Ashani Weeraratna

Where is this? I’ll meet you there

I do biomedical research to help people. When people come in this space making things up, it makes it harder for people not in the field to trust the extensive studies that we do and distinguish fact from fiction. Baseless claims reduce future cures. Willful ignorance drives us backwards.

Lol sob

Firings of federal workers begin as White House seeks to pressure Democrats in government shutdown The White House budget office says that mass firings of federal workers have started in an attempt to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.

As Vought tweets out 'The RIFs have begun', it will be crucial to speak up in support of the mission-driven folks all across this country who are being targeted precisely because they dedicated their professional careers to serving the public.

apnews.com/article/gove...

'When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,' the Norwegian Nobel Committee said as it announced Maria Corina Machado as the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize

Democracy won today. A huge congratulations to Maria Corina Machado!

Age‐Associated Inflammatory Monocytes Are Increased in Menopausal Females and Reversed by Hormone Replacement Therapy Post-menopausal females (> 64 years) have an increase in frequency of inflammatory monocyte populations with defective phagocytosis as compared to pre-menopausal (< 40 years) females. Hormone Replace....

I am so proud to say that our paper is now available at Aging Cell. There is a paucity of data as to how the menopause impacts your immune system, and the aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the menopause on monocyte phenotype and function.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Why does the naked mole rat have the longest lifespan of any rodent, nearly 40 years?
A 30-year long mystery unraveled @ScienceMagazine today!
Its cGAS enzyme in cells has 4 missense mutations that upends its function, promoting DNA repair and suppressing inflammation
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The 2025 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.”

I was fortunate enough to meet Sen Van Hollen, just after this. Impressive man.

Jane Goodall with monarch butterfly scarf

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.”
― Jane Goodall

💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

Amazing talk by @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social at Hopkins yesterday. What an amazing person!

Cracked. Me. Up. 😂

Normalize just posting a recipe with no backstory at all.

Sun-dried tomato pesto focaccia over here!

Maybe it’s the stress of the times. Maybe it’s needing to control one small thing in my crazy life, when I see this house once every few weeks. But today my linen closet got the brunt of my angst 😂

Can’t wait to meet you!

These are the stars with which I grew up. It was one of the things I missed most, among the many I missed (!!) when I moved to America.

I honestly live for these posts 💕

Danger, Will Robinson.

Check this out: This is what the human fallopian tube looks like as one travels through its different sections.

We have developed a new 3D single-cell tissue mapping workflow to automatically/accurately detect ovarian cancer precancerous lesions (STICs).

More here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Um did you come to Philly and not tell me??? (Actually I’m in Baltimore all week so you are off the hook!)

Winner of mRNA Nobel Prize says ACIP member’s claim that Covid vaccines persist is “absolutely impossible” In a Q&A with STAT, Nobel winner Drew Weissman addressed concerns raised about Covid shots at a recent meeting of federal vaccine advisers.

www.statnews.com/2025/09/20/d...

Unravelling the genetics and epigenetics of the ageing tumour microenvironment in cancer - Nature Reviews Cancer In this Review, Easwaran and Weeraratna outline how ageing leads to epigenetic alterations in the tissue microenvironment, enhancing clonal expansion of mutations and ultimately increasing cancer risk.

Review 🚨
Easwaran&Weeraratna outline how #ageing leads to epigenetic alterations in the #TME, enhancing clonal expansion of mutations and ultimately increasing cancer risk.
📖 👇

A huge shoutout to all the dedicated grants management specialists at the NIH who are working around the clock to push grants out before the Sep 30 deadline. And also to the POs responding to frantic emails.
Not an easy job under the best of circumstances and right now it's the pits.
Thank you!

a man with a ring on his finger is making a face and says ewww ALT: a man with a ring on his finger is making a face and says ewww

I’m just going to say this lantern fly situation is untenable. First, one got into the revolving door with me. Then, one followed me into my uber. THIS CANNOT STAND.

😂😂😂

I’ll bring the food and tequila

Ah then wait. Though really I feel fine. I’m hosting 12 people at my house tonight, but I’m generally a mild responder to vaccinations!