Mikhail Spivakov

A great collaboration between Marina Nocente and Monica Della Rosa in our lab, and human naive pluripotency experts Maria Rostovskaya and Peter Rugg-Gunn in Cambridge.

Poising and connectivity of emergent human developmental enhancers in the transition from naive to primed pluripotency In primed human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) resembling post-implantation epiblast, numerous lineage-specific enhancers assume the poised chromatin state, co-marked by H3K4me1 and Polycomb-associate...

Many enhancers that drive tissue-specific gene expression are already connected to gene promoters in human pluripotent cells.

In a new preprint, we share some clues about when, how, and why this happens!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Sounds cool, thanks for sharing!

Hi Alexis, not sure if I'm on your list - would love to be added if not. Thanks!

Congrats Arnaud and team, exciting stuff!

...and a welcoming Ryanair check-in gate with no queue!

Translational research is digging for gold. Basic research is learning where and what to dig. The more funding is diverted to translation, the more we deplete the research ecosystem, driving the supplies of "gold" - immediately translatable findings and innovations - to unsustainably low levels.

My colleagues at @mrc-lms.bsky.social are hiring (five postdoc positions in total!).

Congratulations to Will Scott and the team from @mrc-lms.bsky.social on this exciting study!

Philip Kitcher, philosopher: ‘Life is a human project, not God’s’ The British thinker is an advocate of collective progress and laments our contemporary individualism. In an interview with EL PAÍS, he says that there is value in idealism, even when it is absurd

"We’re reaping the fruits of what happened economically 50 years ago, when... decisions began to prioritize efficiency and making as much money as possible over what was ethically correct."

english.elpais.com/culture/2025...

I have no doubt about that - but this in itself is commendable :)

Wow. Saying this as someone trained in classical piano...

Sounds cool!

I got British citizenship via the five-year route. Labour’s new 10-year rule will cause untold pain | Nesrine Malik Starmer claims to want integration. Yet denying people safety, belonging and the right to vote for a decade amounts to the exact opposite, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This is all a painful deja vu from 2007. And it's important to remember that despite all the suffering and literal lives lost (www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this...) Labour had lost hopelessly then to the party whose policies it tried to mimic.

AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data - Nature  Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scraping data from the Internet, can lead to a collapse in th...

AI models go dumb when fed their own output. But as we are increasingly reading AI-generated text and looking at AI-generated images, how about us?

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hi @Maria, sorry I missed your poster and didn't meet you at the meeting. Which is a shame because I could also then ask for feedback on our project :)

The two JRs can be found here and may be useful for people who consider campaigning against the proposed changes via either the lobbying or judicial route:

www.casemine.com/judgement/uk...

www.casemine.com/judgement/uk...

Two JRs were allowed to proceed and were won but one, sadly the most relevant for this situation, was not. Still, the two successful JRs have hopefully set a strong precedent against retroactive changes. 3/n

We organised and campaigned fiercely at the time against these changes. Lobbying alone (led by the group I then coordinated) didn't help, but was effective for mounting the evidence for judicial reviews, led by a partner campaign group. 2/n

1.5m foreign workers already in UK could face longer wait for permanent settlement People who have moved to UK since 2020 may face extra five-year wait to stay indefinitely under Labour crackdown

My heart goes to UK migrants who feel outraged with UK govt's proposals to retroactively extend the qualifying period for permanent residence by 5(!) years. The last Labour govt did the same just by 1 year and it was still shocking and destructive.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

1/n

Labour has chosen nativism over growth.

inews.co.uk/opinion/star...

I would agree :)

Not sure it came across as such, but I meant to highlight the caveats of using net migration as a target - even if for some people (not me), it seems to be a meaningful metric.

There is one sure way to reduce net immigration: make life in this country rubbish for everyone.

The reason why ERCs and other non-strategy-driven grants are scarce is that funders feel they have the least control over them. When given the chance to talk policy, we should do more to promote blue skies research. Sadly, I've seen people use it to suggest new schemes for their field/crowd instead.

Exciting, congratulations Jesse and team!

MRC Postdoctoral Research Scientist (Emerging Innovators Fellowship for Black Heritage Scientists) - MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences The MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS) is a biomedical research institute where scientists and clinicians collaborate to advance the understanding of biology and its application to medicine. Fun...

Our institute has created an exciting postdoc fellowship scheme for UK black heritage scientists. Please spread the word and apply if eligible!

lms.mrc.ac.uk/work/vacanci...

Description Please note that job descriptions are not exhaustive, and you may be asked to take on additional duties that align with the key responsibilities ment...

Postdoc position #2 is now also live! Note a different duration and salary range. Feel free to apply for both if they both sound suitable.

www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-...

MRC Postdoctoral Research Scientist - MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences Applications are invited for a 3-year post-doctoral research position at the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS) at Imperial College London (http://lms.mrc.ac.uk/).

Postdoc position #1 is live! Please apply / spread the word!

lms.mrc.ac.uk/work/vacanci...

An AI-generated image of a female life wet/dry-lab scientist working in London

❤️‍🔥 Passionate about gene regulation research, in the wet and/or dry lab?

🎡 Excited about London's vibrant research and social environment?

🔬 Looking for a funded postdoc position (but ideally, have the CV and drive to apply for a fellowship in your 1st year)?

Please DM/email me to discuss!

Govts aren't businesses, and efficiency isn't their main virtue. They need to be resilient and fair, and efficiency often comes at the cost of that.