Michael O’Dea

Now on bioRxiv! Astrocytes in one brain region (cyan) communicate in expansive networks (magenta). Through tool development, tissue clearing, and many hours on our @zeiss-microscopy.bsky.social Z1, we now know these networks are repeatable across mice, plastic, and specific.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Astrocytes connect specific brain regions through plastic gap junctional networks https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.18.665573v1

Amyloid-β induces lipid droplet-mediated microglial dysfunction via the enzyme DGAT2 in Alzheimer’s disease Why microglia stop reducing amyloid deposits from Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brains is unknown. Prakash, Manchanda, et al. show that microglia increase their lipid droplets and lose their phagocytic cap...

Happy to share that our work "Amyloid-β induces lipid droplet-mediated microglial dysfunction via the enzyme DGAT2 in Alzheimer’s disease" is out now @cp-immunity.bsky.social! ➡️ www.cell.com/immunity/ful...

Thrilled to announce that my lab is now open at Ohio State! We study astrocytes as gene therapy targets for brain repair after ischemic stroke and in vascular dementia, developing new viral tools along the way. If you're interesting in joining or collaborating, please reach out!
gleichmanlab.com

Our lab's 1st paper, led by @fchrisbennett.bsky.social & @waisenberg.bsky.social. A decade thinking how to directly assess the impact of microglia replacement. Yrs of hard work. This kind of work is needed to expand brain disease care for kids & the vision for safer, more effective cell therapy.

Direct microglia replacement reveals pathologic and therapeutic contributions of brain macrophages to a monogenic neurological disease Hematopoietic stem cell transplant is the gold standard for treatment of globoid cell leukodystrophy, also called Krabbe disease. Aisenberg et al. define the molecular signature of disease-associated ...

Amped to share this masterclass of a paper spearheaded by @waisenberg.bsky.social, out today in Immunity. Will et al. provide a deeply detailed look into microglia dysfunction in Krabbe disease & show that microglia replacement therapeutically improves disease outcomes!

www.cell.com/immunity/ful...

New preprint evaluating the recent claim of epigenetically regulated immune memory in astrocytes.

We believe this finding was likely artifactual, resulting from immune cell contamination & cell type mis-annotation across multiple transcriptomics experiments:

Fresh off the press! We found that degeneration in one retina causes astrocytes to respond retinotopically across *both* hemispheres of the brain. Perhaps astrocytes across the CNS are able to coordinate their responses more than we anticipated... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A person in a mask holding a painting that says “hands off my transgenic mice”

At @standupforscience.bsky.social and the signs are statistically significantly excellent

Defining the molecular identity and morphology of glia limitans superficialis astrocytes in vertebrates Hasel et al. show that molecularly and morphologically specialized astrocytes make up the brain and spinal cord surface, thereby creating the glia limitans superficialis. These astrocytes selectively ...

Our paper on the superficial glia limitans is now published - huge thank you to all co-authors that helped getting this work across the finish line! www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Scientists as political advocates Science, both teaching and doing, is under attack. The recent US presidential election of a person and platform with anti-science bias exemplifies this. The study of climate processes and patterns and...

If you can, do something, speak up and act up. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#GliaPapers #GliaSpecial2025 REVIEW

@mrodea.bsky.social, @philiphasel.bsky.social

Are we there yet? Exploring astrocyte heterogeneity one cell at a time
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Special Issue: Glial omics: Unraveling mechanisms in health and disease: Glia: Vol 73, No 3 Glia is the top neurobiology journal for research into glial cells (also called gliocytes or neuroglia). Articles cover all aspects of glial cell biology in health and disease.

#GliaPapers #GliaSpecialIssue
SPECIAL COVER

SPECIAL ISSUE: Glial omics: unraveling mechanisms in health and disease
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/10981136...

Editorial Unboxing “Omics” in Glial Biology to Understand Neurological Disease here - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Scientific advancements aside, this is economically irresponsible

Every $1 spent by NIH generates $2.46

For example, in 2023, $47B in NIH spending generated ~$93B

Halting NIH spending will LOSE the US a lot of money (and talent)

Enhancer scrambling strategy

We are happy to share our enhancer scramble story, a strategy to create hundreds of stochastic deletions, inversions, and duplications within mammalian gene regulatory regions and associate these new architectures with gene expression levels 🧵
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Mapping the developmental trajectory of human astrocytes reveals divergence in glioblastoma Nature Cell Biology - Sojka et al. analyse the transcriptomic and epigenomic landscape of human astrocyte maturation and identify an epigenetically regulated intermediate state associated with...

First 🦋 post! Very excited to share our lab's latest work exploring the shared and divergent aspects of human astrocyte development and glioblastoma. This effort spans many fields from developmental #glial biology to #stem cells and #tumor biology. rdcu.be/d5ADz A 🧵

3 reviews on planning, execution, & validation of transcriptomic experiments in neuroscience published in @natureportfolio.bsky.social #NatureNeuroscience.
A MUST READ if you're doing transcriptomics.
3 reviews, an amazing editorial, a beautiful cover – this is the issue of the year!
(mini thread)

Big day for single cell and neuroscience. Trio of single cell perspective pieces discussing applications, opportunities, challenges, and validation of single cell and spatial genomics in neuroscience are out now in Nature Neuroscience. Links in thread below.👇 1/n

🙋‍♂️

(VIDA DTC) Exploring the role of the astrocyte-leptomeningeal vessel interface in dementia at University of Edinburgh on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - (VIDA DTC) Exploring the role of the astrocyte-leptomeningeal vessel interface in dementia at University of Edinburgh, listed on FindAPhD.com

PhD opportunity: If you're interested in how astrocytes and the meninges talk to each other and how this is affected in dementia come do your PhD with us in Edinburgh (cc: Karen Horsburgh and Ingo Schiessl)!
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

There are lots of us missing, but so many joining so quickly

Please do share, and comment below to be added

go.bsky.app/5f2V6L6

(microglia starter pack also here by @mancusorenzo.bsky.social - bsky.app/starter-pack...)