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We are thrilled to announce the 2026 Zara Weinberg Leading Edge Fellows! 40 remarkable postdocs pursuing transformative research in biological/biomedical sciences. This is the 7th Leading Edge cohort and we are so excited to welcome them! www.leadingedgesymposium.org/fellows/

Océane Marescal, @iaincheeseman.bsky.social et al. show that quiescent cells disassemble their #centromeres through the transcriptional downregulation of most #centromere proteins while preserving those required to maintain centromere identity. rupress.org/jcb/article/...

How can cells maintain gene expression despite minimal transcription during prolonged mitotic arrest? @iaincheeseman.bsky.social @jimmy-ly.bsky.social et al reveal global transcriptome stabilization in mitotic cells, partly because of reduced mRNA deadenylation link.springer.com/article/10.1...

We are #hiring! #GroupLeader positions open at #IRBBarcelona in #ChemicalBiology and #StructuralBiology. Application deadline: May 22, 2026 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 ➡️ https://shorturl.at/1tE3n 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 ➡️ https://shorturl.at/eKiJn #IRBJobs #Jobs #AcademicSky

In @jcb.org, Océane Marescal, @iaincheeseman.bsky.social et al. show that quiescent cells disassemble their #centromeres through the transcriptional downregulation of most #centromere proteins while preserving those required to maintain centromere identity. rupress.org/jcb/article/...

In Memoriam: R. Bruce Nicklas (1932-2025). Leocadia Paliulis commemorates the life of Dr. Nicklas who was a mentor, a polymath with a great sense of humor, and a link to the beginnings of chromosome research. rupress.org/jcb/article/... #CellDivision #Chromosomes

For 40 years the 8-nt ‘Kozak Sequence’ was thought to mark sites of translation initiation. In a new study, we revise this model by identifying an ~80-nt sequence—the extended Translation Initiation Sequence (eTIS)— that guides ribosomes to correct start sites. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

If you're a senior PhD student or recent graduate interested in doing work at the intersection of AI and microbial genomics and/or microbiomes, please feel free to reach out to discuss the possibility of applying together for an MIT Novo Nordisk Fellowship engineering.mit.edu/novo-nordisk

In the presence of cell division errors, mammalian cells can pause in mitosis for tens of hours with little to no transcription, while still requiring continued translation for viability. These unique aspects of mitosis require substantial adaptations to gene expression. During interphase, homeostatic control of mRNA levels involves a constant balance of transcription and degradation, with a median mRNA half-life of ~2–4 h. If such short half-lives persisted in mitosis, cells would be expected to rapidly deplete their transcriptome without new transcription. Here, we report that the transcriptome is globally stabilized during prolonged mitotic delays. Median mRNA half-lives are increased >4-fold during mitotic arrest compared to interphase, buffering mRNA levels in the absence of new synthesis. Moreover, poly(A) tail-length profiles change during mitotic arrest, strongly suggesting a partial mitotic repression of deadenylation. In contrast, siRNA-directed mRNA degradation machinery remains active. We further show that mitotic mRNA stabilization depends on PABPC1&4. Depletion of PABPC1&4 during mitotic arrest reduces mRNA stability and disrupts the cells’ ability to maintain arrest, highlighting the critical physiological role of mitotic transcriptome buffering.

Happy to share our preprint! Using massively parallel reporter assays, single-molecule imaging, deep learning and cryo-EM, we decode the sequence requirements for translation initiation and describe the “extended translation initiation sequence” (eTIS) that modulates start codon recognition. 🧵👇