Titia Sixma
@titiasixma.bsky.social
1.9K followers 250 following 10 posts
Structural biologist and biochemist, interested in ubiquitin enzymes and DNA repair & regulation
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Reposted by Titia Sixma
nkinl.bsky.social
“It’s amazing to be the very first person to understand something at such a miniscule scale”.

From October 1st, junior group leader Wout Oosterheert will give a boost to fundamental cancer research at the Netherlands Cancer Institute ➡️ www.nki.nl/news-events/...
Reposted by Titia Sixma
fmattiroli.bsky.social
The latest work from ours and @vram142.bsky.social lab is out! True teamwork to visualize nascent chromatin with strand resolution, using a fully reconstituted system. Very proud of superstar-PhD student Bruna, and @palindromephd.bsky.social. Learning so much from Vijay’s amazing technologies! RT
titiasixma.bsky.social
Congratulations to everyone but especially Venda & Sylvie for this nice work and thanks to Andrea Murachelli in my lab for his analyses
sylvie-noordermeer.bsky.social
Happy to share our latest research on the BRCA1-BRCTs now online.

academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

Congrats to first author Venda for putting it all together! This project was a great collaboration with the @titiasixma.bsky.social lab who helped us give structural meaning to our observations.
Validate User
academic.oup.com
titiasixma.bsky.social
Happy to see this out, great work from Niels, combining kinetic analysis, cryoEM and an unexpected gain-of-function mutant, nice work from master students Jan and Nina, from Kaustav and from Alex for the kinetics
‪@oncodeinstitute.bsky.social‬,
‪@nkinl.bsky.social‬
Reposted by Titia Sixma
nkinl.bsky.social
Proud! 💙 Our scientific director Thijn Brummelkamp receives the Spinoza Prize, a prize for scientists who belong to the best researchers worldwide. A wonderful recognition for his groundbreaking research.

Congrats Thijn! 🎉 @thijnbrummel.bsky.social

Full article ➡️ bit.ly/40p4KnK
Reposted by Titia Sixma
aafkegros.bsky.social
In the context of our @reviewcommons.org revision process, I'm happy to announce Microscopy Nodes v2.2.0!
This packs lots of new fun features, including new color management 🌈, clearer transparency handling 🫥, custom default settings 🔧 and more!
Preprint at doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Reposted by Titia Sixma
aafkegros.bsky.social
This is accompanied by a new set of tutorials showing exactly how you can start making beautiful microscopy visualizations in @blender.org!
Following along is also easy with the example OME-Zarr @openmicroscopy.org datasets 😄
Find the tutorials here: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
Reposted by Titia Sixma
cryotud.bsky.social
LocScale-SURFER is now also available for quick install via the ChimeraX toolshed:

cxtoolshed.rbvi.ucsf.edu
cryotud.bsky.social
LocScale-2.0 is deliberately designed to optimise contrast for both high-resolution detail & weak contextual densities such as membrane/micelle or flexible/low-occupancy regions

LocScale-SURFER is a ChimeraX plugin aiding w/ visualisation of contextual structure.

cryotud.github.io/locscale-sur...
Reposted by Titia Sixma
barackobama.bsky.social
Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions - rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking steps to make sure students can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope others follow suit.
Reposted by Titia Sixma
luijsterburglab.bsky.social
A must for all DNA repair aficionados!

Egmond DNA Repair Meeting → April 19–24, 2026 🇳🇱
✔️ Confirmed top speakers
✔️ Ample opportunities for talks & posters

Don’t miss it: dnarepairmeeting-egmond2026.com
Reposted by Titia Sixma
carlbergstrom.com
Trump's 3/27 executive order targets the Smithsonian for advancing "the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct."

Trump argues that the exhibit's statement, below, is unscientific. He's wrong. As a biology professor and population geneticist, I agree with every word of it.
“Race does not provide an accurate representation of human biological variation,” the statement reads. “Humans are not divided biologically into distinct continental types or racial genetic clusters. Instead, the Western concept of race must be understood as a classification system that emerged from, and in support of, European colonialism, oppression, and discrimination.”

“It thus does not have its roots in biological reality, but in policies of discrimination,” the statement says. “Because of that, over the last five centuries, race has become a social reality that structures societies and how we experience the world. In this regard, race is real, as is racism, and both have real biological consequences.”
Reposted by Titia Sixma
robvanmontfort.bsky.social
Fondly remember Jan for his enthusiasm, rigorous science, and the kind person that he was.
Reposted by Titia Sixma
elisafadda.bsky.social
"The rejection of grant applications or the alteration of the published record on account of the use of terms such as ‘bias’, ‘gender’, ‘ethnicity’ and even ‘female’ is unacceptable. EMBO Press joins other journals in not allowing such changes" 💪🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
Under pressure | EMBO reports
EMBO Press is an editorially independent publishing platform for the development of EMBO scientific publications.
www.embopress.org
titiasixma.bsky.social
It's infinitely sad to see what is happening. the disregard of laws, advice and justice in our immigration policy plans, the total implosion of human values overseas. I feel just a bystander reeling in shock.
titiasixma.bsky.social
Today Jan Drenth would have been 100 years, but sadly he passed away last week.
He was the founding father of structural biology in the Netherlands and his modesty, his gentle humor and his generosity set the spirit for the amazing environment in Groningen where i did my PhD.
Reposted by Titia Sixma
bakerdphd.bsky.social
Today, the same as every other damn day, trans rights are human rights
Reposted by Titia Sixma
nkinl.bsky.social
Are you graduating this year and ready to start your career in the most meaningful way? This is your chance to get on board. #PhD #CancerResearch ➡️ nki.nl/careers-study/phd-students/nki-phd-program-2025/
Reposted by Titia Sixma
fmattiroli.bsky.social
I am really excited to have the opportunity to continue to do science at the Hubrecht Institute @hubrechtinstitute.bsky.social! Thank you for the support!
Reposted by Titia Sixma
aafkegros.bsky.social
Microscopy Nodes is now up on bioRxiv! 🚀

This is a Blender extension that seamlessly integrates and visualizes 3D microscopy data (TIF & @zarr.dev).

High-quality volume rendering for anyone, in both EM and fluorescence, regardless of computational expertise! 🔬

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
FIB-SEM dataset visualized with Microscopy Nodes, data from Mocaer et al 2023
titiasixma.bsky.social
The NKI call for PhD students is now open, with more information on our project on the website, More info: bit.ly/3O4bOjq
titiasixma.bsky.social
We have an opening for a PhD student, for a cryo-EM/biochemistry project at the interface of ubiquitin and DNA repair. Enthousiasm and experience with protein biochemistry and/or structural biology really important. Recruitment will fall under the the NKI PhD program, please see below
nkinl.bsky.social
📢 Applications for the NKI PhD program open from Jan 1 - Feb 28. Join our international research community in Amsterdam, working in cancer biology, AI research & life sciences with leading scientists and top facilities #PhD #CancerResearch More info: bit.ly/3O4bOjq
titiasixma.bsky.social
Despite the black picture below, we're really happy to have this illuminating story online! Careful molecular mechanistic from Niels and others in the lab work giving unexpected biological insight!
titiasixma.bsky.social
We have an opening for a PhD student, for a cryo-EM/biochemistry project at the interface of ubiquitin and DNA repair. Enthousiasm and experience with protein biochemistry and/or structural biology really important. Recruitment will fall under the the NKI PhD program, please see below
nkinl.bsky.social
📢 Applications for the NKI PhD program open from Jan 1 - Feb 28. Join our international research community in Amsterdam, working in cancer biology, AI research & life sciences with leading scientists and top facilities #PhD #CancerResearch More info: bit.ly/3O4bOjq