Leading Edge Fellows Program

Absolutely thrilled to share the latest work from my lab focused on the variation and evolution of human centromeres among global populations! We assembled 2,110 human centromeres, identifying 226 new major haplotypes and 1,870 α-satellite HOR variants. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I’m so excited to share that I’ve accepted an assistant professor position at the University of Colorado Anschutz, BMG department and Barbara Davis Diabetes center! I’m so grateful to many who have helped me get here, especially mentors at Joslin, @hmsbpa.bsky.social @leadingedgeprogram.bsky.social

Group of people (all scientists, all faculty) smiling for a photo (left to right): Adelita Mendoza, Jaye Gardiner, Tigist Tamir, Mary Munson, Chantell Evans, Cornelius Taabazuing, Donita Brady, Christie Towers, and Krishna Mudumbi

Photo of several Leading Edge fellows (all women scientists) smiling for a group photo (left to right): Dr. Jaye Gardiner, Dr. Joan Pulupa, Dr. Ally Nguyen, Dr. Melissa Pamula, Dr. Tina Termini, Dr. Ewa Bomba-Warzcak, and Dr. Tigist Tamir

Group photo of MOSAIC K99 fellows, the MOSAIC program organizer, and the co-directors of the ASCB MOSAIC Program. List of people in the photo (attempted left to right but folks are bunched): Front row: Tigist Tamir, Erica Rodriguez, Jaye Gardiner Middle row: Ewa Bomba-Warzcak, Jennifer Landino, Adelita Mendoza, Durre Muhammad, Leah Gates, Joan Pulupa, Evan Ratzan, Laura Newman, Kalynda Gonzales Stokes Back row: Mike Boyce, Karl-Frederic Vieux, Mary Munson, Chrystal Starbird

Photo of Leading Edge fellows (all women scientists many leading their own labs) around a candlelit table for dinner (left to right): Dr. Meghna Gupta, Dr. Tina Termini, Dr. Rebecca Adikes, Dr. Melissa Pamula, Dr. Lexy von Diezman , Dr. Ally Nguyen, Dr. Jaye Gardiner, Dr. Amelie Raz, and Dr. Joan Pulupa

My tenth ASCB/ Cell Bio meeting; my first meeting as a PI. I love the amazing community I have and am so excited for our new and future labs 🥰

Until next time! #CellBio2025

Kathryn Gunn followed up with a remarkable talk combining cryoEM and and cryoET to reveal the surprising helical filament organization of lipoprotein lipase in storage vesicles. She convinced me that a single lab can use these tools to bridge the gap #cellbio2025

Screenshot of the Cell Bio 2025 app. It reads: Speaker Jaye Gardiner Professional Development: Thriving in Uncertain Times: Navigating Career and Funding Challenges @ Tuesday, Dec 9 4:00PM Information not in the screenshot - it’s in room 126A

I have one other panel on Tues @ 4PM in room 126A. We’re discussing navigating your career in challenging times - come by if you’re here! #CellBio2025

Group of 7 people smiling for a photo. From left to right the people are: Dr. Michael Boyce, Dr. Porsha Howell, Dr. Jaye Gardiner, Dr. Jennifer Landino, Dr. Joan Pulupa, Dr. Christine Vazquez, and Dr. Monica Quiones-Frias

Panel 1 at #CellBio2025 done! (And forgot to mention I was on a panel - whoops)

Thanks Mike Boyce and Monica Quiones-Frias for the invite and the 100+ people in attendance asking questions about the transition to independence.

Was very fun being on a panel with my friends in academia and industry!

Inflammatory profiles of transdiagnostic symptom dimensions in healthy females Psychiatric disorders are increasingly conceptualised as heterogeneous categories with transdiagnostic underlying mechanisms that cut across multiple …

Defining psychiatric disorders is often 'fuzzy' - e.g., compulsivity is a symptom in substance addictions, OCD, hoarding disorder, et al., - which impedes diagnostics and treatment. Our newly published work examines these shared ('transdiagnostic') symptoms... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Divergent viral phosphodiesterases for immune signaling evasion Cyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) and other short oligonucleotides play fundamental roles in immune system activation in organisms ranging from bacteria to …

Work I co-led with @jnoms.bsky.social is now online at
@cp-cellhostmicrobe.bsky.social ! We revealed a previously unrealized diversity of viral immune-evasion proteins that selectively destroy different cyclic nucleotide signals used in bacterial immunity.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It’s that time of year for me to dust this thing off and encourage you to apply to be a Leading Edge fellow, this year named in honor of Zara Weinberg

Sosa Lab - Postdoctoral Researchers We are seeking postdocs to start in 2026!

The Sosa Lab is going to #SfN25 and actively recruiting ✨postdocs✨ with systems neuroscience experience! We study both fundamental memory processes and how memory changes during pregnancy and postpartum.

If you are interested in meeting at SfN, please email me! www.sosaneurolab.com/join/postdoc...

Such a fitting honor for Zara! Her passion for science and Justice inspired us. Apply to join the 7th Cohort of LE, an amazing community of scientists that has given me tremendous support

Candid photo of Zara Weinberg. She has short red hair, bangs and glasses. She is laughing.

The Leading Edge Fellows gathered this week to celebrate Zara Weinberg, a beloved member of our community. Our 7th cohort of Leading Edge Fellows (2026) will be named in her honor.

The Zara Weinberg Leading Edge Cohort application is now open! Due Feb 2.

www.leadingedgesymposium.org/apply/

Zara was an incredibly inspiring scientist, activist, and leader within our community of Leading Edge Fellows. She will be deeply missed by all those who had the pleasure of interacting with her.

Zara Weinberg was a brilliant light both in and out of science. She changed the lives of everyone she interacted and loved for the better. Her legacy will live on through all of us and we will fight for a better world on behalf of her memory.

Zara Weinberg was a brilliant, loving, and beautiful woman. She inspired everyone who she interacted with, and always strived to make the world a better place for everyone. Tho the world is a little less bright today without her, her memory will always be a blessing.

She was truly one of the best.

Zara was an inspiration. We never met in person but became friends through Leading Edge. She zealously advocated for her ideals, but was also passionate about helping others realize why they should too. Her loss is gutting & the world is the worse for it. RIP, I'll do my best to continue the fight.

Zara Weinberg passed away earlier this week. She joined my lab earlier this year when her postdoc lab formally closed.
She was a brilliant scientist, supportive mentor, dear friend, avid music fan, rabid believer in public transit, open science champion, and above all just an amazing human.

I need to give the biggest shoutout to @leadingedgeprogram.bsky.social Fellows for teaching me how everything I know! It’s the most beautiful open community and yall should apply when applications are open!

A human-specific regulatory mechanism revealed in a pre-implantation model Nature - Genetic manipulation of blastoids reveals the role of recently emerged transposable elements and genes in human development.

Today in @nature.com, we present our work leveraging functional genomics and human blastoids to uncover a human-specific mechanism in preimplantation development driven by the endogenous retrovirus HERVK.
Special thanks to the reviewers whose comments improved our manuscript a lot! rdcu.be/eI3tD

Agrawal lab logo. A fly in the UBC colors, with dots framing its body.

The Agrawal lab is moving! This January we will be setting up shop at #UBC in Vancouver, in the department of #Zoology! We are actively recruiting at all levels, especially masters and PhD students. These position are #funded! Please send anyone interested my way!

Here's a movie from the 3D neuroimaging paper - this is the telencephalon of a 19 month old tg(kdrl:mCherry, mpeg1:eGFP) fish. We use imaris to strip the top layer (the skin and skull) off the projection so we can see just the tissue beneath the skull. This was taken with a Bruker 2P+ multiphoton.

Want to image the adult zebrafish brain? Here's a nifty design that I made with the help of a talented master's student, Corey Steinhauser.

Supporting files here!
morgridge.org/research/lab...

Transcriptomic and proteomic dynamics of ovarian follicle group culture resemble in vivo folliculogenesis The prohibitively low yield of fertilizable oocytes obtained from cultured ovarian follicles limits clinical translation of in vitro follicle maturation for fertility preservation. This is in part due...

My pre-print from the Shikanov Lab is live! We detail oocyte and somatic transcriptome, and whole follicle proteome signatures driving folliculogenesis in vitro towards improved ART. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Very excited and proud to share my postdoctoral research with @neurrriot.bsky.social looking at the context-specific encoding of social behavior 💃🕺 in hormone-sensitive, large-scale brain networks in mice!

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

#neuroskyence #compneurosky 🧪
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Feeling grateful for everyone who supported me during my PhD and post-doc training: my incredible mentors David Julius and Vanessa Ruta, my wonderful lab mates, and the amazing communities @leadingedgeprogram.bsky.social @ucsfhealth.bsky.social @rockefelleruniv.bsky.social and HHWF

I'm excited to share that I've started my lab @stanford.edu in the Neurobiology Department! neurobiology.stanford.edu/who-we-are/f...

#stanford #newPI #neuroscience

A photo of a newly renovated science lab with metal cabinets and tile floors. Select pieces of equipment such as test tube racks and chairs are visible.

Excited to announce the opening of the @fitzsimmonslab.bsky.social at @michiganstateu.bsky.social dept. of biochemistry & molecular biology! (1/3)

@accorsi-alice.bsky.social studies how freshwater apple snails regrow their eyes—with the goal of helping to restore vision in people with eye injuries. Her team developed methods for editing the snail’s genome, allowing them to explore the genetic and molecular mechanisms behind eye regeneration.

Meike van der Heijden appointed to Dystonia Foundation’s medical and scientific advisory council Council members are international leaders in dystonia care and research. They review research grants for funding and attend workshops to discuss the most pressing research directions.

I’m honored to serve on @dystoniafoundation.bsky.social ‘s medial and scientific advisory board for the next four years.

news.vt.edu/articles/202...

Divergent viral phosphodiesterases for immune signaling evasion Cyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) and other short oligonucleotides play fundamental roles in immune system activation in organisms ranging from bacteria to humans. In response, viruses use phosphodiesterase...

Excited to share our new preprint co-led by @jnoms.bsky.social!

Here we reveal an exceptional diversity of viral 2H phosphodiesterases (PDEs) that enable immune evasion by selectively degrading oligonucleotide-based messengers. This 2H PDE fold has evolved striking substrate breath & specificity.