Stephan Gruber

‼️Exciting news: we are back‼️

This year marks the 20th anniversary of our graduate student symposium, and we are more than excited to be collaborating with students from the EPFL School of Life Sciences🇨🇭

📅 When? 2nd - 3rd of July 2026

📍Where? MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge

I have a PhD student and a post-doc position available in my lab to work on plant photobiology. Please use the links below to postulate.
Please RT, many thanks
career5.successfactors.eu/career?caree...

career5.successfactors.eu/career?caree...

Preprint alert 🚨Happy to share my first Posdoc manuscript from the Vos lab @voslab.org. We introduce GATO-seq, a high-throughput, fully in vitro technique that maps RNA polymerases at base pair resolution over time. Using it, we found a new pause state of Pol II: sidetracking tinyurl.com/superpause

Explore SMC mechanism and regulation at EMBO Workshop "Threads of life: SMC complexes in #chromosome structure and dynamics" in #Bengaluru, IN, 13–18 Dec 2026.

Registration/Abstract submission by 1 Apr/1 May

https://meetings.embo.org/event/26-smc-complexes
#EMBOThreadsOfLife #genesky #EMBOevents 🧪

Common variation in meiosis genes shapes human recombination and aneuploidy - Nature Analysis of data from pre-implantation genetic testing sheds light on the genetic basis of meiotic-origin aneuploidy, the leading cause of human pregnancy loss, identifying common genetic variants ass...

Pregnancy loss is common in humans, and chromosomal abnormalities are the leading cause. Using genetic data from ~140,000 IVF embryos, we show that maternal variation in meiosis genes influences recombination and aneuploidy risk.

First authors: @saracarioscia.bsky.social & @aabiddanda.github.io

The @dmf-unil.bsky.social is supporting the application of a candidate for the SNSF/ERC Starting Grant (deadline 5th of May). Reach out to me if you are interested. We are collecting CV’s until the 8th of Feb. We can offer a stimulating scientific environment and help with the application/interview.

Back-scratching bovine leads scientists to reassess intelligence of cows Brown Swiss in Austria has been discovered using tools in multiple ways – something only ever seen in humans and chimpanzees

COW TOOLS COW TOOLS COW TOOLS

Ancestral sequence reconstruction reveals CTP-dependent loading of the bacterial centromere-binding protein ParB as an ancient evolutionary feature

Now published:
tinyurl.com/4ddhwbb3

Thanks to the Hochberg and Bange labs for the great collaboration!

JOB ALERT: Operations Director (DCI–Lausanne).
The DCI, a joint initiative of EPFL, UNIL, UNIGE and UNIBE, is recruiting an Operations Director to lead the cryo-EM facility in Lausanne.
📩 Questions: CEO of the DCI: @chgenoud.bsky.social
🔗 Apply here: careers.epfl.ch/job/Lausanne...

Chromatin buffers torsional stress during transcription During eukaryotic transcription, Pol II must overcome nucleosome obstacles and, because of DNA’s helical structure, must also rotate relative to DNA, generating torsional stress. However, there is lim...

@science.org Chromatin buffers torsional stress during transcription | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Europa-Karte mit farbkodierten Punkten. Sehr grün in NL und CH, sehr rot in DE und IT, BE/AT/FR im Mittelfeld.

Verspätungen 2025 an über 100 europäischen Bahnhöfen: Sogar italienische Züge sind pünktlicher als deutsche... 🙈

Quelle: chuuchuu.com/2025wrapped

Coupled to the general budget cuts by both the canton and federal government to our University (and it's happening at most institutes in Switzerland), this would be really bad. The project funding scheme is really the best thing about Swiss science, so please don't touch this!

ah, vielleicht weil Leute RAM auf Vorrat kaufen?

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Agrees to Pay $15 Million to Settle Fraud Allegations Related to Scientific Research Grants BOSTON – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Inc. (Dana-Farber) has agreed to pay $15 million to resolve allegations that, between 2014 and 2024, it made materially false statements and certifications relat...

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Agrees to Pay $15 Million to Settle Fraud Allegations Related to Scientific Research Grants. The relator [Sholto David] will receive $2,625,000 under today’s settlement.
www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/d...

you are brave; they will come and get you ;-)

*whispers* now the DNA is left-handed...

Yes, it can be annoying, but I still disagree.

Nomenclature/taxonomy should aim to make literature easy to navigate for future generations, not make those comfortable (me included) who are on the way to disconnect from the tree of life 🙂

The Ppl protein senses 3′-hydroxyl DNA overhangs and NTP depletion to halt phage infection Xu et al. reveal that the Ppl defense system protects bacteria from phages by acting as a “double-check” security system. It requires two simultaneous phage-induced stresses to activate, a sophisticated mechanism that ensures effective immunity while preventing premature abortive infection.

Online Now: The Ppl protein senses 3′-hydroxyl DNA overhangs and NTP depletion to halt phage infection Online now:

DNA topoisomerase I acts as supercoiling sensor for bacterial transcription elongation Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 01 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41594-025-01703-5Vidmar et al. use cryo-EM to reveal how bacterial RNA polymerase (RNAP) and topoisomerase I (TopoI) cooperate. TopoI switches conformation, senses DNA supercoils near RNAP and relaxes them. Mutations disrupting this process alter bacterial motility and operon polarity.

New online: DNA topoisomerase I acts as supercoiling sensor for bacterial transcription elongation

Really looking forward to hosting Elisabeth on Monday Dec 1 at @fbm-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social for our BIG seminar: 12.15 in Genopode C (note change of room). Open to everyone.

haha, will do, thanks!

by @drhonsworth.bsky.social @roisnehamelinf.bsky.social
@taschner.bsky.social James & @dnatopologylab.bsky.social

The SMC Hinge is a Selective Gate for Obstacle Bypass - Nature Communications SMC complexes are ring-shaped motors that fold DNA by extruding loops, but how they navigate large DNA obstacles is unclear. Here, Liu et al., show that SMC complexes bypass obstacles by threading obs...

The hinge bypass gate paper is finally out! doi.org/10.1038/s414...

We show how loop-extruding SMC complexes can maintain DNA entrapment while bypassing obstacles on DNA — including transcription machinery & potentially other SMCs.

A lucky convergence of 3 projects lead to the initial discovery!

The SMC Hinge is a Selective Gate for Obstacle Bypass - Nature Communications SMC complexes are ring-shaped motors that fold DNA by extruding loops, but how they navigate large DNA obstacles is unclear. Here, Liu et al., show that SMC complexes bypass obstacles by threading obs...

Glad to see this out after a rather interesting review/publication process!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congrats Rodrigo and co!

Prashant Singh in the lab of Tina Iverson at Vanderbilt published this image of the bacterial 🦠flagellar motor, a detailed molecular model made possibly by CryoEM 🔬.

The similarity to mechanical motors are strong enough we can use terms like stator, rotor, rod & gearing to describe it.

🌍Open call: Junior Group Leader positions!

Join a world-class biomedical research institute at the heart of the Vienna BioCenter, where curiosity drives discovery.

Lead your own lab, pursue bold ideas, and shape the future of science at the IMP: www.imp.ac.at/career/open-...

What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure Franklin was no victim in how the DNA double helix was solved. An overlooked letter and an unpublished news article, both written in 1953, reveal that she was an equal player.

What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure. A really informative article, perfect for a weekend coffee read. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The bacterial condensin MukBEF compacts DNA into a repetitive, stable structure - PubMed Condensins are conserved proteins containing SMC (structural maintenance of chromosomes) moieties that organize and compact chromosomes in an unknown mechanism essential for faithful chromosome partitioning. We show that MukBEF, the condensin in Escherichia coli, cooperatively compacts a single DNA …

This paper was retracted (by the authors) a long time ago:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15178751/

However, I cannot find a retraction notice on the DOI page:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Is this standard practice, or an oversight?
@science.org

I was not aware that Walther Flemming did (some of) his groundbreaking work in Kiel