In a recent publication in Nature, we show how transcription factors are trading accuracy for speed when scanning the DNA. Although the transcription factor will frequently miss the target site, it will revisit the sequence enough times to ensure rapid binding

Antibiotic resistance is a global health problem caused by the use and misuse of these drugs. The problem is exacerbated by the lack of new antibiotics and rapid diagnostic methods to identify the bacterial agents and their antibiotic susceptibility. In this project, we will develop diagnostic tools that will prolong the lifespan of existing and future antibiotics by allowing us to use them rationally—i.e. only for bacterial infections and when the bacterium is susceptible.

Emil Marklund defends his thesis entiteled Orientational dynamics of single molecules applied to protein-DNA target search.

Johan Elf is among the 185 scientists that win European Research Council’s Advanced Grant in 2020. In this ERC-funded project, we will determine the dynamic chromosome structure in a living bacterial cell at high spatial and temporal resolution, and investigate outstanding questions about bacterial cell cycle regulation.

SciFest is a science festival with workshops, shows, competitions, research meetings and lectures. The visitors range from curious three-year olds to senior citizens, and as far as we could tell, everybody had very good time.

The Image Data Resource (IDR) is a public repository of image datasets from published scientific studies, where the community can submit, search, and access high-quality bio-image data. The raw data from our recent publication in Nature Methods is available for download at the repository.

The 6th of December, the MSB program hosted its yearly Christmas event, BiophysXmas. This year we had the pleasure of listening to five really exciting talks!

Johan Elf gets new money from the Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation to study bacterial replication and chromosome structure

We use the DuMPLING technique for dynamic phenotyping of large genetic libraries to investigate the E. Coli cell cycle. The story was recently published in Nature Methods.

A science publication does not always describe the whole story behind the study. If you want to know how the DuMPLING really came to be, read what Micheal Lawson writes in - behind the paper; the story of how our search for optimal noise suppression led to the development of the first assay for dynamic phenotypic screening of genetic libraries.