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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · 1d

At a party, John asked us students if we knew who Max Perutz was. I said "yes, he was a man who named himself after a lecture theatre." With supreme magnanimity he laughed. Met months later and he clocked me and we talked research for ages. Meant so much to a student! www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...

Nobel Laureate Professor Sir John Gurdon dies aged 92

It is with great sadness that the University shares the news of the death of Professor Sir John Gurdon, founder of the Gurdon Institute.

www.cam.ac.uk

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · 5d

Ooohhh....GCN1 couples GCN2 to ribosomal state to initiate amino acid response pathway signaling | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

GCN1 couples GCN2 to ribosomal state to initiate amino acid response pathway signaling

During nutrient deprivation, activation of the protein kinase GCN2 regulates cell survival and metabolic homeostasis. In addition to amino acid stress, GCN2 is activated by a variety of cellular stres...

www.science.org

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · 10d

Wonderful to be part of this study with Stefan et al.!

Stefan Marciniak @profmarciniak.bsky.social · 11d

Our new reviewed preprint now available in @elife.bsky.social

“A GCN1-independent activator of the kinase GCN2”

First authors, PhD student @jessyzhu-jiayi.bsky.social & PDRA @giulia-ema.bsky.social

Pleased to be exploring the new eLife publishing model

#ISRliterature

doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

A GCN1-independent activator of the kinase GCN2

doi.org

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · 17d

Bumper year...

Reposted by Glenn Masson

Adrian Saurin @adesaurin.bsky.social · 19d

Very excited to post our latest work showing the mitotic stopwatch monitors more than just mitotic delays - it protects against whole genome doubling and cell enlargement.

Great work by fantastic postdocs Lindsey and Reece (& student Maria)
#PostdocAppreciationWeek

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

The mitotic stopwatch limits the proliferation of whole genome doubled cells

Whole genome doubling (WGD) is a frequent event in tumourigenesis that promotes chromosomal instability and tumour evolution. WGD is sensed indirectly due to the presence of extra centrosomes, which a...

www.biorxiv.org

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · Sep 8

at another conference but was extremely keen to go to that one too...keep us posted!

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · Aug 31

It's August

Reposted by Glenn Masson

The EMBO Journal @embojournal.org · Jul 22

How does nutrient-responsive #mTORC1 sense the key amino acid #glutamine?
Gianluca Figlia, Aurelio Teleman et al @telemanlab.bsky.social identify a combination of GCN2-dependent processes triggered by secondary depletion of asparagine in glutamine-starved cells
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

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Reposted by Glenn Masson

Adrian Saurin @adesaurin.bsky.social · Jul 25

Check out our latest work on cell cycle inhibitors, which has implications for how cancer cells could become resistant to these drugs
#senescence #cellcycle #cancer 🧪

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

Cell enlargement causes mitotic errors and aneuploidy in cells that evade senescence after CDK4/6 inhibition

CDK4/6 inhibitors (CDK4/6i) arrest the cell cycle in G1 leading to cellular overgrowth and p53-dependent senescence. They are used to treat metastatic HR+/HER2-breast cancer, but resistance is common,...

www.biorxiv.org

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · Jul 19

That wonderful feeling of coming home to Scotland after a week's holiday in Ireland only to realise you left your suitcase back in Ireland. Along with your washbag. And your laptop. Outside. In the rain.

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · Jul 13

Self inflicted stupidity like this is a luxury afforded by civilized society. There's still a safety net of healthcare and the forgiving tolerance of learned ignorance of affluent population - if and when those buffers fall away, it'll all come tumbling down...

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Reposted by Glenn Masson

Stefan Marciniak @profmarciniak.bsky.social · Jul 4

We've just posted a new preprint:

"A GCN1-independent activator of the kinase GCN2"

bioRxiv Cell Biology @biorxiv-cellbio.bsky.social · Jul 3

A GCN1-independent activator of the kinase GCN2 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.29.662197v1

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · Jul 4

Congratulations to Graham Neill who passed his PhD Viva today! 👏🎉👏🎉First PhD from the lab! Many thanks to Tony Ly from Dundee SLS and @antoncalabrese.bsky.social from Leeds for grilling Graham on all things kinases + hdx-ms. Read about Graham's Research on GCN2 here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Paradoxical Activation of GCN2 by ATP-competitive inhibitors via allosteric activation and autophosphorylation

Recently it has been found that General Control Non-derepressible 2 (GCN2) can be activated by an array of small molecule ATP-competitive inhibitors, including clinically relevant compounds such as Po...

www.biorxiv.org

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · Jul 2

.. will use the same pathway to produce that result each time? It feels at this point that there's some sort of chaos theory going on here - or it's similar to meteorology where we can be predict broad trends but we will never get to a truly get to a granular model

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · Jul 2

Went to sleep ruminating about this. At what point do we say that the eukaryotic cell is a black box? We can frequently predict the result of an input (eg adding insulin to a cell) but the emergent phenotype may be the result of wildly different processes. Can we even say that the same cell ..

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Reposted by Glenn Masson

Tobias Raisch @traisch.bsky.social · Jul 1

Main focus of the job will be Cryo-EM of membrane protein comolexes as well as protein/nucleic acid complexes involved in innate immunity.

For more information, check this:

www.mpi-dortmund.mpg.de/news/jobs/po...

PostDoc Position (m/f/d) in Structural Biology of Membrane Protein Complexes

www.mpi-dortmund.mpg.de

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · Jun 20

I'm not going to be able to drive in Wales without thinking this now, thanks for that

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · Jun 18

Very happy to present some of our research on HDX-MS at the Royal Society/ Japanese Society Promotion of Science joint meeting in London today. Incredibly interesting meeting on a very broad array of topics.

Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · Jun 16

A birthday treat for me and the wee one. Caught a bucket full of trout and cod, the seas were very choppy but glad to report my son has an iron stomach (which couldn't be said for some of our fellow fishers). Son delighted and ate his own cod for supper.

Reposted by Glenn Masson

Elizabeth Villa @thevillalab.bsky.social · Jun 10

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · Jun 6

Delighted to share research on ISR kinase & Parkinson's target HRI, with help from @mrcppu.bsky.social's Miratual Muqit, spearheaded by MSc student Shivani. Recently, I presented this (far too quickly) at @ukproteostasis.bsky.social- if you wanted more details, here they are! tinyurl.com/5n7ptvju

Structural Insights into allosteric inhibition of HRI kinase by heme binding via HDX-MS

Heme-Regulated Inhibitor (HRI) is one of the four mammalian kinases that phosphorylate eIF2α, facilitating a cellular response to stress through the regulation of mRNA translation. Originally identifi...

portlandpress.com

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · Jun 3

Congrats Melissa!

Melissa Gammons @melissa-gammons1.bsky.social · Jun 3

Excited to share our recent paper on the Wnt signalosome www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wnt signalosome assembly is governed by conformational flexibility of Axin and by the AP2 clathrin adaptor - Nature Communications

Gammons et al. describe how the clustering of the Wnt receptor complex in clathrin-coated locales allows Axin and GSK3 to dock at adjacent tails of the LRP6 co-receptor to assemble a signalosome that ...

www.nature.com

Reposted by Glenn Masson

Melissa Gammons @melissa-gammons1.bsky.social · Jun 3

Excited to share our recent paper on the Wnt signalosome www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wnt signalosome assembly is governed by conformational flexibility of Axin and by the AP2 clathrin adaptor - Nature Communications

Gammons et al. describe how the clustering of the Wnt receptor complex in clathrin-coated locales allows Axin and GSK3 to dock at adjacent tails of the LRP6 co-receptor to assemble a signalosome that ...

www.nature.com

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Glenn Masson @glennmasson.bsky.social · May 22

The swifts have returned and are ruling the skies of Leuchars once more

Reposted by Glenn Masson

Jim Hurley @jimhurley.bsky.social · May 14

mTORC1 is activated when cells are fed with amino acids. New preprint with @robzonculab.bsky.social led by Rachel Jansen shows how the massive "CastiGATOR" complex is formed when arginine-free CASTOR1 binds to the GATOR2 complex to antagonize mTORC1 starved cells. tinyurl.com/yr6en6f4

Cryo-EM structure of CASTOR1-GATOR2 complex

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