Jesse Raab

Epigenetics Update - DOT1L provides transcriptional memory through PRC1.1 antagonism go.nature.com/4qh5aXB

Chen Davidovich and Omer Gilan (Monash University) reporting in Nat Cell Biol

#Epigenetics #DOT1L #PolyComb
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Gain deeper insights into gene regulation; epigenometech.com

I am excited to share a new review @cp-molcell.bsky.social written in collaboration with @tanjamittag.bsky.social , Mikayla Eppert, and Ambuja Navalkar where we review the current evidence for and against the role of density transitions in regulating transcription www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Please share: we're hiring a new tenure-track faculty member to our Department of Genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

faculty-einstein.icims.com/jobs/17847/a...

It’s crazy watching everything we have worked for for decades being destroyed in real time.

Large brown/grey bird, probably an emu, in my yard in NC

Anyone missing an emu south of chapel hill

Really good explainer ✅

Depressing take home message ✅

Check out our new findings showing BRD4's role in preventing the premature activation of developmental transcription factors via #Polycomb, providing new mechanistic insights into the pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental disorder #CdLS #NDDs, #chromatinopathies www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills Research from scientists at Anthropic suggests productivity gains come at the cost of skill development.

I wrote a short blog post about this one. doi.org/10.59350/2r5...

Tenuous biomedical funding has put first-year Ph.D. students in a bind First-year biomedical graduate students across the country said labs have been hesitant to take them in due to a tenuous funding environment

Worried about the future, labs are turning away students looking for a research home www.statnews.com/2026/01/30/f... #funding #nih #nsf #gradschool

a mascot with the number 3 on his jersey ALT: a mascot with the number 3 on his jersey

Gritty demands sacrifices!

choking the life out of science in the US

We're also super excited to point you towards a wonderful, highly complimentary study from our colleagues Ana Banito and @nsbenab.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Synovial sarcoma is driven almost exclusively by a single oncofusion – SS18-SSX

For years, the assumptions on disease mechanisms were simple:

➡️ SS18-SSX works by hijacking SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling activity

Our new study shows that assumption was wrong 🧵👇

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Molecular Mechanisms of Transcription Factors with Dual Activator and Repressor Functions Transcription factors (TFs) are traditionally classified as activators or repressors, yet some can perform both roles. We highlight well-supported examples of dual activator/repressor functions and...

this mini-review was fueled by frustration with others who use "context-specific" to describe transcription factors that supposedly can function as repressors or activators: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Making large language models reliable data science programming copilots for biomedical research - Nature Biomedical Engineering AI is a powerful tool for facilitating data science programming in biomedicine. This study benchmarks the performance of existing tools and introduces a reliable AI agent copilot.

Making large language models reliable data science programming copilots for biomedical research www.nature.com/articles/s41... #llms #bioinformatics #datascience #coding

New preprint alert! We share some of our recent insights about sequence similarity in IDP protein families and find that conservative substitutions in well-conserved binding motifs of the CITED proteins have big impacts on their ensembles and functions. Take a look!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Statement from Michael and Susan Pretti Parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti “We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.

Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti.

"Please get the truth out about our son."

the snap election is one of those boring ass electoral system design elements that turns out to have immense political implications

BRD8 Disruption Unlocks Retrotransposon-Driven Tumor-Intrinsic Immunogenicity via Redistribution of Histone Acetylation in Liver Cancer https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.21.700714v1

Weekly Recap (January 23, 2026) AIxBio, Claude's Constitution, UK AI+Science, exams with chatbots, R updates (Posit, R Data Scientist, R Weekly), reading what Adam Kucharski is reading, AI vs reality at Salesforce, papers+preprints.

Weekly Recap (Jan 23, 2026): AIxBio, #biosecurity, Claude's Constitution, UK AI+Science, exams with chatbots, #Rstats updates (Posit, R Data Scientist, R Weekly), reading what @adamjkucharski.bsky.social is reading, AI vs reality at Salesforce, papers+preprints blog.stephenturner.us/p/weekly-rec...

Last term I tried an experiment: I walked into my Tech and Design Ethics class, admitted that I had *no idea* what to do about ChatGPT - so I would let them figure it out.

As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class.

Here's what happened:

Rough Diamonds | Sarah Constantin | Substack Underrated opportunities in science, technology, and society. Click to read Rough Diamonds, by Sarah Constantin, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

Interesting post on using claude to look for cancer dependencies and some gotcha's to watch out for
Rough Diamonds sarahconstantin.substack.com?utm_source=n...

ugh, fourth time I've hit the claude code session limit in 2 days

no clue -but this would be super useful. I've been paying for pro out of pocket but constantly hitting limits now

23 Ways You’re Already Living in the Chinese Century The robotics explosion. The energy revolution. The cultural takeover. It’s everything you wanted for the United States—but done better in China.

Presenting WIRED's China issue, with more than a dozen stories that cover AI, energy, culture, crystals, and everything in between. www.wired.com/china-issue/

🥁 #FragileNucleosome is back on Jan 28! We are very excited to host @au-ho-yu.bsky.social and @gcloner.bsky.social as our first speakers of 2026!
📋Please don't forget to register for our 2026 seminar series: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

The NIH's MYF policy in 2025 resulted in 4000 fewer grants and fellowships that touched every area of biology and medicine; continuing it in 2026 would be disastrous for science, technology and health in the United States 🧪
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.

www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Really cool work Abdalla

Dealing with ScienCV formatting Some tips for composing and making your new NIH biosketch not look like garbage

Been hearing some horrifying chatter about dealing with the new #NIH common form and #ScienCV system, so I put together a short video with some tricks for mitigating some of those pain points.

Hope it helps? 🧪

open.substack.com/pub/emptymod...