Purba Mukherjee
purbam.bsky.social
Purba Mukherjee
@purbam.bsky.social
EPSRC Open Fellow, Principal Investigator, York Structural Biology Laboratory, Dept. of Chemistry, University of York

Lab website: https://sites.google.com/view/mukherjeelab?usp=sharing
If you are a motivated postdoc looking for an exciting and challenging project to join in a young group look no further! We are looking for someone experienced in bioengineering, interested in DNA polymerases and chemoenzymatic synthesis: jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/rese...
Jobs - The University of York
jobs.york.ac.uk
October 3, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by Purba Mukherjee
Our first TB preprint with @jnb-lab.bsky.social is out! Using spectroscopic techniques from our lab, we resolve the exact mode of action of everyone's favourite TB drug, bedaquiline. I'd like to add a few comments about the microbiology part of the picture! #TBsky #MicroSky (1/7)
Finally we are able to share our story on the molecular mechanism of the transformative anti-tuberculosis drug bedaquiline within living cells

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

A (hopefully) broadly-accessible tutorial below ⬇️ (it ended up being really long!)
bioRxiv Manuscript Processing System
Manuscript Processing System for bioRxiv.
submit.biorxiv.org
December 6, 2024 at 10:15 AM
Reposted by Purba Mukherjee
Our latest issue is out now! This themed issue focuses on Bacteriophages, providing further insight into phage diversity across ecosystems, including humans, animals, and plants.
portlandpress.com/essaysbioche...
January 3, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Purba Mukherjee
We are working on the program for the 5th Virtual ChemBioTalks on September 30th, 2025. While we already have commitments by our keynotes @oconnorlab.bsky.social and @craigmcrews.bsky.social, the remaining program is still in planning. Whom would you most like to hear at our next event?
November 21, 2024 at 5:05 AM
Reposted by Purba Mukherjee
And see this related preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Conserved jumbo phage factors required for protein import into a phage nucleus

Yup. That does say "phage nucleus" and it really is a nucleus-like compartment.
Conserved jumbo phage factors required for protein import into a phage nucleus
Bacteriophages use diverse mechanisms to evade anti-phage defenses systems. ΦKZ-like jumbo phages assemble a proteinaceous nucleus-like compartment that excludes antagonistic host nucleases, while int...
www.biorxiv.org
December 4, 2024 at 11:16 PM
Reposted by Purba Mukherjee
We find a lot of proteins - particularly antibiotic biosynthetic enzymes - are produced in soluble form in Streptomyces lividans but not E.coli. It’s a useful platform for the production of otherwise intractable proteins.
pIJ86 sequence and map just added to actinobase.org. Useful for anyone wanting to over produce proteins in Streptomyces species. Plasmid available free from JIC (streptomyces.org.uk)
ActinoBase
actinobase.org
November 29, 2024 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Purba Mukherjee
To honour Fanny Hesse (1850-1934) for introducing agar and revolutionising microbiology, DSMZ researchers named the strain Streptomyces hesseae (DSM 40473) after her.

#herstory #HonoringWomenInSTEM #WomenInScience #RobertKoch #streptomyces #microbiology
December 3, 2024 at 9:19 AM
Reposted by Purba Mukherjee
Improving AlphaFold 3 structural modeling by incorporating explicit crosslinks https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.03.626671v1
Improving AlphaFold 3 structural modeling by incorporating explicit crosslinks https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.03.626671v1
AlphaFold 3 has significantly advanced the modeling of macromolecular structures, including proteins
www.biorxiv.org
December 4, 2024 at 2:19 AM