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Leon Walther

@trypsleon.bsky.social

430 followers 1.1K following 13 posts

PhD student @ Faria Lab at University of York. Structural Parasitology | Neglected Tropical Diseases | Trypanosomes | Antigenic Variation | CryoEM | RNA | Trained at @Uni Konstanz, CSSB & EMBL. Passionate backpacker and vulcano hiker. Views are my own.

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Reposted by Leon Walther

Dr Joanne Power @hanniepower.bsky.social · 28d

Save the dates!! @bspparasitology.bsky.social Spring Meeting 2026 will be in Bonnie Glasgow! 7-9 April 2026, with a drinks reception in Glasgow City Chambers on the 6th of April 2026!
Keep an eye on the BSP website for registration and abstract submission!
Logo by @shannaraeilean.bsky.social! 🦟

Reposted by Leon Walther

Centre for Structural Systems Biology CSSB @cssbhamburg.bsky.social · Sep 4

Researchers from CSSB & @mpi-nat.bsky.social have generated a highly potent nanobody that neutralizes a protein essential for the herpes virus infection. Published in @nature.com, the findings promise new therapies to treat & prevent infections @leibnizliv.bsky.social @uni-hamburg.de

t1p.de/cxt7a

3D-Animation of the nanobody (light yellow/semi-transparent) inhibiting HSV-2 glycoprotein B. The different domains of gB are color-coded. Three domains are held together by the footprint of the nanobody. IMAGE: Benjamin Vollmer / Centre for Structural Systems Biology

Leon Walther @trypsleon.bsky.social · Sep 4

Join us for the first Career Talk of the 2025–2026 Tryps Club season!

Prof. Paul M. Selzer will give us an insight into anti-parasitic drug development in industry.

📅 Date: 24.09.2025
🕒 Time: 12:00 pm BST
📍 Location: Zoom

Register following link or the QR code on the poster
lnkd.in/eA7b9QRx

Leon Walther @trypsleon.bsky.social · Sep 4

28 May 2026 – Book Session with Dr. Lina Pinto-García - Maraña: War and Disease in the Jungles of Colombia.
A discussion about the relationship between war and disease, focusing on Colombian armed conflict and cutaneous leishmaniasis
lnkd.in/eAGhGnjD

(5/5)

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Leon Walther @trypsleon.bsky.social · Sep 4

26 March 2026 – Journal Club (Community to pick)

30 April 2026 – Career Talk with Dr. María-Jesús Pinazo Delgado - Head of Chagas disease DNDi

(4/5)

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Leon Walther @trypsleon.bsky.social · Sep 4

27 November 2025 – Career Talk with Dr. Dan Masiga - Head of Global Health Thematic Research Programme at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Nairobi, Kenya

29 January 2026 – Journal Club (Community to pick)

26 February 2026 – Career Talk (Community to pick)

(3/5)

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

Leon Walther @trypsleon.bsky.social · Sep 4

24 September 2025 – Career Talk with Prof. Paul M. Selzer - Principal Fellow Research Parasitology at Böhringer Ingelheim Animal Health

30 October 2025 – Journal Club with Dr. Kirsty McWilliam - Genomic determinants of antigen expression hierarchy in African trypanosomes
lnkd.in/eMgPjpur

(2/5)

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Leon Walther @trypsleon.bsky.social · Sep 4

The British Society for Parasitology (BSP) Tryps Club is pleased to share our upcoming series of events. These sessions will bring together leading experts and the wider community to exchange knowledge, highlight research, and foster collaboration in parasitology. (1/5)

Reposted by Leon Walther

Richard McCulloch @rmc9z.bsky.social · Aug 15

We’re pleased to share our new study, led by @jezieldamasceno.bsky.social, that used long-read, single molecule sequencing to reveal the full (?) picture of Leishmania DNA replication. Thanks, Mike Boemo and helpful reviewers @uofgsii.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Leishmania major chromosomes are replicated from a single high-efficiency locus supplemented by thousands of lower efficiency initiation events

DNA replication initiates at genome sites termed origins. Previous origin mapping approaches in the populations of the protozoan parasite Leishmania m…

www.sciencedirect.com

Reposted by Leon Walther

Trends in Parasitology @cp-trendsparasitol.bsky.social · Aug 14

Drs @singh-parul.bsky.social @trypsleon.bsky.social‬ Maureen Cabahug @fariatrypslab.bsky.social & @jessmbryant.bsky.social review #Plasmodium & #Trypanosoma #genome organization.

#Trypanosome #Transcription #Chromatin #Epigenetics #Nuclear #Compartment

www.cell.com/trends/paras...

Reposted by Leon Walther

Faria Tryps Lab @fariatrypslab.bsky.social · Aug 11

How do parasites strategically organise their genomes to influence gene expression? If you’re curious, check our latest review in @cp-trendsparasitol.bsky.social !

@biologyatyork.bsky.social @ybri-uoy.bsky.social @pasteur.fr

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Leon Walther @trypsleon.bsky.social · Aug 10

What a great first experience to take part in a review with such awesome fellow scientists!

Jessica Bryant @jessmbryant.bsky.social · Aug 10

We @singh-parul.bsky.social teamed up with the amazing @fariatrypslab.bsky.social @trypsleon.bsky.social to highlight how recent technological advances have revealed exciting new features of parasite genome architecture and its impact on survival and pathogenicity:

www.cell.com/trends/paras...

Parasite genome organization: come together, right now!

Links between genome organization and transcription have been extensively studied in model eukaryotes; however, recent application of state-of-the-art chromosome conformation capture techniques to kin...

Reposted by Leon Walther

Chris H. Hill @chillzaa.bsky.social · Jul 19

New preprint alert! 🚨👇 I'm delighted to share the latest research from @jemmabetts.bsky.social
in our group: ‘A new protein-dependent riboswitch activates ribosomal frameshifting’. Huge congratulations to Jemma for the first manuscript of her PhD! ✨

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A new protein-dependent riboswitch activates ribosomal frameshifting

Programmed -1 ribosomal frameshifting (PRF) is a ubiquitous translational control mechanism in RNA viruses, allowing them to change the relative abundance of proteins encoded in different reading fram...

www.biorxiv.org

Reposted by Leon Walther

Eva Kowalinski @kowaeva.bsky.social · Jul 17

Postdoc positions in structural biology of RNA processing complexes.

An ERC-funded position will dissect pre-mRNA processing pathways in the infective organism Trypanosoma brucei. An ANR-funded position will characterise large complexes in RNA modification.

Details: tinyurl.com/postdoc-RNA-...

Postdoc in Structural Biology of RNA processing complexes

Postdoctoral positions in structural biology of macromolecular complexes are available in the laboratory of Dr. Eva Kowalinski at the EMBL Grenoble, France. We are looking for highly motivated and amb...

Leon Walther @trypsleon.bsky.social · Jun 20

🧬 Join us for the 3rd Journal Club hosted by the BSP TrypsClub! 🧬

Everyone is welcome — whether you're deep into Trypanosomatid research or just curious to explore fascinating biology, this is a great space to connect, learn, and discuss exciting new science!

Reposted by Leon Walther

Faria Tryps Lab @fariatrypslab.bsky.social · May 27

So happy to share the first preprint from our lab on post-transcriptional regulation at the VSG expression-site body in trypanosomes. @ybri-uoy.bsky.social @york.ac.uk

Specialised RNA decay fine-tunes monogenic antigen expression in African trypanosomes

Antigenic variation is a sophisticated immune evasion strategy employed by many pathogens. Trypanosoma brucei expresses a single Variant-Surface-Glycoprotein (VSG) from a large genetic repertoire, whi...

www.biorxiv.org

Leon Walther @trypsleon.bsky.social · May 8

Join us in our first TrypsClub Career Talk featuring Julius Lukeš! Everyone interested in Trypanosomes is welcome (except PI's - sorry)!

Guy Oldrieve @goldrieve.bsky.social · May 8

We’re excited to kick off our first BSP-supported TrypsClub Career Talk with Prof. Julius Lukeš, Director of the Biology Centre at the Czech Academy of Sciences – an internationally renowned expert in parasitology and evolutionary protistology.
15th May, 2 pm (GMT)
Sign up: forms.gle/uyiAUsjNSLd7...

3. TrypsClub Career Talk Registration

We are pleased to invite you to our third BSP-supported TrypsClub meeting. In our first Career Talk we will host Prof. Julius Lukeš, Director of the Biology Centre at the Institute of Parasitology, Cz...

Reposted by Leon Walther

Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) @dndi.org · Apr 14

🎬 This #WorldChagasDay, we're excited to announce our next short film, 'The Children of the Sierra,' about working with Indigenous Wiwa communities in #Colombia to test and treat people affected by #ChagasDisease. 📽️ Moronga Films

Reposted by Leon Walther

WHO @who.int · Apr 14

#ChagasDisease has the most severe impact among Latin America's impoverished communities but it is increasingly detected in other parts of the world. 100M people are at risk of infection.

bit.ly/3vFipLv

WHAT IS
CHAGAS DISEASE?
A potentially life-threatening illness, transmitted through contact with the faeces or urine of a triatomine bug (kissing bug) found mainly in
Latin America.

Reposted by Leon Walther

Abhinay Ramaprasad @abhinay.bsky.social · Apr 10

A GRIP-ing and Tryp-ing seminar tomorrow - Joana Faria from the University of York!
2 pm (GMT) | 3 pm (CET) | 9 am (EDT)
Link - uofglasgow.zoom.us/j/8897218018...
Passcode: 987702

Leon Walther @trypsleon.bsky.social · Mar 25

Join us for our next TrypsClub Journal Club!

Emma Marie Briggs @emmamariebriggs.bsky.social · Mar 25

Next @bspparasitology.bsky.social TrypsClub Journal Club will take place online on 2nd April - all students, research assistants, postdocs and techs are welcome! Discussing a paper form the Mugnier lab group, featuring a Q&A with Moinca! Sign up here - tinyurl.com/5n6pme36

1. TrypsClub Journal Club Registration

We are pleased to invite you to the second BSP supported TrypsClub meeting! 2nd April, 2 pm (GMT) Our aim is to bring together ...

Reposted by Leon Walther

Faria Tryps Lab @fariatrypslab.bsky.social · Mar 24

Delighted to have been part of this great work driven by @marketanovotna.bsky.social in the Horn lab, showing the power of precision editing to study the direct role of histone modifications on gene expression regulation! Check it out!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Precision-edited histone tails disrupt polycistronic gene expression controls in trypanosomes

Transcription of protein coding genes in trypanosomatids is atypical and almost exclusively polycistronic. In Trypanosoma brucei, approximately 150 polycistrons, and 8000 genes, are constitutively tra...

www.biorxiv.org

Reposted by Leon Walther

Chris H. Hill @chillzaa.bsky.social · Mar 21

New cryo-EM/ET story - a brilliant collaboration with Sergey Melnikov's lab in Newcastle @sergeymelnikov.bsky.social and Stefan Pfeffer's lab in Heidelberg @pfeffercryolab.bsky.social. Great work in particular by Karla Helena-Bueno and @sophiekopetschke.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Structurally heterogeneous ribosomes cooperate in protein synthesis in bacterial cells - Nature Communications

Cells can simultaneously produce structurally dissimilar ribosomes, suggesting functional specialization of distinct ribosome populations. Here, the authors show that distinct ribosomes cooperate rath...

Reposted by Leon Walther

Emma Marie Briggs @emmamariebriggs.bsky.social · Mar 17

Funded PhD project with myself, Prof. Paul Denny at Durham University and Dr Kalesh Karunakaran at Teeside University now open for applications!

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Uncovering the adaptation mechanism that generate dormant forms of Leishmania microbes with omics approaches at Newcastle University on FindAPhD.com

PhD Project - Uncovering the adaptation mechanism that generate dormant forms of Leishmania microbes with omics approaches at Newcastle University, listed on FindAPhD.com

www.findaphd.com

Reposted by Leon Walther

Wojtek Galej @wojtekgalej.bsky.social · Feb 12

Happy to share this highlight of our latest work on the minor spliceosome structure

EMBL @embl.org · Feb 12

The Galej Group provides new insights into the minor spliceosome, a vital RNA-protein complex involved in gene expression.

These results allow a better understanding of its mechanism, whose dysfunction is associated with several genetic disorders.

#MolBiol 🧪🧬🧶
www.embl.org/news/science...

3D representation of a protein structure