Elena Rivas
@rivaselenarivas.bsky.social
270 followers 350 following 29 posts
computational biologist. algorithms for genomics. worried about sustainability: from personal 2 country 2 planet. 🧪🧬| http://rivaslab.org
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rivaselenarivas.bsky.social
Integrated prediction of RNA secondary structure jointly with 3D motifs and pseudoknots guided by evolutionary information.
@aakaran31.bsky.social and @rivaselenarivas.bsky.social

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
All-at-once RNA folding with 3D motif prediction framed by evolutionary information - Nature Methods
Structural RNAs exhibit a vast array of recurrent short three-dimensional (3D) elements found in loop regions involving non-Watson–Crick interactions that help arrange canonical double helices into tertiary structures. Here we present CaCoFold-R3D, a probabilistic grammar that predicts these RNA 3D motifs (also termed modules) jointly with RNA secondary structure over a sequence or alignment. CaCoFold-R3D uses evolutionary information present in an RNA alignment to reliably identify canonical helices (including pseudoknots) by covariation. Here we further introduce the R3D grammars, which also exploit helix covariation that constrains the positioning of the mostly noncovarying RNA 3D motifs. Our method runs predictions over an almost-exhaustive list of over 50 known RNA motifs (‘everything’). Motifs can appear in any nonhelical loop region (including three-way, four-way and higher junctions) (‘everywhere’). All structural motifs as well as the canonical helices are arranged into one single structure predicted by one single joint probabilistic grammar (‘all-at-once’). Our results demonstrate that CaCoFold-R3D is a valid alternative for predicting the all-residue interactions present in a RNA 3D structure. CaCoFold-R3D is fast and easily customizable for novel motif discovery and shows promising value both as a strong input for deep learning approaches to all-atom structure prediction as well as toward guiding RNA design as drug targets for therapeutic small molecules.
link.springer.com
Reposted by Elena Rivas
natmethods.nature.com
Laser ablation of imaged surface layers under adaptive control enables volumetric imaging of heterogeneous tissue like skull and brain.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
rivaselenarivas.bsky.social
Integrated prediction of RNA secondary structure jointly with 3D motifs and pseudoknots guided by evolutionary information.
@aakaran31.bsky.social and @rivaselenarivas.bsky.social

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
All-at-once RNA folding with 3D motif prediction framed by evolutionary information - Nature Methods
Structural RNAs exhibit a vast array of recurrent short three-dimensional (3D) elements found in loop regions involving non-Watson–Crick interactions that help arrange canonical double helices into tertiary structures. Here we present CaCoFold-R3D, a probabilistic grammar that predicts these RNA 3D motifs (also termed modules) jointly with RNA secondary structure over a sequence or alignment. CaCoFold-R3D uses evolutionary information present in an RNA alignment to reliably identify canonical helices (including pseudoknots) by covariation. Here we further introduce the R3D grammars, which also exploit helix covariation that constrains the positioning of the mostly noncovarying RNA 3D motifs. Our method runs predictions over an almost-exhaustive list of over 50 known RNA motifs (‘everything’). Motifs can appear in any nonhelical loop region (including three-way, four-way and higher junctions) (‘everywhere’). All structural motifs as well as the canonical helices are arranged into one single structure predicted by one single joint probabilistic grammar (‘all-at-once’). Our results demonstrate that CaCoFold-R3D is a valid alternative for predicting the all-residue interactions present in a RNA 3D structure. CaCoFold-R3D is fast and easily customizable for novel motif discovery and shows promising value both as a strong input for deep learning approaches to all-atom structure prediction as well as toward guiding RNA design as drug targets for therapeutic small molecules.
link.springer.com
Reposted by Elena Rivas
laurahelmuth.bsky.social
Vaccines have one of the highest reward to risk ratios of any medical intervention in human history. This sociopathic conspiracy theorist is literally killing people, causing the deaths by vaccine-preventable diseases of people who could have lived.
Reposted by Elena Rivas
rivaselenarivas.bsky.social
we asked a simple question:
What does it take to learn the rules of RNA base pairing?

using standard deep-learning technics, got a simple answer:
don't need structures, nor alignments or many parameters
only a few RNA sequences and 21 parameters;
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
doi.org
Reposted by Elena Rivas
fridaghitis.bsky.social
The neighborhood is getting ready for tomorrow
Reposted by Elena Rivas
tedpavlic.bsky.social
Reminder: Nobel-prize winning PCR (1983), used in basically all genetic tech today, was only possible because of extremophile bacterium discovered in 1964 in Yellowstone funded by a small ~$80k NSF grant with no obvious application at the time. #science 🧪
www.richmondscientific.com/how-a-discov...
How a discovery in Yellowstone National Park led to the development of PCR - Richmond Scientific
A discovery in Yellowstone National Park led to the development of PCR, the gold-standard COVID-19 tests used to fight the global pandemic.
www.richmondscientific.com
Reposted by Elena Rivas
karlaneugebauer.bsky.social
Another fantastic explanation of how basic science helps people and society.
rivaselenarivas.bsky.social
The lab is at the RNA Society meeting #RNA25 #RNA2025

They have terminated ALL our funding, but we keep going.

Here is Dr Agata Kilar @amkilar.bsky.social presenting her work on conserved structural RNAs in nematodes.
Reposted by Elena Rivas
davidpfau.com
The war on science in the US is already having an effect on private sector research like AlphaFold. Bears repeating but the private sector builds on top of things created by academic research for the public good. This hurts everyone.
Reposted by Elena Rivas
cryptogenomicon.bsky.social
The $700M/year of federal funding to Harvard (not $3B or other fictional numbers) is for research labs, not for the college. Trade schools are great, but taking science funding and giving it to trade schools shows a misunderstanding of how the US has funded scientific research since WWII.
Reposted by Elena Rivas
jonlevybu.bsky.social
On a day when all research grants at Harvard were terminated, and in a context where Congress seems to broadly accept the notion that destroying science and health research in the US is fine, it’s worth noting that this is not what the public wants.
rivaselenarivas.bsky.social
All funding that supports my lab including myself terminated, just now.