Melina A. Agosto's Avatar

Melina A. Agosto

@agostolab

Assistant professor at Dalhousie University; retina cell biology and biochemistry, synapses, signaling, and trafficking; opinions are my own.

358
Followers
317
Following
37
Posts
11.11.2024
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by Melina A. Agosto @agostolab

Preview
Structure of the photoreceptor synaptic assembly of the extracellular matrix protein pikachurin with the orphan receptor GPR179 The structure of the orphan GPCR GPR179 bound to the extracellular matrix component pikachurin is solved.

What do you get when #NationalProteinDay and #NationalPokémonDay meet? Pikachurin. ⚡

A 2023 #ScienceSignaling study solved the structure of this extracellular protein that plays an essential role in vision.⁠

Learn more: https://scim.ag/4s82e0N

27.02.2026 14:31 👍 41 🔁 12 💬 0 📌 2
A line graph shown the number of NIH new and competitive awards funded for fiscal year 2026 (through 2/13/26) compared with fiscal years 2021-2025. The fiscal year 2026 is lagging well behind with only 569 awards made through 2/13/26 compared to >2000 for previous fiscal years.

A line graph shown the number of NIH new and competitive awards funded for fiscal year 2026 (through 2/13/26) compared with fiscal years 2021-2025. The fiscal year 2026 is lagging well behind with only 569 awards made through 2/13/26 compared to >2000 for previous fiscal years.

New and competitive renewal awards.

The number of awards is 569 compared with more than 2200 through the same date in earlier fiscal years.

All ICs have now made awards except for NIAAA, NCCIH, NLM, FIC, and OD. NEI (Eye Institute) made its first award during the new period.

3/4

17.02.2026 16:55 👍 32 🔁 43 💬 6 📌 6

Also recommend "Elementary" and "Astrid et Raphaelle" in the same genre.

11.02.2026 22:28 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Video thumbnail

An intracellular meteor shower. EB3 comets tracking growing microtubule plus-ends in a cultured cell.

05.02.2026 05:27 👍 1705 🔁 245 💬 55 📌 20

Hopefully not at Dal!?

14.01.2026 19:31 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Thanks for this! Very useful, and also fun.

04.01.2026 05:39 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Western blots showing mGluR6 deletion mutants in cell lysates treated with Endo H or PNGase F.

Western blots showing mGluR6 deletion mutants in cell lysates treated with Endo H or PNGase F.

Our latest paper is out! It's led by my first MSc graduate, Andrew Rideout, who did a terrific job with this project. We report some fun and confusing results about mGluR6 trafficking.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

31.12.2025 01:06 👍 8 🔁 4 💬 2 📌 0
Preview
Dalhousie University is recruiting up to 30 tenure and tenure-track faculty positions Backed by the Government of Canada’s $1.7 billion Global Impact+ Research Talent Initiative, Dalhousie University is undertaking one of the most ambitious research-leader recruitment efforts in its hi...

As 2025 comes to a close, my university (Dalhousie U in Halifax, Canada) is recruiting faculty, including outstanding early career researchers, and Canada Research Chairs. Applications are due January 19 2026 (was just notified today!). Please repost.

19.12.2025 20:17 👍 23 🔁 32 💬 4 📌 1
Post image

Every machine in a Hospital that diagnoses your body without cutting you open is based on a principle of Physics, discovered by a Physicist who had no interest in Medicine.

If you think the world doesn’t need Basic Science, or that somehow Science has failed you, think again.

#sciencematters

25.11.2025 01:40 👍 3503 🔁 1021 💬 88 📌 43

Application review launches on December 1, 2025. We want to read *your* application outlining a vision for a research program deciphering how membrane proteins collaborate to enable cell function, their biosynthesis, and the biophysics and structure of how membrane proteins change shape.

24.11.2025 23:30 👍 7 🔁 9 💬 1 📌 0
Post image

Those still exist here! (Halifax Canada) I just checked and there is a dial tone.

23.11.2025 08:15 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 1
Preview
Developmental Dynamics <em>Developmental Dynamics</em> is a developmental biology journal publishing novel discoveries that advance our understanding in development, morphology, evolution, and disease.

Dear #Neuroscience researchers, I am Guest Editing an issue in @devdynamics.bsky.social on NEURAL MIGRATION.
Due date: March 31, 2026.

Great opportunity to showcase your findings on neural migration. #DevBio

Please reskeet 🙏

anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1097...

20.11.2025 16:40 👍 13 🔁 11 💬 1 📌 1
Post image

Ending my #FluorescenceFriday with this beautiful avian retina image depicting the beautiful stratification in the avian eyes.
This is where complexity meets art.
#retina #avian #bird #plexiformlayer

14.11.2025 16:19 👍 71 🔁 12 💬 3 📌 2

@nclnoel.bsky.social studies aging retina in killifish and zebrafish

12.10.2025 16:48 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

But nice views of the wastewater treatment plant on approach!

01.10.2025 06:18 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Photo of gaskets for gel pouring rig (left) and roll of foam weatherstrip (right)

Photo of gaskets for gel pouring rig (left) and roll of foam weatherstrip (right)

Gel pouring rig with new gaskets :)

Gel pouring rig with new gaskets :)

We replaced the gaskets on the gel pouring rigs with foam weatherstrip a few months ago. No leaks yet!

30.09.2025 21:19 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

My department at Emory is a hiring a tenure-track neuroscientist!

Anyone who's talked to me in the last 4 years knows I cannot say enough good things about my dept and the neuroscience community here. My colleagues are so wonderfully supportive. Postdocs, please apply!

apply.interfolio.com/174371

30.09.2025 18:25 👍 134 🔁 104 💬 1 📌 6

WE ARE... hiring!

Penn State Biology & the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences is recruiting a tenure track or tenured neurobiologist (Assistant or Associate Professor rank), and the committee is open to a broad scope of scientific questions.

psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic...

18.09.2025 09:56 👍 27 🔁 19 💬 1 📌 2
Post image

Be our new colleague! 🎉
The Dept of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Geneva is hiring an Assistant Professor or Associate Professor.

👉 More details here: lnkd.in/e8Z9eAm4
👉 Our department: mocel.unige.ch

Please feel free to share this opportunity with your network.

15.09.2025 14:33 👍 42 🔁 48 💬 0 📌 1
Confocal microscope images of the outer plexiform layer of WT or nob3 (mGluR6 null) mouse retina labeled with antibodies for ELFN1 (cyan) and PSD95 (magenta). In nob3 retina, ELFN1 is still localized to rod spherules, but synaptic enrichment is compromised.

Confocal microscope images of the outer plexiform layer of WT or nob3 (mGluR6 null) mouse retina labeled with antibodies for ELFN1 (cyan) and PSD95 (magenta). In nob3 retina, ELFN1 is still localized to rod spherules, but synaptic enrichment is compromised.

New paper! Kudos to first author Jaeeun Lee, who is a fantastic and hard working student. We showed that at photoreceptor presynapses, ELFN1 enrichment depends on postsynaptic mGluR6.
www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...

11.09.2025 17:02 👍 15 🔁 6 💬 2 📌 0
Confocal microscope image of mouse retina section labeled with antibodies for PSD95 (magenta) and TRPM1 (green).

Confocal microscope image of mouse retina section labeled with antibodies for PSD95 (magenta) and TRPM1 (green).

The mysterious non-PSD localization of PSD95 🟣 in the retina outer plexiform layer... co-stained for postsynaptic TRPM1 🟢
#FluorescenceFriday

30.08.2025 22:10 👍 12 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Dean of Medicine Dalhousie University invites applications for the position of Dean, Faculty of Medicine. This is a pivotal leadership opportunity to shape the future of medical education, research, and healthcare acr...

Dalhousie University invites applications for the position of Dean, Faculty of Medicine. This is a pivotal leadership opportunity to shape the future of medical education, research, and healthcare across the Maritime provinces in Canada.
5 yr renewable appointment dal.peopleadmin.ca/postings/19319

27.08.2025 20:12 👍 6 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 0
Preview
Call for 20 Assistant Professor positions Karolinska Institutet is a world-leading medical university with a long and proud history of ground-breaking research. We are now recruiting outstanding early-career researchers with particularly exce...

Karolinska is looking for 20 (!!) assistant professors and offering 6 year appointments with ~1M USD startup packages.

ki.se/en/about-ki/...

25.06.2025 14:56 👍 278 🔁 278 💬 1 📌 14
DMF: Tenure Track Assistant Professor towards Associate Professor in Molecular Microbiology - Site des postulations FBM

New tenure track assistant professor position in molecular microbiology in our department @dmf-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social! We are casting a wide net for an experimental molecular microbiologist. Apply here: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli...

10.06.2025 13:53 👍 112 🔁 162 💬 0 📌 8
A graph showing NIH funding for new and competitive renewal grants for FY2024 and FY2025 showing a much lower rate of investment for FY2025.

A graph showing NIH funding for new and competitive renewal grants for FY2024 and FY2025 showing a much lower rate of investment for FY2025.

I updated my funding curves last night.

Here are the results for new and competitive renewal grants.

The rate of investment has dropped substantially. This is apparently due to a requirement for DOGE review.

I am calling this effect the "Downward DOGE"

1/2

09.06.2025 10:50 👍 91 🔁 64 💬 4 📌 11
Post image

Funding freeze at Northwestern from Emma Mairson at
grant-watch.us. Data from USAspending. Normally, ~$70 M per month. Now, bupkis.

Northwestern is keeping research moving and must be spending ~$40 M per month. Clearly not sustainable for too long.

07.06.2025 19:47 👍 224 🔁 105 💬 2 📌 5
Quote from MIT President Sally Kornbluth's commencement address: "We believe in the beauty and power of fundamental scientific discovery - that incredibly intricate, maddening, heroic, intoxicating process of exploration and testing that somehow got stuck with the bland label 'basic research.'"

Quote from MIT President Sally Kornbluth's commencement address: "We believe in the beauty and power of fundamental scientific discovery - that incredibly intricate, maddening, heroic, intoxicating process of exploration and testing that somehow got stuck with the bland label 'basic research.'"

Posted by @mit.edu on another platform

29.05.2025 22:22 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Video thumbnail

Wonder doesn’t flinch. It’s our compass pulling us toward curiosity, creativity It reminds us: #science & #discovery are good. Here’s a moment that stirred mine: a new PI(3,4)P₂ probe illuminating the cell membrane & endosomes. Marvel with me. Captured on #FluorescenceFriday for #MicroscopyMonday

26.05.2025 16:43 👍 93 🔁 18 💬 6 📌 1
Retinal ON-bipolar cell expressing mEmerald-Sec61 (blue), and labeled with mGluR6 antibody (red).

Retinal ON-bipolar cell expressing mEmerald-Sec61 (blue), and labeled with mGluR6 antibody (red).

An elegant ON bipolar cell expressing ER marker mEmerald-Sec61 🟦 and co-stained with mGluR6 antibody 🟥. #FluorescenceFriday More info in this old paper: www.eneuro.org/content/5/3/...

02.05.2025 23:41 👍 20 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
Post image Post image

Have you ever seen the black box that is the inside of a microscope objective? Today Dr. Stephen Ross of Nikon gave a fascinating lecture on what goes into the design and manufacturing of an objective.

01.05.2025 18:16 👍 50 🔁 12 💬 1 📌 3