# Melnikov Lab


## Posts

- [A groundbreaking discovery that went unheard](https://melnikovlab.com/a-forgotten-discovery/): Here is the story of one unsung scientist in our field — who was likely the first person to identify ribosome hibernation factors, in their series of works between 1978 and 1982 (long before their rediscovery by Akira Wada and colleagues in 1990), but whose work never accrued sufficient visibility to reach a larger audience (or, in fact, any audience). Their name was García-Patrone, an Argentinian scientist from Buenos Aires. The first ever snapshot of a ribosome hibernation factor. SDS-PAGE gel from García-Patrone (1980) showing Association Factor I (AFI) — most likely the first ribosome hibernation factor (HPF) ever identified, […]

## Pages

- [Fun](https://melnikovlab.com/fun/)
- [Intranet](https://melnikovlab.com/intranet/)
- [Team](https://melnikovlab.com/team/): Sergey Melnikov Principal Investigator I love superheroes. And I bet you do too. It’s just that my superheroes have nothing to do with Spider-Man, or Hercules, or Phoenix. My superheroes are 100% real, and nearly as underrated. My superheroes are the little invisible proteins that endow living cells with the superpower to stay alive in the absence of food, or water, or oxygen for extraordinarily long periods of time. We humans rapidly die in the absence of food or water. Yet many microbial species can survive these hostile conditions for thousands of years. Research in my lab is focused on […]
- [Blog](https://melnikovlab.com/blog/)
- [Research](https://melnikovlab.com/research/): Our research aims to understand how living cells survive hostile environments, including starvation, extreme temperatures, and antibiotic treatment. We are particularly interested in a molecular mechanism underlying environmental resilience known as ribosome hibernation. We study how this process helps living cells put their life on hold and slow down the natural degradation of the most metabolically expensive assemblies in a living cell, thereby helping cells remain inactive but viable for long periods of time.
- [Home](https://melnikovlab.com/)
- [Pubs](https://melnikovlab.com/pubs/): 2025 The evolutionary lifecycle of ribosome hibernation factors Chan LI, Omae K, Brown CR, Amikura K, Ekemezie CL, Clark J, Nishide K, Helena-Bueno K, Palmowski P, Porter A, Suzuki S, Melnikov SV bioRxiv 2025.11.04.686544 → Full text Translon: a single term for translated regions Świrski MI, Tierney JAS, Albà MM, Andreev DE, Aspden JL, Atkins JF, Bassani-Sternberg M, et al. Nature Methods 22(10), 2002–2006 → Full text Evolution of drug-binding residues in eukaryotic ribosomes Chan LI, Ekemezie CL, Brown CR, Helena-Bueno K, Williams TA, Melnikov SV Cell Reports 44(9), 116244 → Full text Extensive natural variation in bacterial ribosomal drug-binding […]

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