Irena Feng

Explore how the brain ages with our aging mouse brain data on the Allen Brain Cell Atlas!

Explore the most comprehensive and detailed single-cell dataset of the aged and young adult mouse brain.

🧠📈 knowledge.brain-map.org/abcatlas#AQE...

Trump Administration Scraps Effort to Pause Health-Research Funding The administration halted and then restarted billions in new research grants flowing from the National Institutes of Health.

Russell Vought lost!

WSJ: "A Trump administration effort to block all funding that flows to outside health researchers was scrapped Tuesday evening after senior White House officials intervened."

Gift link!

Photo of president Harry S. Truman laying the cornerstone of the NIH clinical center.

President Harry S. Truman laid the cornerstone in 1951, saying of the Clinical Center's future work: "Medical care is for the people and not just for the doctors and the rich." He mentioned that 75 million Americans then without health insurance would soon become a "medically indigent class" and he challenged the scientific community to "translate the new knowledge gained by research into better care for more people." "Research to prevent disease" was a better investment for federal dollars than "providing unlimited hospitalization to treat it."

In 1951, Harry S. Truman laid the cornerstone of the NIH clinical center, stating, "Research to prevent disease" was a better investment for federal dollars than "providing unlimited hospitalization to treat it."

Tau PET positivity in individuals with and without cognitive impairment varies with age, amyloid-β status, APOE genotype and sex - Nature Neuroscience Ossenkoppele, Coomans and colleagues analyzed the tau PET data of 12,048 individuals from 42 cohorts worldwide. They found that age, amyloid-β status, presence of an APOE ε4 allele and female sex are ...

Tau PET positivity in individuals (42 cohorts worldwide, N = 12,048) with and without cognitive impairment varies with age, amyloid-β status, APOE genotype and sex

@rikossenkoppele.bsky.social

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

We cannot have a functional US science enterprise if NIH and other science agencies cannot be independent of the President and politics. But that’s what the corrupt Court wants; they want the President to be able to fire any civil servant and control every agency action.

That’s un-American.

Drawing of three scientists - from the NIH, EPA and NASA - standing together

This morning, NASA released the #VoyagerDeclaration. This afternoon, NIH #BethesdaDeclaration signers met w/ Jay Bhattacharya. Earlier, EPA staff were terminated for their act of resistance.

I made this in solidarity. @altnih4science.bsky.social @altnasa.bsky.social @alt-epa-workers.bsky.social

Prime editing treats childhood brain disease in mice Scientists use a precise form of gene editing called prime editing to correct the most common genetic mutations that cause alternating hemiplegia of childhood, a rare and severe neurological disorder ...

Partnership between David Liu, @jacksonlab.bsky.social, and rare disease group RARE Hope leads to first use of prime editing for a brain disease that reduced symptoms, extended lifespan in mice, offering hope for other rare genetic diseases. #Science #PrimeEditing

🗞️Our July issue is live!📷 This month, we're featuring work on intrinsic capacity, senescence, and more. Read it all here: www.nature.com/nataging/vol...

It is not a political statement to note the fact that science enhances our well being, expands our knowledge of the world, and drives economic growth 🧪

🚨 If you haven’t seen it yet…

📢 The NIH BioArt Source provides a library of FREE professionally designed illustrations and icons, available for anyone to use. They can be Downloaded in High Definition.

Check it out at bioart.niaid.nih.gov

My postdoc work at Treutlein lab and @graycamplab.bsky.social with @jasperjanssens.bsky.social is out in @science.org ! We screen for neuron subtypes using pro-neural TFs + morphogen combinations + scRNA-seq and profiled over 700,000 cells in 480 conditions. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Neuron programming! Pro-neural TFs + 480 morphogen conditions + scRNA-seq --> Diverse iN subtypes of forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain, spinal cord, and PNS. @hsiuchuanlin.bsky.social‬ @jasperjanssens.bsky.social‬ and Treutlein Lab! @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #NGN2 #ASCL1

Hey, this is important to do.

Animal testing is vital to having safe medicines. We are an extremely long way from knowing enough about how bodies function to model it all in a computer system. Animal models are needed to ensure human safety.

Summary Table of the massive defunding of biomedical research in the United States
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Congratulations to BU’s Vickery Trinkaus-Randall, PhD, and Steven Borkan, MD, on their multi-PI T32 NIH grant to help recruit, train and inspire MD/PhD students to become clinician scientistshttps://bit.ly/44brH0e

Plasma p‐tau231 in the presenilin 1 E280A autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease kindred: A cross‐sectional and longitudinal cohort study INTRODUCTION Plasma phosphorylated tau (p-tau)-231 is a promising biomarker for Alzheimer's disease (AD), particularly in preclinical stages. We evaluated its diagnostic value in presenilin 1 (PSEN1.....

Hot off the press! Our new paper on plasma p-tau231 in the Colombian ADAD kindred is out in Alzheimer’s & Dementia! 🧠

We found that p-tau231 begins diverging by age 19 —25 yrs before symptoms—and distinguish carriers earlier than p-tau217 or NfL
alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Nazi Germany did literally ban Nature:

"Articles are often published in the London weekly scientific journal Nature containing outrageous and vile attacks on German science and the national socialist state.

The journal must therefore be excluded from general use in the scientific libraries."

Alzheimer’s Association Responds to Sec. Kennedy’s Mischaracterizations About State of Alzheimer’s Research Efforts The Alzheimer's Association responds to inaccurate statements made by HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in House Energy & Commerce committee hearing.

Our colleagues at @alzassociation.bsky.social address Secretary Kennedy's disinformation campaign on research we and AA support. Thank you, Drs. Pike and Carrillo for addressing these medical inaccuracies. #geronsky #dementia

The Death of the Student Essay—and the Future of Cognition One professor's reflections on the end of an era, as AI tools such as ChatGPT have murdered the student essay (RIP). Here's why that threatens the future of human cognition—and how to save ourselves.

After the latest round of grading papers, I wrote about AI, ChatGPT, the death of the student essay, and what it means for the future of human cognition.

Friends & Family Support Systems for LGBTQ+ Youth Discover ways to support LGBTQ+ young people through FAQs and educational resources for friends and family members.

The news really sucks today.

Instead of boosting a harmful Supreme Court decision, here’s something better:
a practical guide on how to support the LGBTQ+ youth in your life.

Because they deserve our attention, our protection, and our love. 💖🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/ar...

Why do some people who have mutations of familial Alzheimer's not get the disease?
They have protective genomic variants.
A first-rate review
@thelancetneuro.bsky.social
thelancet.com/journals/lan...

🖥️ STIM, a new tool developed at Janelia & @mdc-berlin.bsky.social‬, aligns sections of irregularly spaced 2D spatial transcriptomics data & renders them as images to reconstruct 3D volumes of gene expression, allowing researchers to see how all genes are expressed & organized in 3D tissue. 🧬

papers are Tonelli 2025 and Bergmann 2022

There are currently one or two papers that describe something entorhinal or entorhinal-like, but not necessarily layer-specific and none with a full transcriptomic characterization. We've got encouraging prelim data (my poster!) for a protocol we're developing though!

and if anyone wants to chat more about my poster, feel free to reach out anytime 😊

me at my poster, which is blurred out

view from the village

a little river in the park

my reward for winning musical bingo: a coaster that says Whistler, Canada with a picture of the Whistler Mountain Inukshuk

And that's a wrap on #KSNeurodegen25! It was so fun chatting with people about my poster, making new friends, and enjoying the scenery and weather 🤩 Thanks to @keystonesymposia.bsky.social for hosting this conference (and for my brand-new coaster from winning musical bingo!!!)

Day 1 in Whistler for #KSNeurodegen25 / #KSNeuroImmune25, off to a great start with phenomenal weather 🤩 Excited for all the cool talks (and my poster presentation tomorrow!!)

@keystonesymposia.bsky.social

Over the past couple of weeks, several asked if I could share the individual slides summarizing our recently published framework in @nature.com on designing experiments with #organoids, #assembloids, and transplantation. Here they are—6 slides capturing the key takeaways👇