Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · 9d

Fatto - buona corsa!

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Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · 14d

NIH award reinstated 🧬 happy to be able to continue our work!

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Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · Sep 3

Come learn about UCLA research projects that have been suspended under the Trump administration, and why they matter for all of us.

🧪 Wednesday, Sept 10 | 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM
📍 Northwest corner of Westwood & Le Conte

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Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · Aug 13

Thank you Diana for including us in your beautiful project!

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Reposted by Elisa Franco

Di Michele Lab @dimichelelab1.bsky.social · Aug 12

Thrilled to share this new Adv. Sci. paper by @dianatanase.bsky.social with Dino Osmanovic @rogerrubiosanchez.bsky.social @laylamalouf.bsky.social @francolab.bsky.social. We demonstrate a modular approach to program internal phase separation in DNA condensates 1/n doi.org/10.1002/advs...

Internal Phase Separation in Synthetic DNA Condensates

The modular, programmable system of DNA nanostructures developed provides programmatic control over multiphase condensate behavior, enabling mapping onto a predictive Flory-Huggins model. This combin...

doi.org

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Reposted by Elisa Franco

Di Michele Lab @dimichelelab1.bsky.social · Aug 12

Simulations by Dino Osmanovic @francolab.bsky.social, based on Flory-Huggins, map well onto the experimental trends and allowed us to establish a link between the experimental order parameter and the F-H interaction parameter. Experimental (top) and simulated (bottom) snapshots below 4/n

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Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · Aug 2

We don't know yet. This is a disaster, with hundreds of research groups being hit at the same time. UCLA is a public school, we are very frugal as it is and our endowment is small. How to support my team keeps me awake at night...

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Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · Aug 1

200 engineering/life science/medical grants, including my lab's NIH MIRA, have been suspended. In case you are wondering, this means immediately stop spending = stop paying salaries for students & postdocs. www.latimes.com/california/s...

Trump freezes $200 million in UCLA science and medical research funding, citing antisemitism

The Trump administration has frozen roughly $200 million in National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and other federal agency-funded research at UCLA, citing allegations the school d...

www.latimes.com

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Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · Jun 26

We demonstrated how to make and dissolve #RNA #condensates through strand displacement using synthetic genes - excited to see this new paper out in @narjournal.bsky.social Collab w/ the Andersen group @esandersen.bsky.social academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Switchable RNA motifs for dynamic transcriptional control of RNA condensates

Abstract. RNA-driven phase separation is emerging as a promising approach for engineering biomolecular condensates with diverse functionalities. Condensate

academic.oup.com

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Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · Jun 4

B) Some of the bands have odd “granularity” in the smears
D) In lanes M2+LIC and co+S+LIC the smears look very unusual

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Reposted by Elisa Franco

Tae Seok Moon @taeseokmoon.bsky.social · Mar 31

2025 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Course in Synthetic Biology - apply!
Deadline: April 14, 2025
Financial Aid: Stipend awards are available.
Notifications: Applicants will be notified by May 15, 2025.
meetings.cshl.edu/courses.aspx...

Synthetic Biology

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Meetings & Courses -- a private, non-profit institution with research programs in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, genomics, bioinformatics.

meetings.cshl.edu

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Reposted by Elisa Franco

Tom Ellis @proftomellis.bsky.social · Mar 20

Unlike a lot of other universities right now, we are still hiring for new faculty here at Imperial in London
🎉🚨🇬🇧🫖
If you want to come and run a research group in the theme of bioengineering then apply to be my colleague before the end of April. www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

Description

Please note that job descriptions are not exhaustive, and you may be asked to take on additional duties that align with the key responsibilities ment...

www.imperial.ac.uk

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Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · Mar 18

If you want to read more, this very engaging book walks you through his discovery process - highs and lows.

Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · Mar 17

Michael Faraday was the father of electromagnetism. He changed our world experiment by experiment, without any formal education, and without ever writing equations - now you can check out his original "lab books"! www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Unearthed notebooks shed light on Victorian genius who inspired Einstein

Michael Faraday’s illustrated notes that show how radical scientist began his theories at London’s Royal Institution to go online

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Elisa Franco

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Mar 17

Bluetorial: Non-Competitive Renewal (Continuation) Awards

Normally, multiyear NIH grants are paid with awards each year, pending administratively reviewed progress reports. “NIH” has been slow in making these awards. This has led to $1.83 B being withheld from institutions through February 2025.

a cartoon of homer simpson holding a card

ALT: a cartoon of homer simpson holding a card

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by Elisa Franco

Cathleen Crudden @cathleencrudden.bsky.social · Mar 9

Seriously. If you are that good you shouldn’t have to work so much. Get over this BS bro culture.

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · Mar 9

The celebration of "hardcore" work culture is keeping us from gender equality.

If men can only be "successful" by working so much they're eating every meal at the office, then they have incentive to avoid any care work that might pull them away. Which means pushing all the care onto women instead.

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Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · Mar 6

They replied quickly to me - that's how I learned this trick :)

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Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · Mar 6

I had this issue too. Try with your NSF ID instead of UCLA authentication. Doesn't fix the problem but you should be able to login. Set up Google authenticator it's very easy.

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Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · Mar 2

I've been having persistent issues logging into eRA today, anyone else?

Reposted by Elisa Franco

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · Mar 1

Francis Collins, the NIH Director for 12 years, led the Human Genome Project and other NIH efforts for 32 years, resigned today. Key words from his resignation letter
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...

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Reposted by Elisa Franco

Rahul K @theresearch.bsky.social · Feb 23

2025-02-23 Issue of #engineeredlivingmaterials feed:
biomed.news/bims-enlima/...
@biomednews.bsky.social
includes, metabolite-responsive control (h/t wilfriedweber.bsky.social), light-modulated self-assembly (h/t francolab.bsky.social), single-protein quant (h/t naturemethods.bsky.social), & more 🧪

The figure is a graphical abstract of the research article titled, "Metabolite-Responsive Control of Transcription by Phase Separation-Based Synthetic Organelles". Source: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssynbio.4c00633

The figure shows schematic outline of the OLS which is a single-objective, light-sheet imaging modality that provides illumination homogeneity, a large achievable FOV and superior background fluorescence rejection. OLS is suitable for SMLM and SMT measurements. Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-025-02594-6

The figure shows Crystal structure and elastic bending properties of bis(acetylacetonato)copper(II) ([Cu(acac)2]. Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-025-02133-w

The illustration is a graphical abstract and shows Light-Modulated Self-Assembly of Synthetic Nanotubes. Source: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c05452

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Reposted by Elisa Franco

Craig Kaplan @triggerloop.bsky.social · Feb 22

Deeply concerned about NSF. They fired more people than they needed and now leadership is illegally reclassifying employees as probationary. www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...

US science agency reclassifies hundreds of workers as probationary, US lawmaker says

National Science Foundation administrators reclassified hundreds of employees from permanent to probationary status in violation of labor contracts, according to a U.S. lawmaker and agency employee.

www.reuters.com

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Elisa Franco @francolab.bsky.social · Feb 18

How can complex dynamics emerge from phase-separated matter? 🤔 Simple chemical reactions can trigger periodic or chaotic behavior in dense phases! Cool simulations by Dino Osmanovic 💥 w/ support by @sloanfoundation.bsky.social
#PhaseSeparation #Matter2Life
journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...

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Reposted by Elisa Franco

Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · Feb 18

1/ I am seeing a lot of comments on the slashing of NIH support along the lines of “universities should just spend their huge endowments.”

I’m the last person to cheer on the institutional stratification rising endowments have contributed to. But let me explain why this is not a solution.

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