Leading Edge Fellows Program

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 🧪
1/12

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.

FEBS Press It is easier for young animals to regenerate damaged or missing tissues. In this Viewpoint, we propose that this is, in part, attributed to epigenetic changes, with chromatin becoming more closed and....

Excited to share our recent viewpoint with @storerlab.bsky.social led by Kirsten Sadler, on epigenetic mechanisms of regenerative resilience.

Ageing versus developmental silencing: Answers from the epigenome - Sadler - The FEBS Journal - febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Happy to get to contribute to this perspective in JEM!

This #MicroscopyMonday is a developing Apple Snail embryo. On the left is the shell, the middle the body & the foot at the bottom. On the right the head with the eye (green circle) & the tentacle bud. (@planaria1.bsky.social lab) #ResearchSky #SciSky

YouTube video by Stowers Institute for Medical Research How Apple Snail research began at the Stowers Institute: unlocking the secrets of eye regeneration

🐌👀What do apple snails have to do with human vision?

Stowers scientists took a chance on a tiny creature, with big results. Learn how @planaria1.bsky.social & then postdoc @accorsi-alice.bsky.social brought apple snails to the Institute. ⬇️ #ResearchSky #SciSky

Learn more: youtu.be/U-yQ7z1e6nA

HOME Visit the post for more.

This week we said farewell to the amazing @caitlinkowa.bsky.social as she moves to start her new lab at Dartmouth. So grateful for all her leadership and mentoring the last few years.

If you’re interested in all things skin microbes (especially fungi) check out her lab! I can’t recommend enough.

The essential host genome for Cryptosporidium survival exposes metabolic dependencies that can be leveraged for treatment An arrayed microscopy-based CRISPR screen revealed host genes affecting multiple infection phenotypes of the intracellular parasite Cryptosporidium. Hits in the host cholesterol biosynthesis pathway a...

Our paper has finally graduated from pre-print to peer-reviewed, pretty much unscathed, and is out now! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Antigen specificity shapes distinct aging trajectories of memory CD8⁺ T cells - Nature Communications Homeostasis of memory T cells is modulated by each antigen encounter, thereby creating a heterogeneous population preventing precise tracking. Here, the authors use barcode-assisted tracing of Epstein...

I’m excited to share our new T cell aging study published in Nature Communications @natcomms.nature.com !

We show that T cells do not age uniformly but undergo distinct aging trajectories even if they were primed simultaneously early in life.

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

👇👇

Which llms are best for coding help? what strategies help students actually learn how to write and eval code? I'll continue asking probing q's and emphasize checking work, but rn feel like i cant trust any of their plots...2/2

This summer I'm noticing students embracing vibe coding for data analysis to worrying effect. #Neuroskyence #🧪 1/2

Super excited to share my final postdoc paper from Rabinowitz lab- on how whole-body and tissue metabolism changes in viral infection!
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40581045/

My postdoc work on attention in the mouse whisker system is out now in @natcomms.nature.com! We show that mice flexibly allocate attention to recently rewarded touch stimuli on a trial-by-trial basis, with corresponding modulation of the S1 neural code (1/6).

Functional amyloid proteins confer defence against predatory bacteria Nature - Escherichia coli uses curli fibres, oligomers of the functional amyloid CsgA, as a barrier to protect against the predatory bacteria Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus and Myxococcus xanthus in a...

Words cannot describe how excited I am to share the findings from the second half of my postdoc in @aaronwhiteley.bsky.social's lab where we discover that bacteria use functional amyloids to defend themselves from predatory bacteria. rdcu.be/euu5Y. See thread for details on this epic adventure 1/.

a picture of a woman with the words this is exciting below her ALT: a picture of a woman with the words this is exciting below her

Exciting news:
⭐I'm thrilled to receive a grant from the Brain Research Foundation! tinyurl.com/2p9ku4sd

⭐"Atypical retinal ganglion cell function in a mouse model of Fragile X syndrome" was published! tinyurl.com/htk3ekce

⭐my review on retinal receptive fields was published! tinyurl.com/48b9xbs2

Shining a Light on the World of Tiny Proteins

A recent study from @shiraweingarten.bsky.social, a former postdoc in the Rice laboratory, revealed 4,208 previously unknown proteins that are made by viruses such as influenza and H.I.V. using a new technique called massively parallel ribosome profiling.

Congratulations @allynguyen.bsky.social !!!

Testicular somatic and germ cell maturation during rhesus macaque development | PNAS The formation of bilateral testes in animals is critical for puberty, reproductive capacity, and testosterone production across the life course. In...

Just out @pnas.org : our work on primate testis maturation during fetal development.

www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

So excited to announce our preprint describing a high-throughput method for mapping connectivity across neuron types! Using a combination of optogenetics, voltage imaging, and mFISH in over 1000 neurons, we describe new connectivity motifs in long-range inputs to the motor cortex.

Extremely excited to share I have accepted an offer to be an Assistant Professor in the MCDB department at the University of Michigan! Go Blue! The Ledvina lab will investigate the molecular interworking of the bacterial immune systems including defense against both viral and bacterial pathogens.