In this study, we make one of the hitherto largest efforts to explain how bacteria decide when it is time to copy their DNA. This problem has eluded science for over half a century. The article, and the somewhat incredible 3.5 TB of data it's based on, are openly available. The experiments support a model in which DnaA is activated in relation to the cell size and inactivated in relation to the number of chromosomes. Replication is initiated at the correct ratio of active to inactive DnaA.

Johan Elf is awarded the Norblad-Ekstrand medal for his pioneering work on the characterization of individual molecules in living cells.

Elflab proudly presents Shadowfax, a new type of microscopy for tracking single molecules at high speed inside living cells.

Bacterial perseverance is a new phenomenon that helps explain how bacteria adapt to survive antibiotic treatments. We have studied how individual bacteria react when exposed to different antibiotics. The result underlines the importance of adhering strictly to antibiotic prescriptions.

Happy holidays from the Elf lab! May your new year be merry and bright and may all your experiments turn out right. Sparkles and joy from the lab Christmas tree. Look inside to see who won the Christmas tree decoration competition!

On the 2nd of December, the Elf and Johansson labs hosted their yearly Christmas event, BiophysXmas. Celebrating the return to in-person meetings, we gathered in the beautiful UU main building. Still, having speakers online makes the threshold lower for invited speakers, and we had the pleasure of listning to seminars from Ethan Garner and Stefan Upphoff on link.

With our coarse-grained molecular model of different conformation of the lac repressor, we demonstrate how disordered regions assist both rapid exploration of the DNA and recognition of the specific site. This conformational agility explains how DNA-targeting proteins can be both fast and accurate.

We have developed a method to identify harmful bacteria and suggest an effective antibiotic treatment within hours of sampling the patient. If this type of method is made available in the clinic, patients with complex bacterial infections would be all but guaranteed an effective treatment, and physicians could make better use of the last-resort drugs, in the long run slowing the progression of resistance development.

The Elf group kicks off the fall together with the Johansson and Jones labs in the beautiful Öregrund archipelago. This time the focus was on our brilliant staff scientists.

The European Molecular Biology Organisation, not the bounty hunter, sorry...