Claudia Cobos

Postdoc Researcher @CFWBecker @UniVienna🇦🇹 | Peptide and Protein Chemistry | PhD in Medical and Molecular Sciences @JCU 🇦🇺| Traveller | Dog lover

[European Peptide Synthesis Conference @EUPeptideConf]

Have you submitted your poster for #EPSC2024? We’re looking forward to seeing your #innovativeresearch. Show us what you've got!

[Wolf Prize @WolfPrize_]

How scientists are hacking the genetic code to give proteins new powers:
Hiroaki Suga, Wolf Prize 2023 laureate in Chemistry, developed one workaround with an RNA-based catalyst.
Read more here Suga’s discoveries:
https://t.co/gg0yfZbMMU
@UTokyo_News_en

[BeckerLab @CFWBecker]

Check out our latest work on semi-synthetic Hsp27. Non-enzymatic PTMs turn Hsp27 into a superchaperone for several client proteins... https://t.co/hk5NGjgmQd

[Veera Rajagopal  @doctorveera]

A mind-blowing paper has come out today in @Nature

In 2016, JC Venter Institute scientists trimmed a bacterial genome to its barest minimum required for life to synthesize what they called a "minimal genome" (https://t.co/Rk8oZJ0bUj).

Today, a group of scientists from Indiana University reports how that minimal genome evolved over 2000 generations in comparison to the non-minimal genome.

The authors found that even when you reduce a bacterial genome to its absolute minimum where every nucleotide matters, the genome undergoes mutational events generation after generation as much as the non-minimal genome. One simply cannot stop the evolution.

Just over 300 days of evolution (equivalent to 40,000 years in humans) the minimal cell has gained everything it lacked in fitness on day one in comparison to the non-minimal cell.

When comparing the evolved traits between the minimal and non-minimal cells, the scientists found something striking. The evolutionary process increased the cell size of non-minimal cells but not that of the minimal cell. But that is not the striking part.

The scientists were able to identify the key mutation that resulted in cell size evolution. And it turned out that the mutation that helped the non-minimal cells to grow bigger is the same that helped the minimal cells to stay smaller. Growing bigger had a survival advantage for non-minimal cells and not growing bigger had a survival advantage for minimal cells. So, the mutation had a context-dependent effect. This just demonstrates that the evolutionary effects on traits have no absolute direction. All that matter is what is beneficial for the organism's survival.

The conclusion of the paper is metaphorically a quote from the Jurassic Park movie:

“Listen, if there’s one thing the history of evolution has taught us is that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories, and it crashes through barriers painfully, maybe even dangerously, but . . . life finds a way". (https://t.co/UlxRlb86CT)

https://t.co/zA9OAqSoAu

[bioRxiv @biorxivpreprint]

Deep learning from harmonized peptide libraries enables retention time prediction of diverse post translational modifications https://t.co/zbc2J1dGMk #bioRxiv

[Andrew Akbashev @Andrew_Akbashev]

Nature Materials - APC fees are $11,690 (€9,750).

Wait... what? It's enough for

- paying for 5-10 conferences for my students
or
- paying for >200 hours of high-res. TEM or FIB
or
- buying two potentiostats!

How have we ended up with this situation...

#AcademicTwitter

[Claudia Cobos @pariscoty]

@BeingJustHonest @Andrew_Akbashev This is an article in nature. Def not for free. Not all the article are open articles and most of them are paid by universities so their staff can read it. The problem is that the fees to publish are ridiculous. On top of that they want researchers to pay to read it. 😫🤦🏻‍♀️

[BeckerLab @CFWBecker]

The third DoSChem retreat of panel C just got on the way with an excellent presentation on organocatalysis & radical photochemistry by Paolo Melchiorre. Looking foward to 2 more days of great science. @MaulideLab @TBoettcher_Lab @RompelLab @BonifaziGroup

[Claudia Cobos @pariscoty]

This is such an amazing part of my work, but it is also amazing sharing this knowledge with others☺️

Happy weekend evryone! ✌🏼

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

It takes about 230 million years for the Sun to make a complete trip around the Milky Way.

[BeckerLab @CFWBecker]

3 out of 3 poster prices at the European Peptide Synthesis Conference #EPSC2023 in Leeds @EUPeptideConf go to Vienna. Two have been awarded to Claudia and Dominik (holding the Champagne) from the IBC @univienna. Congratulations, excellent Job!

[Claudia Cobos @pariscoty]

Great conference sharing peptide science at the @EUPeptideConf , topped off at the end with getting myself a poster prize 🥳 🏆 big thanks to all the organisers!

Also 2 out of 3 prizes went to our @CFWBecker lab! Great team work! 🙌🏼

[Zondlo Lab @ZondloLab]

N-Terminal Proline Editing for the Synthesis of Peptides with Mercaptoproline and Selenoproline: Mechanistic Insights Lead to Greater Efficiency in Proline Native Chemical Ligation (NCL). Our first @ChemRxiv preprint!
https://t.co/7E6X00gvuo

[Claudia Cobos @pariscoty]

Want to do a PhD in immunology and live in paradise? Then check out this position that is available at Dr Roland Ruscher’s team @jcu in Cairns, Australia.

[Roland Ruscher @RolandRuscher]

We are still looking for a PhD candidate. Scholarship is included! Palm trees, pristine beaches, 300+ sunny days/year, and immunology - a perfect combination, if you ask me.

[Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) @MIT]

A typical bacterial genome contains 4,000 genes, which encode all of the proteins needed for survival. But how do cells know just how much of each protein they need for their everyday functions? Biologist Gene-Wei Li is trying to answer that question. https://t.co/JdFrLjl193

[Matt Field @mattfield100]

Any aspiring Australian bioinformaticians want to live and work in Cairns?

[Nature Rev Immunol @NatRevImmunol]

NEW Review: Immune responses to human fungal pathogens and therapeutic prospects
https://t.co/AlfPm32ugQ
by @LionakisLab @theRAD_lab @tmhohl71
synthesizes our current mechanistic understanding of tissue-specific host defences against clinically relevant fungal infections

[Claudia Cobos @pariscoty]

Beautiful animation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus life cycle, courtesy of Maastricht University staff. 👏https://t.co/9ABNrhc2r9

[nature @Nature]

Scientists captured a zebrafish embryo’s development over 12 hours using a specially designed microscope and a non-destructive technique called light-sheet imaging (Gif credit: Loïc A. Royer & Merlin Lange). See more amazing science images: https://t.co/bUL5ddjTVc

[Claudia Cobos @pariscoty]

@DTehrany This world is so sad and unfair 😔