Hybrid female sterility due to cohesin protection errors in mouse oocytes
Misregulation of chromosome cohesion during female meiosis serves as a reproductive isolating barrier in mice.
Another announcement! π£ Our work on hybrid incompatibility in cohesin protection in πoocytes is published!! Congrats Warif El Yakoubi and Eddie Pan!!π We found hybrids with cohesion errors in two distinct genus.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
07.02.2026 00:51 β π 47 π 24 π¬ 3 π 0
Not something you see in textbooks very often: tripolar mitosis.
07.02.2026 08:00 β π 1544 π 266 π¬ 49 π 21
Our new preprint on SMCHD1! Weβve shown SMCHD1βs ATPase activity is critical for function in vivo, and excitingly a new DNA binding domain neighbouring the ATPase domain activates the enzymatic function, which is important for normal chromatin binding.
urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...
06.02.2026 07:56 β π 28 π 13 π¬ 1 π 1
Cognitive decline in aging parasitoid wasps https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.03.703543v1
06.02.2026 00:45 β π 2 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0
Iβm thrilled to share our latest preprint! Inspired by isothermal Gibson assembly cloning, we wondered whether we could assemble and integrate DNA sequences at a specific genomic locus in human cells. A thread (1/7) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
17.06.2025 19:02 β π 6 π 1 π¬ 1 π 2
Induction of menstruation in mice reveals the regulation of menstrual shedding
During menstruation, an inner layer of the endometrium is selectively shed, while an outer, progenitor-containing layer is preserved to support repeated regeneration. Progress in understanding this co...
Iβm thrilled to share my postdoc work and the first paper from the McKinley Lab! π
@karalmckinley.bsky.social
We built the first transgenic model of menstruation in mice.
We used it to uncover how the endometrium organizes and sheds during menstruation. π§ͺ
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
π§΅
10.10.2025 12:50 β π 232 π 83 π¬ 14 π 15
Millions of years ago during the Silurian period, the Sahara Desert was a shallow sea full of aquatic animals like crinoids. Donβt be fooled! Crinoids are commonly called "sea lilies" but they aren't plants! They are echinoderms, like starfish and sea urchins, and many species are still alive today!
Millions of years ago during the Silurian period, the Sahara Desert was a shallow sea full of aquatic animals like crinoids. Donβt be fooled! Crinoids are commonly called "sea lilies" but they aren't plants! They are echinoderms, like starfish and sea urchins, and many species are still alive today!
29.01.2026 19:59 β π 63 π 10 π¬ 0 π 0
Re-analysis of human population-scale whole genome seq data elucidates genetic architecture of EBV DNA persistence, a framework for the broader human virome
@nature.com @caleblareau.bsky.social @sherrynyeo.bsky.social @erinmayc.bsky.social @ryandhindsa.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
28.01.2026 22:25 β π 19 π 5 π¬ 2 π 0
AlphaGenome is out in @nature.com today along with model weights! π§¬
π Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
π» Weights: github.com/google-deepm...
Getting here wasnβt a straight path. We discussed the story behind the model, paper & API in the following roundtable: youtu.be/V8lhUqKqzUc
28.01.2026 21:02 β π 82 π 39 π¬ 4 π 1
Have you wondered how the rules of chromatin folding have evolved? Well, this task is not easy to formalize. But here is our take on it: train species-specific DNA-to-chromatin encoder, apply to DNA of unseen species, and build chromatin rules-based tree of life. Have a look:
doi.org/10.1093/nar/...
26.01.2026 10:58 β π 19 π 8 π¬ 0 π 0
Iβm happy to share the main result of my PhD, which you can find on bioRxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... If you are interested in learning about a new way to perform DNA-PAINT multiplexing, which we call Combi-PAINT, or if you are interested in the study of mRNA conformation, keep reading! 1/10
26.01.2026 11:31 β π 74 π 26 π¬ 3 π 5
screenshot of visualization from a weather site of projected snow and ice quantities. The ranges around 30 inches of snow and 0.5 inches of ice cover the same colors.
I love how this graphic is totally unhelpful for determining whether you're going to get 30 inches of snow or half an inch of ice.
23.01.2026 20:56 β π 4917 π 445 π¬ 373 π 78
Protein purification has been getting miniaturized! Hands on experience can be like doing a plasmid mini prep π
24.01.2026 15:16 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Iβve actually gotten it down to midiprep-scale purification on the benchtop, just with magnetic StrepTactin or GFP nanobody resin (didnβt manage to squeeze that into the paper). Happy to talk more if youβd like to try it!
24.01.2026 15:10 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Thanks Anton! Curious what you make of the ligation-gating model in the supplementary note.
24.01.2026 14:57 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
Seeing into Hi-C: How our scientific connectivity revealed the close connections in our DNA to be a work of art
Scientific data can be beautiful. An example where the data itself have a particularly striking appearance even before any scientific meaning has been ascribed
I had the privilege to meet artist Mary Griffiths. Mary got inspired by Hi-C maps and over zooms we spoke about Hi-C maps, patterns and drawings. Maryβs Hi-C inspired art has been exhibited eg the Royal Academy. We wrote this piece about this art-science collaboration
pubs.aip.org/aip/bpr/arti...
24.01.2026 00:50 β π 30 π 10 π¬ 1 π 0
Preprint alert: Jiangyuan Liu developed a new workflow for chromatin loop calling across Hi-C datasets, e.g., during differentiation. Most loops are shared between datasets/cell states. Important work for all interested in chromatin loops and how to identify them!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
21.01.2026 11:20 β π 26 π 16 π¬ 0 π 0
Chromatin fatigue: DNA repair alters the chromatin environment and introduces heritable variation in gene expression in a larger region around the lesion! Amazing achievement by @sbantele.bsky.social and Jiri Lukas published in @science.org π Happy we could contribute. See π
12.11.2025 03:55 β π 38 π 10 π¬ 0 π 0
CAD-C: An engineered nuclease enables repair-free in situ proximity ligation and nucleosome-resolution chromosome walks in human cells
Chromosome conformation capture (3C)-derived methods have become an indispensable tool in the study of gene regulation. The three-dimensional contacts they are able to assay depend strongly on the properties of the enzyme used to fragment chromatin prior to proximity-driven ligation. Micrococcal nuclease (MNase), used in Micro-C, increases resolution at the expense of low ligation efficiency and the need for extensive enzyme titration. To overcome these limitations, we engineered a highly active, TEV protease-activatable caspase-activated DNase (CAD) to enable an efficient, low-sequence-bias, and high-resolution proximity ligation assay we call CAD-C. CAD-C was successful on the first attempt for each human cell line tested and the resulting datasets capture loops, TADs, compartments, and stripes similarly to Micro-C. However, compared to Micro-C and Hi-C, CAD-C shows enhanced sensitivity for promoter-enhancer loops. Leveraging the ligation-competent DNA ends produced by CAD cleavage, we show that CAD-C is compatible with a highly streamlined, repair-free protocol and produces multi-step CADwalks, consecutive ligations between nucleosomal or sub-nucleosomal fragments. With these walks, we probe local chromatin fiber folding contacts, nucleosomal and sub-nucleosomal footprints, and long-range nuclear organization regimes in human cell lines. CAD-C is an efficient, robust chromatin structure assay that can span sub-nucleosomal to chromosomal length scales in a single experiment. ### Competing Interest Statement V.I.R. and J.S. are inventors on a related patent application covering CAD-C (PCT application filed 2024). NIH Common Fund, https://ror.org/001d55x84, 1DP2GM150021 Irma T. Hirschl Trust, https://ror.org/01yaqvf46, Career Scientist Award Rita Allen Foundation, https://ror.org/0515k5w36, Scholar Award Stavros Niarchos Foundation, https://ror.org/0210rze73, Institute for Global Infectious Disease Research at Rockefeller University Grant Robertson Technology Development Fund at Rockefeller University Boehringer Ingelheim (Germany), https://ror.org/00q32j219, PhD Fellowship to JS U.S. National Science Foundation, https://ror.org/021nxhr62, GRFP to LAW International Human Frontier Science Program Organization, https://ror.org/02ebx7v45, Postdoctoral Cross-Disciplinary Fellowship to AO Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Postgraduate fellowship to HC, Postgraduate fellowship to JLY
Preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202...
Huge thanks to the Risca Lab @riscalab.bsky.social and collaborators @laurenands.bsky.social @1001hak.bsky.social, @erichjarvis.bsky.social VGL π
Also see independent CAD-C work in yeast from @axeldelamarre.bsky.social (Whitehouse lab, MSKCC).
16/16
21.01.2026 19:32 β π 1 π 2 π¬ 0 π 0
At CTCF boundaries, walk polarity is asymmetric between flanking nucleosomesβbiased toward the loop interior. Consistent with directional cohesin extrusion, resolved at nucleosome scale. CADwalks span sub-nucleosomal to chromosomal scales in a single assay.
15/
21.01.2026 19:32 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Analyzing fragment order in CADwalks, we find shuttling at long range β consecutive steps that venture out and back. Fragments making distal contacts are enriched for active regulatory chromatin. We also probe local fiber folding and nucleosomal footprints.
14/
21.01.2026 19:32 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
This unlocks CADwalks: consecutive ligations between nucleosomal and sub-nucleosomal fragments, sequenced as intact concatemers. Each walk from a single nucleus. Reduced base-composition bias, no end repair.
13/
21.01.2026 19:32 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Because CAD-cleaved ends are natively ligatable, we can skip end repair and biotin entirely. Direct CAD-C does this and still yields high-quality maps. Native CAD ends ligate directly to each other.
12/
21.01.2026 19:32 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
We call this ligation-gating. Capturing a loop requires both anchors in proximity AND both ligatable at once. CAD's ligation-competent ends raise this joint probability βconsistent with both the loop sensitivity and the short-range enrichment. See Supplementary Note.
11/
21.01.2026 19:32 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
But here's the puzzle: 1D ligation-junction coverage at loop anchors looks nearly identical between CAD-C and Micro-C. So why more loops? It's not about cutting more at accessible sites. It's about both anchors being simultaneously ligatable in the same cross-linked complex.
10/
21.01.2026 19:32 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
CAD-C recapitulates compartments, TADs, & loops β w/ same or improved contrast. CAD-C-detected loops skew toward active chromatin; we see more TSS-anchored loops than Micro-C or Hi-C. CAD-C detects promoter loops to CRISPRi-validated enhancers that Micro-C misses at matched depth.
9/
21.01.2026 19:32 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
We tested CAD-C in three human cell lines at saturating CAD concentrations. All worked on first try. Ligation efficiency was high, producing long concatemers.
8/
21.01.2026 19:32 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
We optimized the CAD:ICAD construct for purification from E. coli and orthogonal activation by TEV protease. Result: consistent genome coverage across a 125-fold CAD concentration range.
7/
21.01.2026 19:32 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Tenure-Track PI @nih_nhlbi. Cell biologyπ¬of non-Mendelian segregation π§¬(meiotic drive) and species barrier in π/ all views are my own.
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/science/chromosome-dynamics-and-evolution
User of microscopes. Interested in organelles and how they move. Husband, dad, intermediate filament apologist, and postdoc in the JLS lab at HHMI Janelia Research Campus.
Prof of Computer Science and Life Sciences @ EPFL Previously @ Stanford
MLπ€+Bio𧬠https://brbiclab.epfl.ch/
PI at Institut Pasteur
Evolution, immunity, genomics, microbiolgy.
Into immunity in bacteria and its conservation in eukaryotes.
Advocate for more inclusive sciences
https://research.pasteur.fr/en/team/molecular-diversity-of-microbes/
Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Institute
https://kranzuschlab.med.harvard.edu
Assistant Professor at UTSW studying nuclear organization by nuclear condensates
biology of the whole-earth system at caltech; prev new science fellow. scattered cellular apologia https://www.kianfaizi.com
Deputy Director at WEHI, Melbourne Australia.
Lab head studying epigenetic control, in the context of X inactivation, genomic imprinting, SMCHD1, Prader Willi Syndrome, FSHD.
Mum, wife, beach lover.
Sharing QB3-Berkeley research, news & opportunities with the community of bioscience researchers, students & faculty at UCBerkeley and beyond.
VP Research at Eligo Bioscience at the interface between synthetic biology, microbiome, phage and CRISPR
Biologist and semi-philosopher | science (and fiction) writer | plays with words and ideas
π Belgium (for now)
πββοΈ gunnardewinter.com
Scientist. Co-founder/CEO @ Arcadia Science. Board @ Astera and The Navigation Fund. Texan in CA.
Core Investigator @ Arc Institute | Associate Professor @ UCSF | {Computational, Systems, Cancer, RNA} biologist | Co-founder @exaibio @vevo_ai
Professor at UCSF. Molecular/cellular mechanisms of brain disease. Functional Genomics. Diversity & Inclusion. π³οΈβπ he/him
All views and opinions expressed are my own.
Mobile genetic element whisperer. Computational Biologist @arcinstitute.org. Genetics PhD @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social.
I post about programmable recombinases and genome design.
Card carrying Cell Biologist. Prof. at Stanford Biochemistry. Lover of neglected and emerging model systems. straightlab.stanford.edu
A new scientific institution for curiosity-driven biomedical science and technology.
Scientist. Director of the Single-cell Analysis Innovation Lab @MSKcancercenter. sail.mskcc.org - Opinions are my own
Colorado RNA biologist & tRNA enthusiast exploring the wild frontiers of nanopore direct RNA sequencing at the intrepid venn diagram of northern blots & machine learning.