Weekly Links #4

A synthetic cell phage cycle. Migrating moths use stars for guidance. Proteins from an ancient hominid.

The FDA has approved lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injection that is nearly 100% effective at preventing HIV. I hate the name Yeztugo. More on this remarkable drug from Asimov Press and ‘Hard Drugs’ podcast.

The problems with cancer screening, from Siddhartha Mukherjee.

Chemical reactions affected by stir bars.

A synthetic cell phage cycle. “…we establish an all-cell-free viral cycle where T7 phages infect synthetic cells, equipped with lipopolysaccharides on the outer leaflet of the lipid membrane while encapsulating a cell-free gene expression system.” This is cool.

Migrating moths use the stars for guidance.

“In 1995…Nigel Unwin, a structural biologist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, prepared a grid with the receptor for the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and sprayed it with a solution containing acetylcholine. By quickly freezing the mixture, Unwin captured changes that occurred in the receptor within five milliseconds of acetylcholine binding [using cryo-EM]…” An article on time-resolved cryo-EM. Interesting read.

A formally exact method for high-throughput absolute binding-free-energy calculations.

Wojcicki is buying back 23andMe for $305M, apparently.

AlphaDesign uses an AlphaFold 2-based fitness function to hallucinate protein backbones.

A small molecule inhibitor of PurF, an enzyme in Mycobacteria involved in making purines, is good at treating tuberculosis (IN MICE).

Molecular chauffeur drags membrane transporters and enzymes to cellular peroxisomes.

Full computational design of Kemp eliminase enzymes. The method used here is extremely distinct from the one used by David Baker’s lab to make serine hydrolases a few months ago.

The HHS is quietly cancelling clinical trial funding for some biotech firms. A lot of speculation in this piece, so evaluate its claims with a bit of skepticism.

The UK government will likely soon approve precision breeding, which includes making engineered plants using CRISPR gene-editing. Plants are marked as “precision bred” if the introduced “genetic changes are limited to what may have been obtained through traditional breeding.” If the changes are more significant, or involve adding in a new gene, then the plants are marked as GMO and it’s harder to get approval.

A method to engineer plasmids very efficiently inside of living E. coli.

An algorithm, moPopGen, to generate non-canonical peptides.

HIV-1 capsids bind directly to dynein and hijack the cell’s microtubule transport system.

96 proteins retrieved from a skull belonging to a new species, Homo longi, who died >146,000 years ago.

Thanks to Asimov for supporting these weekly links!