@benmorehouse
Assistant Professor at UCIrvine. Biochemistry and structural biology enthusiast. Dabbling in innate immunity and microbiology. Phage defense, cyclic nucleotides, and cool enzymes. (he/him/his) https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/morehouselab/
After >10 years of our lab studying bacterial cGAS-like enzymes, @hobbslabutah.bsky.social finally reconstitutes viral sensing in vitro and discovers how these ancient receptors sense phage protease enzymes to detect virion assembly and activate antiviral immunity
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Out today: We discovered new viral proteins that target immune signaling molecules, solely based on their AlphaFold-predicted shapes
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Congrats Nitzan Tal and coauthors! Thank you Kranzusch lab for the fun collaboration!
Linking below previous thread on our findings
CBASS is a cyclic nucleotide-based antiviral system in bacteria that is related to cGAS-STING signaling in animals. One of the big questions is how CBASS is activated during phage infection? We made some progress on this during my final year in the Kranzusch lab.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Congratulations to Assistant Professor Benjamin Morehouse on receiving a $150,000 Michelson Prize from the Michelson Medical Research Foundation π
The award supports his innovative immunology research at the Dunlop School.
Read more: bit.ly/4bmmJRK
So excited to share our cryo-EM study of the nitrogenase cofactor assembly scaffold NifEN expressed in E. coli!
@ribbehulab.bsky.social @ucibiosci.bsky.social @natcatal.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Cell death is a fundamental mechanism of antiviral immunity across diverse organisms, including bacteria. As my final PhD project with @jbdsf.bsky.social, I was curious whether cell death is required for successful immunity with the ancient cGAS pathway known as βCBASS.β
Spoiler β the answer is no!
π₯³ π New preprint from the lab is out!
It's time to officially introduce the world to the Nucleolar Integrity and Stress Microprotein (NISM)!
Check out the preprint in the link below
Somehow my mentor beat me to posting on this....thanks @kranzuschlab.bsky.social ! Very honored. And I agree- all very interesting projects from the awardees! Can't wait to see where all this new science takes us.
Congratulations to Ben Morehouse @benmorehouse.bsky.social and the other 2026 Michelson Prize Awardees. All five newly funded projects are incredibly exciting areas of immunology!
www.michelsonmedicalresearch.org/news/michels...
Lastly- this wouldn't have been possible without the incredible collab with @audeber.bsky.social and @enzopoirier.bsky.social and teams (shout out @hugovaysset.bsky.social) that got this whole thing started. Thank you for welcoming protein biochemists into your world.
We have a lot to do- but now we are better prepared to do it! I am especially proud of my team of grad and undergrad trainees pushing hard on this project and all the bacterial immunity projects as well.
I am incredibly honored to receive this recognition from the Michelson Medical Research Foundation for our work on innate immune signaling.
www.michelsonmedicalresearch.org/news/michels...
Congratulations to Sonomi Yamaguchi for her paper at @nature.com. Sonomi discovered Clover defense and explained how nucleotide signals control each step of viral sensing, immune regulation, and viral restriction β named for her beautiful "four-leaf" structures π
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The giant viruses surprised us at almost every turn of this project, but ultimately led us down a very rewarding path. Happy to share this work is now available online π§ͺ
A huge congratulations to Brenda Bass @bbass.bsky.social for her Lifetime Achievement Award from the RNA Society @rnasociety.bsky.social! She is being recognized for her "groundbreaking discovery of A-to-I editing and outstanding contributions to this field."
𧬠Metabolic arms race continues!
We discovered a new NADβΊ-depleting bacterial immune system aRES and phage enzymes that overcome it.
Our preprint is out: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Hello world! I am excited to announce my lab is open at the University of Utah in the Department of Biochemistry. We are looking for scientists at all levels interested in studying host-virus interactions in both bacteria and animals. Come join us in beautiful Utah! (photo is 10 steps from lab)
Excited to help share that Sam Hobbs @hobbslabutah.bsky.social from our group has launched his independent lab at the University of Utah studying host-virus interactions. Congratulations Sam, we can't wait to see the new discoveries your lab will make!
hobbs.biochem.utah.edu
We are seeking a motivated postdoctoral fellow to investigate mechanisms of DNA damage response, APOBEC-mediated mutagenesis, innate immunity, and double-stranded RNA sensing. Located in Southern California, UCI offers an outstanding scientific environment and exceptional quality of life.
Rhinoviruses cause common cold & asthma attacks but are also often benign. Using nasal organoids, we learned how the community of cells in the lining the nasal passages coordinates to respond to rhinovirus and which responses lead to excess mucus & inflammation. www.cell.com/cell-press-b...
Iβm thrilled to share our work on phage triggers of the bacterial immune system in its final form @natmicrobiol.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Preprint out: We characterise PUA-Cal-HAD, a widespread bacterial antiphage defence family. An infection cue switches a preassembled complex into an immune filament that drains dNTPs via a coupled two-enzyme cascade, and phage DNA mimics can block filament assembly (anti-polymerisation).
Iβm happy to share our new preprint! We uncovered the full diversity of bacterial TIR-based antiviral immune signaling, massively expanded the known diversity of Thoeris systems, and revealed conservation of TIR-derived immune signals across the tree of life.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
π§¬π‘οΈHow are new immune mechanisms created?
We show how Lamassu antiphage system, originated from a DNA-repair complex and evolved into a compact and modular immune machine, wt Dinshaw Patel lab in @pnas.org.
π @matthieu-haudiquet.bsky.social, Arpita Chakravarti & all authors!
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
What is the best strategy to win any contest?
Eliminate your opponents of course.
Recently, my friend @fernpizza.bsky.social showed how plasmids compete intracellularly (check out his paper published in Science today!). With @baym.lol, we now know they can fight.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Very happy to share our collaborative project on FAM118 proteins - noncanonical sirtuins that form filaments and process NAD in human and other vertebrate cells.
I'd also like to highlight a recent publication by @audeber.bsky.social, @enzopoirier.bsky.social, and colleagues showing FAM118B, which they term "SIRal", is essential for innate immune response in mammalian cellular models; they also have great phylogenetic analysis and insights into biochemistry.
Thrilled to share that the final piece of my PhD work is now on bioRxiv! biorxiv.org/content/10.1... With support from @nvidia and the @NSF, we used AlphaFold to screen 1.6M+ protein pairs, revealing thousands of potential novel PPIs. All data can be viewed at predictomes.org/hp
Bacteria can sense when a virus starts shredding their genome β by detecting methylated mononucleotides.
Hereβs the story of how we discovered the Metis defense system π
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Preprint: Bacteria sense virus-induced genome degradation via methylated mononucleotides
tinyurl.com/ch3damp
We show how molecular byproducts released during virus-induced cell exploitation are used as signals to trigger host immunity
Revealed by the amazing Ilya Osterman. See his thread belowπ