Avgousti lab

Congrats Lluis!!

Unbalanced chromatin binding of Polycomb complexes drives neurodevelopmental disorders Borges, González-Blanco, Arigela, et al. report new missense mutations in the PRC1 genes RNF2 and RING1 in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. Functional dissection of a deleterious variant...

Very excited to share our new Molecular Cell paper on missense mutations in Polycomb genes and how they can disrupt chromatin regulation to drive neurodevelopmental disorders. A huge thank you to everyone involved, and to our amazing collaborators!
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Didn’t get the grad school interview you wanted yet? Turn this year into a launchpad. The Vahedi Lab @Penn is hiring a Research Specialist A/B — an ideal role for undergrads & recent grads aiming for PhD/MD-PhD programs.
🧬 Immunology + genomics. Apply here: lnkd.in/e8uT_hif

Herpes viruses + pediatric diagnostic stewardship! My first paper with @caitlinli.bsky.social, and my first paper ever turned into a cartoon!
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41306700/

Fantastic opportunity in Chicago!

So long #EvoChromo2025! I encourage you to mark your calendars as soon as the next one is announced. Special congrats to the Nirenberg prize recipients - including our very own @germainekaram.bsky.social
Here is a picture of Germaine receiving her Golden Luger from the hands of Nick Irwin. #ProudPI

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...

Replication-competent adenovirus reporters utilizing endogenous viral expression architecture | Journal of Virology This research provides powerful new tools to rapidly study adenovirus gene expression and replication. By integrating fluorescent and secreted luciferase reporters into native viral regulatory element...

Very excited to share the first publication from the Price Lab, "Replication-competent adenovirus reporters utilizing endogenous viral expression architecture", is now online at Journal of Virology!
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center Fred Hutch is dedicated to the elimination of cancer and related diseases as causes of human suffering and death.

My awesome Drosophila colleague Akhila Rajan at Fred Hutch (Seattle) is recruiting both a staff scientist and a postdoc to study fat–brain communication, innate immunity, mitochondrial signaling, and brain senescence. Great team, great environment. Apply here: careers-fhcrc.icims.com/jobs/30062/j...

First ever Price Lab paper accepted this morning!!! Hopefully follow-up post soon to showcase our new systems.

Human cytomegalovirus induces neuronal gene expression through IE1 for viral maturation - Nature Communications HCMV rearranges the host cell to produce infectious virus but molecular details are still unclear. Here, the authors analyze the transcriptome of infected cells and show that HCMV turns on dormant neu...

Excited to share our latest paper on how macroH2A is targeted by IE1 during HCMV infection- featured as an editors pick in Nature Communications! Fantastic work by Laurel and team!!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plug: @sauravk05.bsky.social is hitting the faculty job market, aiming to launch the Kumar lab in 2026. He’s truly exceptional and is building a cutting-edge induced proximity research program. Reach out!

Congratulations Christin!!!!

‘Wildest thing’: solar-powered slug steals chloroplasts and stores them for emergencies Marine creatures house contraband structures in special organelles, which the animal raids for food in times of need.

Did you know that sea slugs steal chloroplasts from algae as portable snacks?! Neither did I, but a new Cell paper demonstrates that they do. 🐌🧪

My favorite part is the researchers called the storage for these stolen hors d’oeuvres “kleptosomes” 😂🥰

Summary from Nature & Cell paper linked below.

Postdoc positions available! Please re-post!

Are you interested in how viruses manipulate chromatin? Are you excited to discover unknown facets of molecular biology? If so, we’d love to hear from you! Come check us out at:
avgoustilab.org