme incorporated in ATP synthase. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
Acanthamoeba ATP synthase structure reveals the TCA cycle is tethered to OXPHOS
Acanthamoeba castellanii, a pathogenic amoeba, belongs to an evolutionary branch distinctly
removed from humans and fungi. Cryo-EM of the organism’s ATP synthase enzyme using
raw mitochondrial lysates...
www.cell.com
October 2, 2026 at 2:09 PM
1/ 🧵 Two classic mitochondrial pathways the TCA cycle and OXPHOS are taught as linked but distinct pathways. I’m happy to share our new work out in @cp-cell.bsky.social showing that in Acanthamoeba they're physically linked—with a TCA enzyme incorporated in ATP synthase. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
If you’ve always been curious about how algae fix carbon, @phaips.vd.st, @cellarchlab.com and I have put together the quickest route into pyrenoids. And if you don’t feel like reading at all, we have an accompanying poster
doi.org/10.1242/jcs....
doi.org/10.1242/jcs....
October 2, 2026 at 8:27 AM
If you’ve always been curious about how algae fix carbon, @phaips.vd.st, @cellarchlab.com and I have put together the quickest route into pyrenoids. And if you don’t feel like reading at all, we have an accompanying poster
doi.org/10.1242/jcs....
doi.org/10.1242/jcs....
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Our lab's first preprint! The antiphage protein Tiamat is an ATPase and DNase with homologs across the tree of life. What started as undergrad Shirley Yuan's summer project grew into a paper and a collaboration with
@jpkbravo.bsky.social's group. Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
@jpkbravo.bsky.social's group. Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
October 1, 2026 at 10:04 PM
Our lab's first preprint! The antiphage protein Tiamat is an ATPase and DNase with homologs across the tree of life. What started as undergrad Shirley Yuan's summer project grew into a paper and a collaboration with
@jpkbravo.bsky.social's group. Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
@jpkbravo.bsky.social's group. Link: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Those who had a careful look at the methods section of our work on the #cryoEM structure of the CDK11-cyclin L-SAP30BP complex will have noticed that we added a short peptide to our sample before freezing. If you wonder why...
Have a look at our latest results on #CDK regulation, just posted as a pre-print! This study was spearheaded by PhD student Amy McGeoch. Amy has determined the #cryoEM structure of the CDK11-cyclin L-SAP30B complex, an important regulator of #spliceosome activation.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
October 1, 2026 at 11:57 AM
Those who had a careful look at the methods section of our work on the #cryoEM structure of the CDK11-cyclin L-SAP30BP complex will have noticed that we added a short peptide to our sample before freezing. If you wonder why...
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Cryo-EM peeps are living the dream www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
In-cell structures visualize human pre-ribosome assembly in the nucleolus
In eukaryotes, ribosome biogenesis initiates within the nucleolus, a hallmark multilayered compartment of the nucleus. Structures of pre-ribosomes have been characterized ex situ, but their assembly p...
www.science.org
September 25, 2026 at 2:55 AM
Cryo-EM peeps are living the dream www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
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...
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...
September 21, 2026 at 9:55 AM
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...
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...
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
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/...
In situ structure of the human ciliary transition zone links linker defects to primary ciliary dyskinesia
The ciliary transition zone (TZ) regulates ciliary proteome composition, yet its molecular architecture, protein content, and contribution to motile ciliopathies remain poorly defined. We applied in situ cryo-electron tomography and subtomogram averaging ...
www.science.org
September 10, 2026 at 7:27 PM
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/...
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Happy to share our new preprint on the structure of the human mitochondrial RNA degradosome, a central player in organellar RNA metabolism!
Work led by graduate student @paulafprado.bsky.social in our group.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧵 1/9
Work led by graduate student @paulafprado.bsky.social in our group.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧵 1/9
September 11, 2026 at 10:06 PM
Happy to share our new preprint on the structure of the human mitochondrial RNA degradosome, a central player in organellar RNA metabolism!
Work led by graduate student @paulafprado.bsky.social in our group.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧵 1/9
Work led by graduate student @paulafprado.bsky.social in our group.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧵 1/9
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
I am excited to share that I will start my group @embl.org in Grenoble in February 2027, where we will investigate host-pathogen interactions using in situ cryo electron microscopy🦠❄️🔬! I am recruiting PhD students through the current open call of the EMBL PhD Program: www.embl.org/about/info/e...
Anton Group – Cellular structural biology of host-pathogen interactions
www.embl.org
September 3, 2026 at 12:10 PM
I am excited to share that I will start my group @embl.org in Grenoble in February 2027, where we will investigate host-pathogen interactions using in situ cryo electron microscopy🦠❄️🔬! I am recruiting PhD students through the current open call of the EMBL PhD Program: www.embl.org/about/info/e...
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Check out our newest preprint! tinyurl.com/mttvaed3
Max was able to resolve cryo-EM structures of the DsrMKJOP complex, which catalyzes a critical step in sulfur metabolism and sulfide production is sulfate-reducing microbes. The main findings are summarized in the video below 📽️
Max was able to resolve cryo-EM structures of the DsrMKJOP complex, which catalyzes a critical step in sulfur metabolism and sulfide production is sulfate-reducing microbes. The main findings are summarized in the video below 📽️
September 3, 2026 at 1:06 PM
Check out our newest preprint! tinyurl.com/mttvaed3
Max was able to resolve cryo-EM structures of the DsrMKJOP complex, which catalyzes a critical step in sulfur metabolism and sulfide production is sulfate-reducing microbes. The main findings are summarized in the video below 📽️
Max was able to resolve cryo-EM structures of the DsrMKJOP complex, which catalyzes a critical step in sulfur metabolism and sulfide production is sulfate-reducing microbes. The main findings are summarized in the video below 📽️
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
…and in other great news, our lab has also been awarded an ERC Starting Grant! 🥳
Very excited for what’s ahead and incredibly grateful to my team, collaborators, and everyone who has supported us along the way.
Very excited for what’s ahead and incredibly grateful to my team, collaborators, and everyone who has supported us along the way.
📣 Good news! 📣
Results of the ERC 2026 Starting Grant call are out!
Funding worth a total of €705 million will go to 421 early-career researchers across Europe.
Discover who, what and where 👉 link.europa.eu/9M3MmN
🧪 #ERCStG #FrontierResearch #HorizonEurope
🇪🇺 @scienceinnovation.ec.europa.eu
Results of the ERC 2026 Starting Grant call are out!
Funding worth a total of €705 million will go to 421 early-career researchers across Europe.
Discover who, what and where 👉 link.europa.eu/9M3MmN
🧪 #ERCStG #FrontierResearch #HorizonEurope
🇪🇺 @scienceinnovation.ec.europa.eu
September 3, 2026 at 10:46 AM
…and in other great news, our lab has also been awarded an ERC Starting Grant! 🥳
Very excited for what’s ahead and incredibly grateful to my team, collaborators, and everyone who has supported us along the way.
Very excited for what’s ahead and incredibly grateful to my team, collaborators, and everyone who has supported us along the way.
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Honored to be named a 2026 Vallee Scholar! 🎉 Excited about the research ahead and especially to be part of the Vallee Scholar community.
Congratulations to ISTA’s @jpkbravo.bsky.social, named a 2026 Vallee Scholar! 🎉
The award supports innovative, curiosity-driven biomedical research. Bravo’s lab studies bacterial immune systems and how they distinguish self from non-self.
Read more: https://shorturl.at/FyLbw
The award supports innovative, curiosity-driven biomedical research. Bravo’s lab studies bacterial immune systems and how they distinguish self from non-self.
Read more: https://shorturl.at/FyLbw
September 3, 2026 at 7:29 AM
Honored to be named a 2026 Vallee Scholar! 🎉 Excited about the research ahead and especially to be part of the Vallee Scholar community.
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Out now in @natmicrobiol.nature.com: Bacillus subtilis builds protein filaments that act as a pseudomembrane, pulling quinone out of the bilayer and carrying it into the cytosol for reduction by NADH dehydrogenase, well away from the membrane itself.
doi.org/10.1038/s415... 1/5
doi.org/10.1038/s415... 1/5
August 17, 2026 at 11:11 PM
Out now in @natmicrobiol.nature.com: Bacillus subtilis builds protein filaments that act as a pseudomembrane, pulling quinone out of the bilayer and carrying it into the cytosol for reduction by NADH dehydrogenase, well away from the membrane itself.
doi.org/10.1038/s415... 1/5
doi.org/10.1038/s415... 1/5
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Recovery of a minor cryo-EM particle population reveals conformational equilibria linking cofactor loading, turnover, and reactivation in methionine synthase https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.27.741092v1
July 28, 2026 at 11:47 AM
Recovery of a minor cryo-EM particle population reveals conformational equilibria linking cofactor loading, turnover, and reactivation in methionine synthase https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.27.741092v1
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Happy to share the first preprint out of the Nomburg lab! Many aspects of cellular immunity are shared across the tree of life. Here, we show that some of these conserved aspects of cellular immunity are mirrored by conserved effectors of immune antagonism. Thread below! 1/15
Conserved folds enable immune antagonism across the tree of life https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.21.739742v1
July 22, 2026 at 7:40 AM
Happy to share the first preprint out of the Nomburg lab! Many aspects of cellular immunity are shared across the tree of life. Here, we show that some of these conserved aspects of cellular immunity are mirrored by conserved effectors of immune antagonism. Thread below! 1/15
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Excited to see this collaboration now in print. Dye chemistry meets AI-designed proteins. Three small, orthogonal tags; lifetime modulation; split versions. Request the free dyes at dyes.janelia.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
De novo design of orthogonal far-red, orange, and green fluorophore-binding proteins for multiplexed imaging
Fluorescent proteins and small-molecule dyes offer complementary advantages for biological imaging: proteins are amenable to genetic tagging, whereas dyes provide superior brightness and photostabilit...
www.science.org
July 17, 2026 at 3:12 PM
Excited to see this collaboration now in print. Dye chemistry meets AI-designed proteins. Three small, orthogonal tags; lifetime modulation; split versions. Request the free dyes at dyes.janelia.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
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 🦠❄️🔬
June 30, 2026 at 5:13 PM
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 🦠❄️🔬
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Excited to share our new preprint! 🧬❄️ by brilliant @mdreimann.bsky.social and great collaborators!
Using cryo-ET&EM, we reveal archaeal chromatin in a near-native state: variable-beads-on-a-string fibers shaped by growth phase and histone composition #ArchaeaSky
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Using cryo-ET&EM, we reveal archaeal chromatin in a near-native state: variable-beads-on-a-string fibers shaped by growth phase and histone composition #ArchaeaSky
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
June 19, 2026 at 7:04 AM
Excited to share our new preprint! 🧬❄️ by brilliant @mdreimann.bsky.social and great collaborators!
Using cryo-ET&EM, we reveal archaeal chromatin in a near-native state: variable-beads-on-a-string fibers shaped by growth phase and histone composition #ArchaeaSky
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Using cryo-ET&EM, we reveal archaeal chromatin in a near-native state: variable-beads-on-a-string fibers shaped by growth phase and histone composition #ArchaeaSky
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
📢 New publication.
We answered an old question in structural biology: (how) does the crystal lattice impact proteins? In particular, how does the crystal restrict the protein's dynamics?
We used local probes of dynamics: the rotation of aromatic rings. 🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We answered an old question in structural biology: (how) does the crystal lattice impact proteins? In particular, how does the crystal restrict the protein's dynamics?
We used local probes of dynamics: the rotation of aromatic rings. 🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Aromatic ring flips reveal reshaping of protein dynamics in crystals and complexes - Nature Chemistry
The extent to which crystal packing constrains protein dynamics is hard to decipher. Now a combination of NMR, crystallography and molecular dynamics simulations show that intermolecular contacts can ...
www.nature.com
June 14, 2026 at 4:45 PM
📢 New publication.
We answered an old question in structural biology: (how) does the crystal lattice impact proteins? In particular, how does the crystal restrict the protein's dynamics?
We used local probes of dynamics: the rotation of aromatic rings. 🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We answered an old question in structural biology: (how) does the crystal lattice impact proteins? In particular, how does the crystal restrict the protein's dynamics?
We used local probes of dynamics: the rotation of aromatic rings. 🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
NAD to the bone: How bacteria put phages under aRES-t … and how phages fight back
Preview of work IDing aRES, bacterial proteins that deplete cellular NAD+, generating products that cannot be utilized by phage NAD+ regeneration pathways
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
Preview of work IDing aRES, bacterial proteins that deplete cellular NAD+, generating products that cannot be utilized by phage NAD+ regeneration pathways
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
NAD to the bone: How bacteria put phages under aRES-t … and how phages fight back
In this issue of Cell Host & Microbe, Osterman et al. discover aRES, a new family
of bacterial immune proteins that deplete cellular NAD+, generating cleavage products
that cannot be utilized by canon...
www.cell.com
June 12, 2026 at 2:44 PM
NAD to the bone: How bacteria put phages under aRES-t … and how phages fight back
Preview of work IDing aRES, bacterial proteins that deplete cellular NAD+, generating products that cannot be utilized by phage NAD+ regeneration pathways
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
Preview of work IDing aRES, bacterial proteins that deplete cellular NAD+, generating products that cannot be utilized by phage NAD+ regeneration pathways
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Striking improvement with the laser phase plate to boost contrast, and in exactly the range that's needed for modelling the details of protein structures.
Still lots of headroom in Cryo-EM.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#biophysics
Still lots of headroom in Cryo-EM.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#biophysics
June 12, 2026 at 7:23 AM
Striking improvement with the laser phase plate to boost contrast, and in exactly the range that's needed for modelling the details of protein structures.
Still lots of headroom in Cryo-EM.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#biophysics
Still lots of headroom in Cryo-EM.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#biophysics
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
The results here re 3D classification are quite impressive. Would be interesting to see how much the LPP improves classification of near-native samples with extreme compositional heterogeneity (e.g. derived from cellular fractions)
June 11, 2026 at 6:21 PM
The results here re 3D classification are quite impressive. Would be interesting to see how much the LPP improves classification of near-native samples with extreme compositional heterogeneity (e.g. derived from cellular fractions)
Reposted by Kaitlyn Kiernan
Narry Kim & Soung-Hun Roh's paper and our recent paper nicely complement each other. Their study reveals an early chaperone-assisted step in AGO2 loading. Our work captures the subsequent assembly intermediates and uncovers target-assisted passenger ejection (TAPE).
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
June 10, 2026 at 7:26 PM
Narry Kim & Soung-Hun Roh's paper and our recent paper nicely complement each other. Their study reveals an early chaperone-assisted step in AGO2 loading. Our work captures the subsequent assembly intermediates and uncovers target-assisted passenger ejection (TAPE).
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...