Behavioral neuroscientist by training transitioned into cell biology. Lab technician in the De Camilli Lab at the Yale School of Medicine
Hely Rodriguez
Fascinating work by Guillén Samander et al. uncovering VAP-interacting LTPs in malaria parasites and a novel BLTP-interacting partner on the IMC. Could this new partnership be unique to apicomplexans, or might it hold across other phyla?
Huge thanks to the helpful staff at Yale’s Center for Engineering Innovation & Design (CEID), an incredible resource on campus, for letting me use their 3D printers! Anyone on campus want to 3D-print their protein? Let me know, I’d love to help!
Excited to share our paper has been published in @embojournal.org! Check out what we've uncovered about the shortest BLTP family member and lysosome damage. Proud and grateful to be a part of this work! @pdc-lab.bsky.social
In natural systems, form often determines function. Check out how this model of BLTP3A exhibits the tube-like form that allows it to bridge membranes, and how its partner protein, LC3, docked here near the C-terminus, can serve to orient BLTP3A towards its intended site of action/lipid delivery.
Hely Rodriguez
Hely Rodriguez
Hely Rodriguez
Hely Rodriguez
New paper alert! I’m very excited to share our paper published in @embojournal.org! @pdc-lab.bsky.social @yaleneuro.bsky.social
Our article is now out in its final form in @natcomms.nature.com. Thankful to reviewers for making our preprint better and of course all contributors and funders. Hopefully my first of many stories understanding the complex membrane cell biology of malaria parasites 🙌
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Michael Hanna
Organelle biogenesis in the rapidly growing malaria parasite requires extensive membrane genesis and remodeling. Here a mechanism to directly supply lipids from the ER to the inner membrane complex (I...
Bridge-like lipid transfer protein 3A (BLTP3A) participates in endomembrane repair as an effector of #ATG8 conjugation to single membranes (CASM) - helping repair or minimize #lysosome damage
@mike-hanna.bsky.social et al, @pdc-lab.bsky.social
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
Andrés Guillén Samander
The EMBO Journal
One for the Apicomplexa peeps:
ever wonder how does the IMC grow so fast during progeny formation? Where do all the lipids come from? In our latest work on malaria RBC stages we implicate this monster protein (~6000 residues!) and ER contact sites.
Happy+proud to share and keen to hear thoughts!
Video
Andrés Guillén Samander
A bridge-like lipid transfer protein is critical for generation of invasive stages in malaria parasites https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.25.666630v1
