Sonja Welsch
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sonjawelsch.bsky.social
Sonja Welsch
@sonjawelsch.bsky.social
Taking care of Electron Microscopy @mpibp.bsky.social. Yay for #cryoEM and #cryoET ❄️🔬but frozen is not always better. Also, #viruses 🦠 rule.
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
It’s out! Using cryo-ET in Dicty cells, we take a fresh in situ look at vaults. Surprisingly, we uncover vaults associated with ER and NE membranes, and find that many vaults enclose ribosomes in defined orientations, opening new avenues to their cellular function! www.biorxiv.org/lookup/conte...
December 16, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
Congratulations, Julia Mahamid!

Julia Mahamid receives the @dfg.de Leibniz Prize for her work on structural cell biology!

#LeibnizPreis
Und hier sind sie – die 10 Preisträger*innen des Gottfried Wilhelm #LeibnizPreis' 2026 – ausgezeichnet für ihre exzellenten Forschungsarbeiten und Errungenschaften in der Wissenschaft! 🏆👏
Die Verleihung der Preise feiern wir am 18. März in Berlin.
Einzelheiten & Kurzprofile: sohub.io/1uv1
December 11, 2025 at 10:12 AM
🤩if you are into #cryoEM, #cryoET and membrane trafficking, please consider applying. Highly recommended opportunity! 👇3 weeks left)
My excellent collaborator, Giulia Zanetti, is advertising for a post-doc to work on our shared MRC grant. Please consider applying to this great lab with a supportive mentor to do some exciting structural biology.
www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...
UCL – University College London
UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).
www.ucl.ac.uk
December 11, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
🥳 Our new paper on C2CD3 is out in @plosbiology.org
With the labs of @cellarchlab.com , @chgenoud.bsky.social , and @stearnslab.bsky.social , we revealed the mammalian centriole Distal Ring architecture by combining #UExM and in situ #CryoET.
Big congrats to @ebertiaux.bsky.social and all involved.
How does C2CD3 contribute to distal appendage formation in centrioles? @centriolelab.bsky.social show that C2CD3 acts as a central architectural organizer of the distal #centriole, bridging the luminal distal ring complex & peripheral appendage sites @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/496XZuH
December 10, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
Did you know we’re hosting the EMBO Practical Course on Cryo-FIB & Cryo-ET in April 2026? ❄️ We invite early career researchers and facility scientists to join us in Frankfurt and meet the leading experts in cryo-FIB/SEM and cryo-ET!

🔗 Apply by Dec 8: meetings.embo.org/event/26-in-...
December 2, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
If you'd like to celebrate the biology of viruses - or the fight against viral diseases - this winter, try out our free and updated #VirusSnowflake designs.
Please share, and if you have any photos of Virus Snowflakes in your area it would be lovely to see them!
cvr-engagement.co.uk/virus-snowfl...
November 17, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
The Vienna BioCenter Summer School 2026 call is open for talented undergrads, it's a great opportunity for students who are interested in graduate study in the life sciences. Nicolas Rivron from Institute of Molecular Biotechnology is recruiting!
https://training.vbc.ac.at/summer-school/
November 25, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Airplanes and #cryoEM systems seem to have one thing in common: a tiny piece worth less than 1$ is broken and the whole thing goes down ⤵️. No sample loading, no cassette docking, no temperature control. Make your own guess which one's which 🤦‍♀️
November 18, 2025 at 9:39 PM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
Our first lab paper is out! We identify and solve the first structure of the SND3 translocon involved in fungal membrane protein insertion. Congratulations @tzujingyang.bsky.social, and our colleagues @saumyakm.bsky.social, @hummerlab.bsky.social and Julian Langer. Read more ⬇️ and ➡️ rdcu.be/eNgIO
SNDing proteins into the membrane! Our new publication from @melaniemcdowell.bsky.social ’s group identifies the SND3 protein as a new route for membrane protein insertion! 🍄 📘 Read more here: www.mpg.de/25599408/102... Image: Louise Duever.
October 30, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
Exciting week in Frankfurt! Our CEOS energy filter and ASI Timepix3 are installed and we're looking forward to running the first tests :) #CryoEM #timepix #REELanalysis #4DSTEM @mpibp.bsky.social
November 5, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
Thrilled, and admittedly relieved, to see this major investment in Dutch #cryoEM become reality! 🇳🇱🔬

Honoured to be a co-applicant on this national initiative and very excited for the opportunity to advance our work in cellular structural virology! 🦠

www.uu.nl/en/news/33-m...
33 million euro investment for national electron microscope facility EMPower
A major new national facility for electron microscopy, called EMPower, has been awarded to a consortium of Dutch universities and medical centers. EMPower aims to pave the way for major discoveries im...
www.uu.nl
November 3, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Looking for an exciting #cryoEM postdoc position? 🤩 This one is highly recommended! 👇
We are looking for motivated #postdocs to join the lab! Biochemistry/microbiology/cryo-EM experience? Excited by #cryo-EM/ET, #chromatin? ❄️🧬🧫
Interdisciplinary projects, top EMBL facilities!
Email CV + short cover letter → [email protected]
Info about the group: www.embl.org/groups/dodon...
Dodonova Group – Organisational principles and 3D architecture of archaeal chromatin
www.embl.org
October 30, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
Lab’s first paper is out!! We show the first structures of #Asgard #chromatin by #cryo-EM 🧬❄️
Asgard histones form closed and open hypernucleosomes. Closed are conserved across #Archaea, while open resemble eukaryotic H3–H4 octasomes and are Asgard-specific. More here: www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
October 28, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
Lauren Alexandrescu et al.: `Mix-it-up': accessible time-resolved cryo-EM on the millisecond timescale ##ElectronMicroscopy##CryoEM##TimeResolvedStudies... ##IUCrhttps://journals.iucr.org/paper?S2052252525008838
`Mix-it-up': accessible time-resolved cryo-EM on the millisecond timescale
The development of methods for low-cost time-resolved cryo-EM using an on-grid mixing strategy is described.
journals.iucr.org
October 28, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
Have you registered to the next EMBO Practical Course on In-situ structural biology by Cryo-FIB and Cryo-ET? 🧊 Join us in Frankfurt for hands-on training on cryo-techniques and networking with experts!

🔗 Apply by Dec 8, 2025: meetings.embo.org/event/26-in-...
📍 Frankfurt | 📆 April 12–20, 2026
October 23, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
Mysteries of trafficking of the vRNP segmented genome and assembly of influenza A virus revealed by in situ cryo-ET!
🔗 rdcu.be/eMmct
We are very excited that our paper is finally out!
🎉 Big congratulations to Moritz Wachsmuth-Melm and to everyone involved.
October 24, 2025 at 8:11 AM
@mpibp.bsky.social’s handsome STEM scan of the day 🤩
Guess the crystal? Hint: S136
October 22, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
Are you interested in #StructuralBiology?
Register for the Kroese-Duijsters Symposium 2025 organized by our LED3 colleagues @steffenbruenle.bsky.social and Sebastian Geibel.
A great lineup of speakers including keynotes Ulrich Lorenz and Jörg Standfuss.
www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/kroese-du...
Kroese-Duijsters Symposium 2025
The Kroese-Duijsters Symposia aim to provide researchers from different fields and different career stages to meet in an informal setting, to stimulate discussions and to start new collaborations. The...
www.universiteitleiden.nl
October 17, 2025 at 9:59 AM
Oh! Highly recommended, please consider applying! 👇🏻🤩
October 16, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
I just made an account and voted for this biology laboratory made of LEGO to "promote biological research and inspire more people into the world of biology". They need 10K votes. Reposting and/or voting below would be helpful. 🤗
beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...
Biological Laboratory | LEGO® Ideas
This is a two-floor realistic Biological Laboratory building. In this design, I try to tell stories about biologists, introduce biology concepts to general publ…
beta.ideas.lego.com
October 16, 2025 at 8:07 AM
If I could ask all #cryoEM samples for one thing, it’d be to *please* behave like 1um TetraSpecks.
October 6, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Only a few days left to apply for the great PhD Programme of @vbcscitraining.bsky.social 👇🏻
Our PhD program offers many training activities and courses for your future career. Check out the range of fully-funded PhD positions in our Autumn call before 10 October 2025: www.vbcphd.at
October 5, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
Correlative MS Imaging for cellular identification and analysis of in situ cryo-ET www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.16.676641v1 #cryoem
September 19, 2025 at 9:16 AM
❗️🤩👇🏻
September 30, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Reposted by Sonja Welsch
Since it was published at peak holiday season, I'm taking the liberty to re-introduce our recent review article. We hope it will be a useful overview of RNA virus replication strategies, and how in situ cryo-EM have helped us understand them:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Illuminating druggable dark matter in RNA virus replication using in situ cryo-EM
Viral proteins typically exist in the context of complex virions or in the even more complex host cells in which they replicate. Hence, meaningful ins…
www.sciencedirect.com
September 22, 2025 at 9:26 AM