Paul Donlin-Asp

I’m thrilled to announce that I will start a postdoc at
@pdaphd.bsky.social 's Laboratory at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 I’m beyond honored and excited about this opportunity 🙌😊Stay tuned for cool microscopy and data! (pic I took back in 2019 secretly wishing to come back)

DIV21 hippocampal neurons grown on filters (3um pore size) to enrich for dendrites and axons away from cell bodies. Magenta- DAPI. Cyan- MAP2. Orange- PSD95.

My 13 year old chonkmonster has discovered gabapentin makes his 1 year old sister remarkably more tolerable.

Saturday morning Arthur’s Seat views.

Casual morning stroll.

My shadow undersecretary while I’m reading a pile of grant proposals.

Her devotion is due to payment in the form of laser pointer chase time each time I read a proposal.

Enjoy the imported, tariff free, Scottish weather- San Diegoburgh.

What an inspiring RNA-packed afternoon! A huge thank you to @pdaphd.bsky.social and @agatsiou.bsky.social for two brilliant talks, and to everyone who joined us for a great session full of science, questions, and RNA excitement. Always a pleasure to spend the afternoon geeking out together!

Sunshine in Holyrood park vibes.

Scottish beach day.

Fair. Or some weird drosophila structure

SPINES! 😆

DIV20 hippocampal neuron
Cyan- myr mScarlet3
Orange- GFP-SynGAP1

Spent the day in my happy place.

Hard to imagine a more beautiful city to live in during my PI adventure.

Thinking of entering a kitten bowling league.

Thanks to @brennan-lab-ucd.bsky.social for hosting me at UCD. It’s been a fabulous visit to Dublin to chat science and soak up the Irish sun.

A very gay Edinburgh day.

Green- neuron
White- mRNA
Black- RNA binding proteins
Grey- ribosomes
Orange- newly synthesized proteins
Pink- plasticity

Blue/purple- whimsy

DIV21 hippocampal neurons.
Grey-DAPI
Cyan- MAP2
Magenta- Beta actin
Orange- vGLUT1

Fluorescence Friday double feature:

DIV21 hippocampal neurons.
Grey-DAPI
Cyan- MAP2
Magenta- Beta actin
Orange- vGAT

Testing some new antibodies today lead to a bit of a reprieve from the maddening state of the world.

DIV21 hippocampal neurons.
Grey-DAPI
Cyan- MAP2
Magenta- Beta actin
Orange- PSD95

Many US students don’t know how to seek opportunities outside the US. With some help from our colleagues in EU and Canada, we could put together a consolidated website of PhD opportunities and scholarships outside the US, organized by field. There might still be time for this year in some places.

Save the date for the next edition of this wonderful meeting. We look forward to seeing you in Portugal!!

Still in progress.. but having fun with animating the research in my lab.

My iPad drawings were starting to feel a little stale… so now dabbling with animations.

I really need full time supervision.

Want to live in a place where RFK Jr isn’t overseeing the health of millions? Where vaccines are preferred medical treatments over methylene blue?

There is still one week left to apply for a 5 year postdoc position within my lab.

www.donlin-asp-lab.com/openings

Proud PI moment when the lab has worked out UV RNA-protein crosslinking followed by polyA RNA pull-down.

This will be absolutely devastating.

For trainees- all I can say is there is a whole world doing amazing research.. and if you can, consider moving abroad. I did and it was the best decision I ever made.

We and others are hiring and happy to have you in these dark times.

I do apparently still have biochemical skills from my PhD. UV cross-linking and RNA pull-down optimisation experiments with silver staining.

Inputs vs with/without crosslinking.