Studying #Rloop & #RNA 🧬 with #biochemistry #cryoEM 🔬❄️ #crystallography💎 to understand how they control life! Tweets from Charles

Emory University
Joined May 2020
haven't posted in a while but happy to share the news I've received the Beckman Young Investigator award 🥳 grateful for the hard work of my team pushing the barriers of understanding #Rloop biology and for this recognition🧬
Meet Charles Bou-Nader, PhD, 2025 Beckman Young Investigator Awardee from @emorymedicine! Read more about this news from Beckman Foundation: ow.ly/Bc7Y50W85bS #BYI
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The final version of our work on the in-cell architecture of the mitochondrial respiratory chain is now online in @ScienceMagazine 🎉 You can find the full story here science.org/doi/10.1126/scie… @luminous_lab did a wonderful job on the cover and animation👩‍🎨
In mitochondria, respiratory supercomplexes (blue) pump protons across crista membranes to create an electrochemical gradient, fueling adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthase (pink) to regenerate ATP—the energy currency of life. Now, cryo–electron tomography captures these supercomplexes in their native organization, illuminating how the coordinated action of these molecular machines drives life’s fundamental energy conversion. Learn more this week in Science: scim.ag/3FQ6bEh
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Bou-Nader lab retweeted
New Lab photo
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Ever wondered how transcription choreographs histone modifications? Our work reveals the basis of co-transcriptional H3K36me3 by SETD2. We visualize how a histone writer coordinates with the transcription machinery! This is the magnus opus of @MarkertJon tinyurl.com/setd2
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Bou-Nader lab retweeted
Finally! Principles for ions binding to RNA, derived from a high resolution structure of the bacterial ribosome, very handy for accurate assignment of ions (and by extension, of water molecules) in ribosome/RNA structures 🤓 academic.oup.com/nar/advance…
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Bou-Nader lab retweeted
Glad to share our work now published @NatureSMB rdcu.be/d3i8y It took some time but we made it. A detailed intro can be found in below threads which I wrote with passion and hope some time ago. May they stay and thrive. #CryoETforDrugResearch #OpenDataOpenScience
Glad to share our new cryo-ET work biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/… I resolved ribosomes to sub-3 Å in cells, realizing the potential we demonstrated. In PTC core where our interested drug Chloramphenicol binds, the local res. hit 2.7 Å, enabling deciphering its MOAs in atomic details.
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Bou-Nader lab retweeted
The first independent publication from the Berndsen lab @Mizzou_Biochem in collaboration with my colleague @CKeithCassidy is now peer reviewed and online at @Nature !! rdcu.be/d3kfg Resolving a many decades-old challenge, we determined the complete structure of apolipoprotein B100 on the surface of its native #LDL particle using a combination single-particle #cryoEM, #AlphaFold2, and molecular dynamics refinement methods. At ~550 kDa, with ~4.6k residues of mostly extended amphipathic domains, #ApoB is one of the largest and most complex proteins in the genome. Our structure provides insight into lipoprotein synthesis, the structural changes involved in the catabolic conversion from VLDL to LDL, and the nature of disease causing mutations involved in diseases such as #FamilialHypercholesterolemia. The main change from the preprint is the addition of extensive chemical crosslinking data, which validate many of the lower-resolution contacts we observed between the C-terminal inserts and lends support to our proposed model for conformational changes on larger LP particles. With the structure of apoB finally revealed, a new era in lipoprotein research begins were highly precise and targeted structural, genetic, and computational studies are now possible! We have many plans and are excited for what the future of this field holds, so stayed tuned!!
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Very happy our paper on Zorya anti-phage defense system is now published in @Nature! 🥳 Big congrats to first authors @HaidaiHu and @__jphilipp and all other authors! Wonderful collab with @Salmo_Lab and @SimonJacksonNZ #cryoEM @UCPH_CPR @koebenhavns_uni nature.com/articles/s41586-0…
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In our SETD2 paper, we visualize a novel nucleosome transfer intermediate during txn. It is the earliest intermediate visualized yet. In the intermediate, the histone chaperone FACT coordinates histone binding with a previously uncharacterized RTF1 helix: tinyurl.com/setd2
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Bou-Nader lab retweeted
I’m excited to share our latest study led by @GiuliaPasquesi out today in @CellPressNews , uncovering a new way transposons have been repurposed for human interferon signaling! Read on for a thread on cryptic splice variants, decoy receptors, and viruses (1/N) 👇🧵
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Our latest work is out in @Nature today! Using smFRET, we directly visualized recruitment of the eIF4F complex to the 5' cap of eukaryotic mRNAs and formation of an activated mRNA. Our findings reveal new and surprising roles for each eIF4F component. 1/3 nature.com/articles/s41586-0…
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Wow 🤩 amazing work congrats @RachaelKretsch and everyone 👏👏such novelty in RNA structure and unexpected biologically relevant #RNA self-assemblies
We discovered 3 RNA families that form homo-oligomeric RNA-only complexes! Studying nature continues to expand my wildest imagination. Read about it: doi.org/10.1101/2024.12.08.6… Vivian Wu, Svetlana Shabalina, Hyunbin Lee, Grace Nye, Eugene Koonin, Alex Gao, @RDasLab @chiulab
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Bou-Nader lab retweeted
We updated our BindCraft preprint with lots of new exciting results! We release all our binder sequences and models, include more in silico analysis, novel design targets, and present AAV retargeting to specific cell types using de novo binders! biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
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We are very excited by this first disclosure of our large collaboration with the lab of Nikhil Munshi @DanaFarber using a cMYC mRNA degrader to affect Multiple Myeloma. ASH Annual Meeting sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
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This 👇
I was advised by almost everyone to go on the market this year for a retention offer. I didn’t. No regrets. This practice is so problematic. (1) It is a waste of everyone’s time—letter writers, hiring committees, my own; (2) could cause a failed search; (1/3)
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Beautiful work congrats to all the team 👏👏
SLFN11 story continues! We combined cryo-EM and biochemical assays to explain how phosphorylation regulates SLFN11´s tRNA cleavage and ssDNA binding activities. Check out our new paper at: nature.com/articles/s41467-0… + movie
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Big congrats Kelly and George 🤩 looking forward to great science from the Ghanim lab 🤓 mabrouk
Last week, we said farewell to the first postdoc of our lab, George Ghanim @AutomneNine who will start his own lab at Princeton in 2025. We are proud of you and thankful for all your contributions. Please watch out for exciting future opportunities from the Ghanim lab!
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