Mesoamerica is fond of frogs, here is a gold one from ancient Costa Rica (12th-14th BC). Found it at the Field museum, Chicago.

Are you an early career faculty doing 1st rate, cutting-edge science? Do you: ✅ Dream big ✅ Think about transformative science ✅ Want to train next gen scientists If so, we invite you to apply to the Freeman Hrabowski Scholars Program. Deadline 5/15: hhmi.news/3xN3AHh

med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/…

Big day today for SLU-BMB.

It was a pleasure to see Bertil and Merrill this week. What a couple! They have so much energy and so strong in their 80s.

New research from the Dai lab of SLU-BMB suggests multiple S4 voltage sensor conformations that are related to LQTS. We leveraged some novel and powerful techniques to detect them using live-cell Phasor FLIM-FRET. biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

These are from the awesome Climatron of the Missouri Botanical Garden. I saw golden shrimp flower and pitcher plants that eat insects.

“Not that often do you have the chance to learn about the history of a scientific field directly from one of its founders, today is one of those days” UW_PBIO UW Medicine

Our first foray into the world of #machinelearning to look at human & mouse DRG ephys data in new ways. Thanks to Doc Ness Monster 🔬🧫🥼 for spearheading this work. Enjoy! biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Our recent submitted, competitive R01 in collaboration with Aubin Moutal on HCN channels, lipid nano-domains and neuropathic pain got a 36 percentile, reviewed by the BBM study section. Not good enough to get funded but we don’t give up and will resubmit with an improved version.

MBI-led study in PNAS Nexus highlights role of a specific protein in modulating activity of NaV1.7, a key pain ion channel. The study aimed at discovering new nonopioid-based therapies for pain management is our latest MBI Research Snapshot. Read more: bit.ly/3RlePOk

I am excited to share that I will be joining the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at SLU-SOM Biochemistry & Molecular Biology SLU Medicine as an Assistant Professor this fall. My lab will study how DNA binding proteins function to manage DNA during replication and repair.

Must-read work from Scott C Blanchard in Nature Methods today! #FRET efficiencies from commonly used fluorophores decrease at high illumination intensities, due to the accumulation of "dark" triplet states. #open nature.com/articles/s4159…

Might not be most accurate, but it's cool.

248 years birthday of 🇺🇸 Fireworks on Mississippi river.

A view of our 2nd ephys&imaging rig, awaiting for adding more components to it. Thanks to a recently funded R35 MIRA grant NIGMS, we are also recruiting students and postdocs to study ion channels.

nature.com/articles/s4158… Great work by Elizabeth Kim (Elizabeth Kim) and Xiaoan Wu! Collaboration with teams of Peter Larsson (Linkoping University), Alessio Accardi (accardilab) and Peter Goldstein Weill Cornell Medicine Weill Cornell Medicine Anesthesiology. Free link: rdcu.be/dPAy1

We will have a user-friendly DEER system on my floor soon. Pretty exciting news.

We had a superb department retreat in cedar creek lodge near the longest river in the US, Missouri River. Part of the centennial celebration (1924-2024). Great science and entertainment.

Two abstracts from my lab submitted for the 2025 Biophysical Society meeting in Los Angeles. It will be an exciting meeting.