Sonia with our end-of-year update on developing a therapy for prion disease. Two new efforts from our lab: CHARM and divalent siRNA, and an update on the Ionis clinical trial. Support our work with a 1:1 matched donation through end of 2024. prionalliance.org/2024/12/02/whe…

In 2024, for the first time, we worked on a collaborative group project on phage therapy where Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, and global students designed their own lysis proteins. Twist Bioscience synthesized their DNA designs and we expressed the proteins via Nuclera digital microfluidics:

Today we report in Nature Medicine the development of a base editing strategy for prion disease, currently a fatal and rapidly progressing neurogenerative condition with no effective treatment. @PrionAlliance DevermanLab (1/13) drive.google.com/file/d/1DVpKrz…

Forever.

Incredibly honoured to be awarded a generous grant from the CJD Foundation. Huge thanks to the dedicated families and campaigners - your support and efforts are truly inspiring! The pioneering work of Tom Trainer has made it possible. cjdfoundation.org/dr-szymon-w-ma…

Excited to share the pre-print on my PhD work demonstrating a role for syntaxin-6 in prion and tau pathogenesis. After 3 yrs of hard work, I am glad it is finally out and would like to thank my mentors and colleagues at the MRC Prion Unit for all their support Simon Mead MRC Prion Unit at UCL Institute of Prion Diseases

Congratulations to Dr Ian Harrison, the David Hague Early Career Investigator of the Year! 🎉 The award recognises the most outstanding early career researcher in biomedical dementia research. #ARUKConf25

1) what

This is how it should be announced in Cockney according to Grok3: Oi, chuck your hat in the ring for a brainy gig at our lab! imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-jo…

‘Don’t call it zombie deer disease’: scientists warn as infections spread. Good accessible write up here. I would additionally make the point that “spillovers” to new species / genotypes risks new strains with altered zoonotic (human spread) potential. theguardian.com/environment/20…

New op-ed argues that prions, infectious proteins that causes devastating conditions like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and kuru, may also be our best model for understanding protein dynamics.... ...and, thus, improve our ability to design better proteins in the laboratory.

1 year is around ~24x of typical lifespan. Largest lifespan effect in C.elegans before was 10x (PI3K mutant)

If you want some great mentorship in structural biology, to work on exciting novel labelling systems as well as one of the most unqiue pathogens out there - come work with us!

Hi Cryo-EM fellas! What are the pros and cons of the latest cryoFIB milling tools? Any usage experience with Arctis already? Any huge advantages of plasma?

before id ever entered the biology field, i found longevity people to be absurd. “you’re obviously focusing on the wrong thing”, i once said to a researcher in a groupchat, “just find a way to stop us from sleeping, thats a free 30 ish years”. he said its more complicated than

In our latest preprint on bioRxiv, we present the in situ structure of the human gap junction at 14 Å resolution using cryo-ET. The structure provides a blueprint for investigating how connexin regulation shapes intercellular communication in health and disease.

BIOLOGISTS!!! WE MIGHT FINALLY BE GETTING A MAINSTREAM SHOW ABOUT US!!! EVERYBODY STAY ALERT

Our #CryoET story on how a top antimalarial drug candidate perturbs the native malarial translation machinery is out NatureStructMolBiol🥳rdcu.be/eBbrH Massive team effort led by Leonie Anton Meseret Haile Wenjing Cheng in collaboration with Jerzy Dziekan alan cowman #teamtomo