Lapanje Award
Ajasja received the Lapanje Award from the Slovenian Biochemical Society (SBD) for outstanding achievements in the field of biochemical sciences! 🎉 🎉 🎉
News
Lab happy hour
Monthly happy hour, this time with our new intern student Mina Kovačević from Serbia. Welcome!
Dr. Daichi Takahashi visited the lab
Dr. Daichi Takahashi from the Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Science in Japan visited the lab. He presented a talk with the title: »Bacterial actin for unique swimming motility«.
Preprint for Prosculpt is online
Have you ever wanted to get into de novo protein design, but didn’t know where to start? Or are you just tired of writing messy one-off scripts to glue together RFdiffusion, ProteinMPNN, and structure prediction tools (ColabFold, AF3, Boltz2)? Then we have a treat for you!
Lab happy hour with our Rosetta Commons REU student
Monthly happy hour, this time with Rosetta Commons REU student Peter.
Peter Tan Dat Le has joined the lab for the Summer
We would like to welcome our second Rosetta Commons REU student Peter! We hope he will have fun designing some wild protein walkers under Federico’s mentorship.
Marco Orlando concluded secondment
Marco finished a 1-month research secondment in our lab under the supervision of Federico Olivieri. Supported by my SMASH MSCA fellowship, we aimed to develop protein binders specific for an unstructured epitope in the CDKL5 biomarker, critical for brain development. Four binders were successfully designed from 24 tested candidates.
Happy hour with visiting Rosetta Commons members
Monthly happy hour, this time with Rosetta Commons members Rachel Clune (documentation writer) and Hope Wood (product manager).
Kiyan Abel received the Goldwater scholarship
Our Rosetta REU student Kiyan Abel (mentored by Federico and Ajasja) received the prestigious Goldwater scholarship (https://goldwaterscholarship.gov/). Congratulations! 🎉
Ajasja and Liza at Alpbach Molecular Motors
Ajasja and Liza attended the 18th Alpbach Molecular Motors Meeting (https://alpbach-motors.mechanicsanddynamics.com/) where they presented talks on “Designing and characterizing a completely de novo random protein walker (with ideas for powered walking)” and on “Single-molecule tracking of artificial protein walkers”.
Happy hour
With warmer weather it’s time for another happy hour “meeting”!
Lecture at Novartis
Ajasja gave a talk on de novo protein design at the pharmaceutical company Novartis. Exciting to see momentum building—hoping Slovenia’s de novo protein design ecosystem grows and delivers real-world impact in the coming years
Our walkers on national TV
We got a chance to present our walkers is the national TV show “A Bite of Science”.
We are extremely happy and excited to announce that we have received an ERC Consolidator Grant!!!
In the PROPEL project we will create a completely de novo designed powered protein walker. More info here.
Our new paper is uploaded to BioArxiv!
We’re very happy to announce our new paper is in preprint! You can read it at this link
Our new lab T-shirts arrived today
Lab milestone reached – we now have lab T-shirts! :)
A »back-to-school« happy hour
Vacations are over and proteins are waiting to be designed!
New version of prosculpt released
We released an updated version of prosculpt:
Lab’s first master’s student defense is complete!
A proud lab moment: our very first master’s student defense is complete!
A snapshot of the lab’s monthly happy hour
Even in the age of Slack and Zoom, a happy hour is the best information transfer and ideas catalyst.
Nej Bizjak is doing a summer internship
We are happy to host Nej Bizjak for the summer. Among other things he will work on improving Prosculpt.
Kiyan Abel has joined the lab for the Summer
We would like to welcome our first Rosetta Commons REU student Kiyan Abel!
Ajasja, Liza and Federico attended the ArtMotor consortium meeting
Ajasja, Liza and Federico attended the ArtMotor consortium meeting as invited guests, where Ajasja presented our group’s advancements in de novo designed motors
Eva was awarded a travel grant to attend Summer RosettaCon
Eva was awarded a travel grant to attend Summer RosettaCon in August. Congratulations Eva!
European RosettaCon 2025 in Ljubljana
We are excited to announce that our lab will be hosting RosettaCon Europe 2025 in Ljubljana from October 20–22, 2025. This event will bring together researchers from across the Rosetta community to discuss the latest advances in computational biology and protein design. Stay tuned – registration will open soon! Link to website: https://europeanrosettacon.org/
Our laboratory was granted 25000 hours on the VEGA cluster
Our laboratory was granted 25000 hours on the VEGA cluster. We will be using this processing power to work on designs for fiber anchors, rigid walkers and more!
Federico attended cryo-EM sample preparation workshop at the ESRF
Federico attended the cryo-EM sample preparation workshop at the ESRF in Grenoble.
Ajasja and Eva visited Nobel Prize ceremony
Ajasja and Eva visited the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden 🇸🇪.
More on rosettacommons blog
European RosettaCon 2024
Our lab participated in the European Conference on Protein Design, which brought together leading scientists in the field for a dynamic exchange of ideas and discoveries. Liza and Eva showcased their research through poster presentations, while Alina was selected to give a lecture on her work involving de novo designed symmetrical assemblies.
Protein design workshop at PSI in Switzerland
Ajsaja was invited to lead a two-day protein design workshop at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland. He was joined by Federico and Eva as teaching assistants.