@nickpolizzi.bsky.social
Asst prof at HMS, PI at DFCI
Designing proteins
polizzilab.org
@fraserlab.comReposted by @nickpolizzi.bsky.socialCome be my colleague at UCSF! Our department BTS (like the K-pop band, but aka Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences) is searching for TWO new faculty members. Links, timeline, and why two searches in this thread 🧵
@fraserlab.comReposted by @nickpolizzi.bsky.socialI hear so much about the growing power of predictive biology, especially in drug discovery and "co-folding". I want to see people put their GPU budget where their mouth is!
@bpdmc.orgReposted by @nickpolizzi.bsky.socialIf you missed Jody Mou's terrific seminar back in March where she presented a bunch of unpublished data from her work in @nickpolizzi.bsky.social's lab, you can finally get all caught up 👇
youtu.be/SdkBhhBWZWk
and pre-print: doi.org/10.64898/202...
@nickpolizzi.bsky.socialGreat to have NIH support to learn the rules of small-molecule driven allostery in proteins! Plan is to build some pretty useful proteins along the way for biology and medicine. Interested? Reach out! And congrats to my colleague Xin! Clearly DFCI is a great place to tackle bold ideas!
@nickpolizzi.bsky.socialPlease email me with CV and cover letter if you're interested. Protein sequencing project is a comp + exp role. Cryptic pocket project is a comp role (maybe some exp if you are keen on it). Could start asap!
@nickpolizzi.bsky.socialI'm also looking to hire a postdoc as the computational lead to train new deep-learning models for predicting cryptic druggable pockets in human proteins using proprietary data. Lots of resources to train new models from scratch and finetune existing ones!
@nickpolizzi.bsky.socialI'm looking to hire a postdoc to lead the charge developing new peptide binders to enable in situ single-molecule protein sequencing. Collab with Ed Boyden's group at MIT. Funded by Keck Fdn. Would be transformative tech, maybe as big as DNA sequencing!
@nickpolizzi.bsky.socialI have postdoc positions available to lead two new exciting projects! One is on in situ protein sequencing (collab with Ed Boyden at MIT) and the other is on modeling cryptic pockets for drug discovery (collab with Scripps and MGH). Reach out if interested! Details below
@chicalab.bsky.socialReposted by @nickpolizzi.bsky.socialIn our latest preprint, we introduce Multistate Enzyme Design, a computational framework that simultaneously optimizes enzyme sequences across multiple transition states while preserving the conformational flexibility needed to access them.
@proteinmagnus.bsky.socialReposted by @nickpolizzi.bsky.socialHow does the extreme thermostability of de novo designed proteins arise? We aimed to answer this question by combined chemical and thermal denaturation of de novo designed minibinders in a paper out now in Protein Science (@proteinsociety.bsky.social):
dx.doi.org/10.1002/pro....
@nickpolizzi.bsky.socialHappening this evening at dfci!
@nickpolizzi.bsky.socialCongrats to Jody and all of the many collaborators who helped us thoroughly characterize LUCI-tag! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
@nickpolizzi.bsky.socialLike something out of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", Jody used protein design as a protein "phase inverter" to convert K-Ras(G12C) into something that biology doesn't interact with 🫥. The resulting LUCI-tag is a fast, orthogonal SLP that can be multiplexed with Halo- and SNAP-tags!
@nickpolizzi.bsky.socialDo you use self-labeling proteins (SLPs) like HaloTag and SNAP-tag? Then check out Jody's new preprint to learn about LUCI-tag! Jody built LUCI-tag starting from K-Ras(G12C), using protein design to erase K-Ras from biology 🤯!
@debivort.bsky.socialReposted by @nickpolizzi.bsky.socialHello friends, the Harvard Life Science departments have banded together to hire a new colleague working at the intersection of Life Sciences and AI. Could be primarily an experimentalist, or could be primarily a compute/theorist.
@bpdmc.orgReposted by @nickpolizzi.bsky.socialWe moved our next meeting up by 2 weeks so Chris Norn can come present while he's in town! Join us on Wednesday, September 30th 2026 at 7pm EDT in Room 6055, Longwood Center, @danafarber.bsky.social
"De novo design of miniproteins targeting GPCRs"
@dereklowe.bsky.socialReposted by @nickpolizzi.bsky.socialA new intracellular system that binds to and recognizes glutathione adducts is uncovered during a screen for glutathione degraders. What’s its function and what other proteins participate?
@nickpolizzi.bsky.socialCongrats Andrew!
@nickpolizzi.bsky.socialMight add a protease character. Obvious finishing move
@martinsteinegger.bsky.socialReposted by @nickpolizzi.bsky.socialFold Spacer lets you fly through protein structures (Weekend project #2). It’s my first game: I originally set out to build a racer with structures as the tracks, but was a little too crazy. So it became this instead. You can upload your own structures.
🌐 martin-steinegger.github.io/Fold-Spacer/