Maria Barna

Seeing into Hi-C: How our scientific connectivity revealed the close connections in our DNA to be a work of art Scientific data can be beautiful. An example where the data itself have a particularly striking appearance even before any scientific meaning has been ascribed

I had the privilege to meet artist Mary Griffiths. Mary got inspired by Hi-C maps and over zooms we spoke about Hi-C maps, patterns and drawings. Mary’s Hi-C inspired art has been exhibited eg the Royal Academy. We wrote this piece about this art-science collaboration

pubs.aip.org/aip/bpr/arti...

Causal modelling of gene effects from regulators to programs to traits - Nature Approaches combining genetic association and Perturb-seq data that link genetic variants to functional programs to traits are described.

GWAS has been an incredible discovery tool for human genetics: it regularly identifies *causal* links from 1000s of SNPs to any given trait. But mechanistic interpretation is usually difficult.

Our latest work on causal models for this is out yesterday:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A short🧵:

Photo of a PowerPoint slide that reads: “what is ‘physiological cell biology’?” Underneath is a depiction of (left to right) gears, gears in a cell, a highlighted green cell in a liver. The corresponding words above it say molecular function <-> cellular organization <-> organismal context

Photo of a PowerPoint slide that reads “traders between simplicity and fidelity in cell biology” Underneath is a graph with simplicity on the X-axis and fidelity on y-axis. 4 points are within this space: 2D cell culture is high simplicity low fidelity, unicellular eukaryotes are high simplicity high fidelity, mammals are low simplicity high fidelity, and 3D cell culture is mid simplicity mid fidelity

First science session of #CellBio2025! 🧫🧪

Co-organized by @iaincheeseman.bsky.social and @abbybuch.bsky.social on the importance of the physiological context on studying cell biology. As a big fan of the ECM, I couldn’t agree more!

It's an amazing time to be a cell biologist, as new tech makes probing cellular processes in physiological contexts more tractable. This is the theme of a Special Interest Subgroup that @iaincheeseman.bsky.social and I are hosting at #cellbio2025. Join us on Saturday 12/5! @ascbiology.bsky.social

Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes are found in hundreds of copies in the human genome.

Do sequence variations in these paralogs change the ribosome function? Yes!

I am excited to share our new preprint @mbarnalab @jkpritch in collaboration with Calico:
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/8

Mutations in mitochondrial rRNA are recurrently observed in cancers! 😳🤯

Funded PhD: Understanding the role of the ribosomal P-stalk in immune responses at University of Bristol on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Funded PhD: Understanding the role of the ribosomal P-stalk in immune responses at University of Bristol, listed on FindAPhD.com

First ad for a position in my new lab at the University of Bristol! If you are looking for a fully funded PhD in cutting edge science that will be based in a supportive environment, and in a great city, check out the link below!

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

An epic story and a must read. This is really beautiful work to understand the most amazing monthly regeneration event - menstruation. The authors reconstitute this process in mice (which don’t normally menstruate) allowing important new insights. Will also be a powerful model for future work.

Dan Jarosz becomes first senior associate dean for basic science Jarosz is the inaugural appointment to the newly created position, which will support basic science faculty throughout the Stanford School of Medicine.

Congratulations to Dan Jarosz on being named the first associate dean for basic science in the Stanford School of Medicine!

news.stanford.edu/stories/2025...

Cracking the Code: Nucleic Acid Medicines Coming of Age The 2025 conference brings together leading academics and industry professionals to explore developments and challenges in the rapidly evolving field of nucleic acid medicines. By uniting researchers ...

Reminder to register for “Cracking the Code: Nucleic Acid Medicines Coming of Age” a Nature Conferences here in Boston, December 8th - 10th! natureconferences.streamgo.live/cracking-the...

Great line of up RNA speakers covering basic and translational nucleic acid biology+recent clinical successes

Mouse studies show that depriving neuroblastoma of polyamine causes a switch in protein synthesis to suppress tumor growth and promote cell differentiation @nature.com @childrensphila.bsky.social @princetonupress.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Kathrin is definitely larger than life! Best recruit ever!!

Rethinking RNA-binding proteins: Riboregulation challenges prevailing views RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are best known as effectors along the entire gene expression pathway and as constituents of RNA-protein machines such as t…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

90% of doing science is being open to new ideas.

Quality over quantity: Small RNA pauses translation elongation to lift protein activity Small noncoding RNAs typically regulate the translation initiation of target mRNAs and thereby protein production. In this issue of Molecular Cell, Thongdee et al. discovered a novel regulatory mechan...

Quality over quantity: Small RNA pauses translation elongation to lift protein activity: Molecular Cell www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Dr. Davide Ruggero of UCSF has received a rare renewal of his prestigious ACS Professorship, recognizing his groundbreaking cancer research on protein synthesis. ✨
@ruggerolab.bsky.social @ucsfcancer.bsky.social

urology.ucsf.edu/news/all/202...

I am happy to share the latest paper from the lab. We detail a tripartite cell-free translation system based on the separation of mRNAs, ribosomes and ribosome-depleted cytoplasmic lysate from human cells, allowing for flexible reconstitution of translation reaction.
#RNA #Ribosome

DNA binding and mitotic phosphorylation protect polyglutamine proteins from assembly formation DNA binding and phosphorylation protect FOXP2, a transcription factor with the longest polyQ track in the proteome, from aggregation during interphase and mitosis. Harnessing these native solubility-p...

I am incredibly proud to share that my work has officially been published in Cell! @cp-cell.bsky.social
This work was a product of years of dedication and countless hours of research in the labs of Joanna Wysocka and Dan Jarosz labs @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Small-molecule RNA therapeutics to target prostate cancer Kuzuoglu-Ozturk et al. showcase a therapeutic approach, “translatome therapy,” to combat lethal prostate cancer. Zotatifin, a clinical molecule, targets the RNA-helicase eIF4A. Zotatifin decreases the...

www.cell.com/cancer-cell/...

This started out as two separate projects, actually! 🤝 @mbarnalab.bsky.social has long been interested in comparing the composition of ribosomes in different parts of a cell, since localized mRNA translation is such an important aspect of gene regulation and protein homeostasis. (2/18)

A subcellular map of translational machinery composition and regulation at the single-molecule level Millions of ribosomes are packed within mammalian cells, yet we lack tools to visualize them in toto and characterize their subcellular composition. In this study, we present ribosome expansion micros...

Exciting new work from Barna Lab @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The crux of rigorously characterizing #IRES:
Kathrin Leppek @katleppek.bsky.social, Maria Barna and colleagues compile a toolbox of approaches to study internal #ribosome entry sites in mammalian cells and embryonic tissues
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Thanks so much Liam! I’m just setting up my BlueSky account right now.

Thanks so much Carolyn! I’m just setting up my BlueSky account right now.

A terrific collaboration between my lab and the lab of @KatLeppek.

Very proud of my graduate students ⁦@adelefrancisxu⁩ and Zijian Zhang & key members of our lab and collaborators ⁦⁦@GarryPNolan⁩ & Sharon Pitteri lfor the incredibly hard work to characterize subcellular ribosomes.

science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Amazing and inspiring story on RNA binding proteins and translation specificity! Congrats to all!

x.com/RuggeroDavide/…

Very grateful for the support from @pewhealth for this project and @travisclantz who is an amazing graduate student who is taking the lead on getting this project off the ground!

x.com/pewhealth/stat…

So happy to be with amazing former postdocs at the RNA Canada 2024 meeting!! I’m so happy that @OZhulyn is dressed in pink!!

Great Highlight of the @RuggeroDavide and colleagues latest paper. A really unexpected and hidden role for eIF4E phosphorylation!

x.com/NatureRevCance…