Published in Cell: The structure of VIPP1, the "photosynthetic ESCT-III", provides insights how this membrane remodeling protein builds and maintains thylakoid membranes. This study was an extensive collaboration with the Schroda, Schuller, Nickelsen, Rudack, and Sakamoto labs. And wow! ...a leafy VIPP1 is featured on the journal cover!! [Jul 2020]
Ben gave a virtual talk at the Microscience Microscopy Congress. Thank you for hosting, Sebastian Munck! [Jul 2021]
Ben gave a virtual seminar to a consortium of French plant membrane labs. Thank you for hosting, Yvon Jaillais! [Jul 2021]
Florent was awarded the Dina Surdin Prize from the French Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SFBBM). Congratulations!! [Jul 2021]
Ben gave a virtual talk at the annual meeting of the Japanese Society of Photosynthesis. Thank you for the invitation, Toru Hisabori and Ken-ichi Wakabayashi! [May 2021]
Ben gave a virtual talk at the Penn Structural Biology Symposium. Thank you for hosting, Vera Moiseenkova-Bell! [May 2021]
Ben gave a G4W Webinar for the Exeter Living Systems Institute. Thank you for hosting, Bertram Daum! [May 2021]
Florent Waltz has joined our group! Florent loves exploring mitochondria throughout the tree of life, and particularly in photosynthetic organisms. He is also a collector of exotic ribosomes. We can't wait to see what crazy things he discovers next. Welcome to the lab!! [May 2021]
Published in Nature Plants: Ben and Wojciech had fun writing a News & Views on chloroplast "greening" and the light-induced step of chlorophyll biosynthesis. [Apr 2021]
Published in Nature Plants: Our collaboration with the Rudack, Schuller, and Nowaczyk labs, revealing the first high-resolution structure of a PSII assembly intermediate. How to build Nature's unique water-splitting machine. [Apr 2021]
Ben gave a virtual seminar for Washington University in St. Luis. Thank you for hosting, James Fitzpatrick! [Dec 2020]
Published in Nature Plants: Our collaboration with the Jonikas Lab revealing the the structural interactions between the carbon-fixing enzyme Rubisco and the multivalent linker EPYC1 that drive phase separation of the pyrenoid. [Nov 2020]
Manon Demulder has joined our group! Manon will lead our explorations into the pyrenoid, a phase-separated microcompartment in the algal chloroplast that performs efficient carbon fixation. Welcome to the team!! [Nov 2020]
Ben enjoyed virtually teaching a graduate course on cryo-ET at the Basel Biozentrum. [Nov 2020]
Petr Chlanda virtually visited us for the HPC Webinar Series. He give a jaw-dropping talk on visualizing the stages of SARS-Cov-2 assembly inside cells by cryo-ET. [Oct 2020]
Ricardo Righetto has joined our team! As our group's computational specialist, Ricardo will anchor our image analysis, while exploring new applications of deep learning to cryo-electron tomography. Despite the closed border, Ricardo and his wife successfully arrived from Basel, with a nice cruise across the Bodensee. Welcome to Munich!! [Apr 2020]
Published in eLife: A detailed view of the cell's solar panel. We show how to map photosynthetic complexes into native thylakoid architecture. Congrats Wojciech! [Apr 2020]
Congrats Hugo for giving a great talk at the <Interact>2020 Conference! [Feb 2020]
Ben gave a guest lecture at the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry. Thank you for hosting, Patrick Cramer! [Feb 2020]
Published in Science Advances: Our collaboration with the Guichard / Hamel Lab revealing the helical structure and molecular composition of an inner scaffold that holds the centriole together and helps it resist physical stresses. The inner scaffold is conserved in Paramecium, Chlamydomonas, Naegleria, and Humans! [Feb 2020]
Published in PNAS: Proteasomes and Cdc48 cluster together in non-membrane-bound degradation microcompartments that directly contact specialized ribosome-free regions of the ER membrane. Is it ERAD by phase separation? [Jan 2020]
Our Aquilos cryo-FIB is here. What a great Christmas present! #HugTheBox [Dec 2019]
Published in MBoC: Our collaboration with the Avashti lab characterizing actin filaments in the green alga, Chlamydomonas. [Oct 2019]
Ben gave a guest lecture at the Institut Curie. Thank you for hosting, Daniel Lévy! [Oct 2019]
Ben gave a guest lecture at the MRC-LMB. Thank you for hosting, Andrew Carter! [Oct 2019]
Ben gave an interview to announce that the Cell Architecture Lab will be moving to the Pioneer Campus at Helmholtz Zentrum München in November 2019. [Jul 2019]
