JStark lab

Fingers crossed 🤞

Yeah…10% was bad enough…

I was thinking about this too as I'm a standing member at NIH and review did the DoD. The amount of time and effort for no monetary benefit that is expected of us is unreasonable even at a 10th percentile funding rate. But at 4%.... what are we even asking of scientists?

4% payline demoralizing for reviewers - review 9 grants each taking 3-4hrs (total reviewed by all is 90) flying to DC, a hotel conference room to discuss the top half of grants (45) 15 min each, 3x a year for 4 yrs. Paid $300. 4% = maybe 3/90, 0-1 that you reviewed funded. I couldn’t.

From cooperation to conflicts – a complicated relationship between transcription and replication. A tight coordination between transcription and DNA replication is essential to maintain genome stability. Both excessive transcription and upregulated…

Our new review on how the initiation of DNA replication is coordinated with transcription is now online! Congratulations to @syedshahidmusvi.bsky.social!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

😢 RIP. Still to this day my favorite experiment in molecular biology.

Dynamic assemblies and coordinated reactions of non-homologous end joining - Nature Structures associated with the final steps of non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) and gap filling present new targets for NHEJ inhibition to enhance efficacy of radiotherapy and accuracy of gene editing...

Excited this study is out - we helped with an experiment on Paxx www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Seems a good time to invite Sen Britt to watch an NIH review panel (aka study section) analyze piles of grants over several days to identify the <10% that win funding. Applications that scientists spent months preparing, whose peers spent weeks poring through in advance of review mtg at NIH.

New twist on BRCA1-mediated DNA recombination repair and tumor suppression Ever since BRCA1 germline mutations were found to confer a strong predisposition to the development of breast and ovarian cancers, there has been great interest in determining how this protein suppresses tumor formation. Through more than two decades of research, it has become clear that BRCA1 safeguards our genome mainly by promoting DNA repair through homologous recombination (HR). This opinion article outlines our evolving view of BRCA1’s role in end resection, an upstream commitment step for HR, and highlights recent discoveries suggesting that the context in which DNA breaks are generated dictates whether BRCA1 is required for end resection. In addition, strong emerging evidence for the tumor-suppressive function of BRCA1 being mediated predominantly by its indispensable role in supporting RAD51-dependent recombination downstream of end resection is discussed.

New twist on BRCA1-mediated DNA recombination repair and tumor suppression

Senator Durbin noted that some (I believe Republican Senators) had indicated the US had been doing more than its share of biomedical research and it was time for other countries take a turn.

I felt I had to interrupt to respond...

NCI paylines drop to 7%ile for established investigator applications. It’s at 9%ile for Early Stage Investigators.
www.cancer.gov/grants-train...

Distinct functions of PAXX and MRI during chromosomal end joining A key step of Canonical-Nonhomologous End Joining is synapsis of DNA double strand break (DSB) ends, which appears to be mediated by both the DNA-PKcs dimer and XLF homodimer. We have examined this pr...

We have a new study out - Distinct functions of PAXX and MRI during chromosomal end joining: iScience www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Multigenerational cell tracking of DNA replication and heritable DNA damage - Nature A multigenerational single-cell tracking approach provides a framework to dissect phenotypic plasticity at the single-cell level, offering insights into cellular processes that may resemble early even...

Delighted to share that the results of my main postdoc project are now published in @nature.com

🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Last week I learned that all my NIH awards were terminated due to perceived acts of antisemitism by Harvard. My understanding (which may be incorrect) is that this has been extended to literally every grant to grad students, postdocs and faculty throughout the university.

Excited to share our new paper on Nature - how Ku accommodates Alu expansion in primates by binding to dsRNA, providing a clue for both the high levels of Ku and its essentiality in human cells. Thank @chaolinzhang @hchung03 @LenaSteckelberg More to come www.nature.com/articles/s41...

53BP1/RIF1 and DNA-PKcs show distinct genetic interactions with diverse chromosomal break repair outcomes. DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) are the effective lesion of cancer radiotherapy and induce gene editing. 53BP1 accumulates at DSBs and is implicated in end joining (EJ) repair, but its influence on DS...

New preprint from the lab @kaelamakins.bsky.social Genetic interactions between 53BP1-RIF1 and DNA-PKcs for DSB repair outcomes. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Dr. Carlos Mendez-Dorantes @carlosmendezphd.bsky.social from Dr. Kathleen Burns' lab @danafarber.bsky.social is telling us about the LINE-1 retrotransposon and its causal role in genome instability and chromosomal rearrangements in a wide variety of cancers. 41/

Chromosomal rearrangements and instability caused by the LINE-1 retrotransposon LINE-1 (L1) retrotransposition is widespread in many cancers, especially those with a high burden of chromosomal rearrangements. However, whether and to what degree L1 activity directly impacts genome...

Check out Dr. Mendez-Dorantes' recent preprint for more details on his exciting research! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 42/

Please see our latest paper on the role of EXO1 in meiosis: "EXO1 promotes the meiotic MLH1-MLH3 endonuclease through conserved interactions with MLH1, MSH4 and DNA". Congratulations to both first authors, Megha Roy and Aurore Sanchez and thanks to all our collaborators!

Decided to drop a big op-ed project to help in this effort instead! (Sorry for those heavily invested lol 😬)

Super collaborative effort from STUDENTS @ Cornell, Penn, UNC, UCLA, UAB, Hopkins, Georgetown, UCSF, Stanford, Yale, Florida, Notre Dame, Cold Springs Harbor & more

@sciforgood.bsky.social

I am a professor at Columbia University. All of the student NIH training grants have been canceled and now there are reports that ALL funding will be frozen. Why are Universities not banding together and speaking out publicly and forcibly about governmental attacks on biomedical research?

The RAD52 double-ring remodels replication forks restricting fork reversal - Nature A head-to-head double-ring complex of the human multifunctional DNA repair protein RAD52 mediates protection of stalled replication forks during replication stress, protecting them from reversal by SM...

I ❤️ this new paper on RAD52 at replication forks, just published @nature.com. Cryo-EM reveals a unique double-ring structure that blocks reversal of replication forks.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

BREAKING: We're suing the National Institutes of Health over their politically-motivated purge of research grants.

This is an unlawful attack on scientific progress that puts lives at risk.

75% of US scientists who answered Nature poll consider leaving More than 1,600 readers answered our poll; many said they were looking for jobs in Europe and Canada.

We polled Nature readers to ask if they were thinking of leaving the US for jobs abroad. Three-quarters of them (who said they were US-based scientists) said yes. 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Really excited to share my co-first author paper with @cejkalab.bsky.social looking at how/which nucleases are involved in resecting ssDNA gaps generated by PARPi!

Can’t wait to talk about our work at the DNA Replication Gaps, Cancer and Disease meeting in South Korea next month!

“The result is going to be the systematic removal of women and people of color from the act of research. At the end of this, we’re going to end up with an academy that is more white, more wealthy, more male, more cisgender, and it’s going to reinforce the same problem.”

Opinion | The View Inside Trump’s Assault on Universities (Gift Article) The Trump administration’s attacks on universities will lead to the permanent diminishment of vital American institutions.

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/o...

Congratulations to @nebanovich.bsky.social, his team and collaborators on earning the cover of @nature.com Genetics 🧬 🫁 👏