Maja Kuzman

Awesome!!

“These Ancient Cells Just Came Back to Life”: Scientists Awestruck as 7,000-Year-Old Algae Revived From Baltic Sea Depths, Defying Biological Limits - Sustainability Times IN A NUTSHELL 🌊 In a groundbreaking study, researchers revived 7,000-year-old algae from the Baltic Sea, revealing ancient survival strategies. 🔬 The research, led by the Leibniz Institute, used optim...

#WhoWantsToLiveForever

Its not so awesome that they revived 7000 year old algae.. (its diatomea it would have done it itself)

But by reviving these ancient cells, they gain a glimpse into past marine ecosystems, offering invaluable insights into how marine life adapts to changing environments. 🧬

RNA Is the Cell’s Emergency Alert System | Quanta Magazine How does a cell know when it’s been damaged? A molecular alarm, set off by mutated RNA and colliding ribosomes, signals danger.

#DoOrDie #DNADamageResponse

Thats a cool story :

When a cells DNA is damaged, and needs a quick reaction, its actually the buildup of (errorenous) RNA that through ribosome confusion and bumping into each other actually signals the quick response for apoptosis. Makes a lot of sense.

Brain breakthrough: Dopamine doesn't work at all like we thought it did Dopamine doesn’t flood the brain as once believed – it fires in exact, ultra-fast bursts that target specific neurons. The discovery turns a century-old view of dopamine on its head and could transfor...

#dopamine doesnt flood in brain but is instead released in disparate hotspots with millisecond precision – which suggests the brain can selectively target small neural populations with the neurotransmitter to fine-tune specific behaviors or decisions!!

#NoPainNoGain

newatlas.com/mental-healt...

#booksky

Precision gene editing medicine makes history, and it’s just getting started - Nature Biotechnology Despite their astounding success, custom-made base editors and prime editors will need time to broaden their clinical impact.

#baseEditing #personalizedMedicine
#precisionGeneEditing

We are there!! 💛🧬

As of June, at least 20 clinical trials with base or prime editors are underway. The newer base and prime editing medicines modify or insert specific nucleotides into the DNA without creating double-stranded breaks.

we recently found some really neat RNA-guided DNA-cutting systems in phages. Despite remarkable similarities to CRISPR systems, including encoding guide RNAs in arrays, they appear entirely evolutionarily distinct (but definitely related to snoRNAs 🤓)
We decided to call them TIGR-Tas systems 🐯

Transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of transposable elements and their roles in development and disease - Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology Transposable elements (TEs) comprise nearly half of the human genome. This Review discusses transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms that repress TE activity, how TEs escape this suppressio...

We wrote a review on Transposable Elements (TEs) and almost all aspects of TE silencing and their roles in biological processes & disease.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Disruption of TAD hierarchy promotes LTR co-option in cancer - Nature Genetics NIPBL perturbation activates long terminal repeat (LTR)-derived alternative promoters due to reorganization of chromatin’s hierarchical structure, leading to LTR co-option and oncogene activation in m...

#TransposableElements altho abundant in the human genome, are repressed by methylation and chromatin modifications.

Here authors show another mechanism of repression; hierarchical chromatin topology (TADs) - when disrupted they can lead to co-option of LTRs as alternative promotors of #oncogenes!

Can AI run a physical shop? Anthropic’s Claude tried and the results were gloriously, hilariously bad Anthropic's AI assistant Claude ran a vending machine business for a month, selling tungsten cubes at a loss, giving endless discounts, and experiencing an identity crisis where it claimed to wear a b...

This is too cute not to be shared. And its weekend. Light read time.

The experiment was: can claude ai run a physical shop. The answer is of course no. Poor claude(ius) ended up having an identity crisis trying to please everyone ❤️

How and when organisms edit their own genomes - Nature Genetics This Review describes the changes that some organisms make to their own DNA sequences, linking many to common genetic mechanisms built around canonical DNA repair and to a set of functional circumstan...

LOVE to encounter a good review! Feels like reading what should become a textbook in comparative immunology!

Different organisms make intentional changes to their DNA, relying on similar mechanisms, function usually for immune defens or pathogenicity.

Thanks authors
@sebastianevda.bsky.social

Another day, another wonder;

Archea parasite with a circular genome of only 238Kbp (!) found within a dinoflagellate.

It only encodes for replicative machinery: can replicate but not sustain itself, making that line between life and non-life blurry! What a life

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

You do understand you might be my only follower, right? :))

AlphaGenome: AI for better understanding the genome Introducing a new, unifying DNA sequence model that advances regulatory variant-effect prediction and promises to shed new light on genome function — now available via API.

Op op!

Google introduces AlphaGenome - their tool to predict effect of mutations, including gene expression, splicing patterns, chromatin accessability, 3d genome structure.

Also first model to predict splice junctions from sequence.

Lets see how it works!

#AlphaGenome #google #genomics

Longitudinal and multisite sampling reveals mutational and copy number evolution in tumors during metastatic dissemination - Nature Genetics A pan-cancer analysis of genomic data from matched primary and metastatic tumors from 3,732 patients shows that increased genomic complexity and alterations that facilitate immune evasion are associat...

This is pretty cool! Turns out genome doubling occurs in one third of metastatic cancers!

Seems that during metastasis cancer cells tend to evolve by maximizing CNAs, while not generating too many mutations that could potentially stimulate an immune response.
#cancerEvolution

One last thanks to the #TCTeAC organisers, especially @svobodalab.bsky.social‬. And shoutout to all whom I met throughout the killing game: @majakuzman.bsky.social for organising, @da-bar.bsky.social for bodyguarding, @valeriyk1.bsky.social for scouting, @itaiyanai.bsky.social for enabling, /1

Would you trust a single base edit to rewrite your future? :)

this could be a cool thing to follow up in few years.

Eli Lilly just spent a billion dollars for a single base editing drug that lowers LDL levels by 50% by silencing PCSK9 gene in the liver with a single-course therapy.

please add me as well!