EMBL

EMBL welcomes its new Director General, Tony Hyman, who will take up the mandate of leading EMBL’s six sites as the organisation enters its next phase. Hyman, a group leader and visiting senior scientist at EMBL Heidelberg from 1993 to 1999, succeeds Interim Director Ewan Birney, who assumed leadership following the death of Interim Director General Peer Bork in January. Together, Bork and Birney had led the institution since former Director General Edith Heard moved to the Francis Crick Institute in London as its new Director and Chief Executive. “This is a moment when biology is changing rapidly,” said Hyman. “Advances in imaging, large-scale data generation, and artificial intelligence are reshaping how we study living systems. EMBL has played an important role in previous periods of change, and I look forward to working with colleagues across the organisation as it enters this next phase.” https://lnkd.in/dATD2DZR

Imagine shrinking yourself to the size of a microbe 🦠 . You would discover that every handful of soil and every bucket of seawater is akin to a bustling city filled with millions of microbes. The new MGnify biome catalogues are helping scientists map the invisible microbial metropolises that influence health, agriculture and the environment. Explore our catalogues of richly annotated, microbe-derived genomes, a treasure trove for scientists working in antimicrobial resistance, agritech, or biodiversity. https://lnkd.in/ekWbqqnW #metagenomics #bioinformatics #AMR European Nucleotide Archive Ensembl

Lymphomas are a group of heterogeneous cancers of the lymphatic system and are increasing in incidence across the globe. A new study maps for the first time how immune cells are organised in lymph nodes and explores how this architecture is affected in different types of lymphomas. The researchers found that an ‘inflammatory vicious cycle’ drives this loss of organisation, where cascades of pro-inflammatory signals lead to a breakdown in lymph node tissue structure. The findings have implications for long-term prognosis in cancer patients and can potentially open up new therapeutic avenues. https://lnkd.in/dZYMNDSg University of Düsseldorf | DKFZ German Cancer Research Center | Max Delbrück Center | Judith Zaugg | Anna Mathioudaki

Welcome, Stephanie LO, our new Protein Function Team Lead. Stephanie joins us from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, where she led the Global lobal Pneumococcal Sequencing project. At EMBL-EBI, she leads a team of curators working on UniProt, the world-leading protein knowledge resource. Their work ensures that scientists worldwide have access to accurate, high-quality information about protein function. Find out how Stephanie’s experience in genomics shaped her approach to protein curation, her interest studying infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance, and how she sees the future of protein annotation evolving hand in hand with advances in AI. https://lnkd.in/e8D92tG7 #Bioinformatics #ProteinScience #LifeSciences #AI 

Inside cells, RNA molecules are constantly produced by a machine called RNA polymerase. As RNA is produced, it starts folding into different shapes. These shapes matter because they determine what RNA can do and which proteins can interact with it. However, RNA is flexible, dynamic, and constantly changing shape, making it difficult to study and target with drugs, for example. The same RNA molecule can fold in many different ways, and traditional experiments usually average together millions of molecules, obscuring this complexity. Researchers from EMBL's Duss Group have developed a microscopy technique that enables them to observe individual RNA molecules being produced and folding into different shapes in real time. By tracking five fluorescent signals at once, they can observe multiple folding pathways and observe how proteins and other molecules interact with specific RNA structures. This method helps to reveal how RNA works inside cells and could make it easier to design drugs that target RNA. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/dGJvGDG7 Olivier Duss | Kavan Gor | #ResearchHighlight

A sea anemone looks very different from a coral, despite belonging to the same broad biological group. A new study from EMBL researchers and their colleagues at the University of Geneva sheds new light on how diversity arises in body shapes and forms in the animal world. Using a combination of theoretical modelling and experiments, the researchers identified ‘mechanotypes’ as the physical links between genes and body shapes in animals like corals and sea anemones. Their study, published in the journal Cell, shows how diverse forms arise through variations in certain mechanical properties of tissues. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/dJmCEXRm

Meet Aleena M S., Senior Ensembl Outreach Officer. Aleena delivers hands-on workshops worldwide, helping scientists integrate high-quality genomic data into their research. The Ensembl project has been running for 26 years and began with the Human Genome Project. It is a freely accessible resource that provides high-quality gene annotation alongside a wide range of tools to explore genomics data across vertebrate and non-vertebrate species. Beyond science, Aleena enjoys learning new languages, exploring local cultures, and finding creative ways to make bioinformatics engaging, like using local dishes to explain metagenomics. Read the full interview and learn how Ensembl is supporting global genomics capacity building. https://lnkd.in/eSvQ275a #Ensembl #Bioinformatics

Researchers from Erasmus MC and EMBL Grenoble have revealed the molecular mechanisms by which avian influenza evolves from a mild strain to a highly pathogenic one. The study, published in Science, shows that this mutation occurs when the influenza polymerase makes an error while copying the viral RNA into host cells, adding extra fragments. These results solve a 40-year-old mystery and will help predict which variants could become more dangerous, ultimately facilitating the development of antiviral drugs. Links to the press release and publication can be found in the comments section.

EMBL hosted a delegation from the PSI Paul Scherrer Institut, Switzerland’s largest research institute for natural and engineering sciences, on 3-4 March. This is the first visit of its kind between PSI’s Life Sciences Centre and EMBL. During the visit, lead scientists from both sides met to discuss their ongoing research and explore collaborations in key areas, including AI in life sciences, imaging and structural biology, and data analysis and management. The visit organised by Maria Ananchenkova, Dilyana Spasova, and Plamena Markova EMBL’s International Relations team provides an opportunity to strengthen existing collaborations and explore new areas of research with PSI and Switzerland – EMBL’s founding member state and strong partner.