Diego Balboa

Lithium deficiency and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease - Nature Lithium has an essential role in the brain and is deficient early in Alzheimer’s disease, which can be recapitulated in mice and treated with a novel lithium salt that restores the physiological level.

New @nature.com
The possibility that lithium deficiency is a driver of Alzheimer's disease. Experimental model shows Li depletion impedes amyloid clearance, and repletion in humans could be achieved with low doses
nature.com/articles/s41...

Lovely news for the summer! My latest artwork was just published on the cover of @cp-cellmetabolism.bsky.social. Incredible science from @daveyboyhod.bsky.social lab! They discovered how pancreatic alpha cells regulate beta cell function via enriched GLP-1 receptor nanodomains.

HNF1A and A1CF coordinate a beta cell transcription-splicing axis that is disrupted in type 2 diabetes Bernardo et al. uncover a transcription-splicing regulatory axis driven by HNF1A and A1CF in pancreatic β cells. Targeted perturbations, single-cell studies, and human genetic evidence demonstrate that failure of this network leads to defective β cell function and glucose homeostasis.

Online now: HNF1A and A1CF coordinate a beta cell transcription-splicing axis that is disrupted in type 2 diabetes

California y España generan cada vez más energía solar para su demanda eléctrica

Pero los estadounidenses se ayudan de baterías que aprovechan esa energía acumulada durante la noche: así podríamos cubrir hasta un 28% de la demanda nocturna

¿Ves la diferencia? www.eldiario.es/economia/cam...

One in 4 people carry one copy of the APOE4 allele, the strongest known genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. We've just learned how that risk is mediated—the immune system
erictopol.substack.com/p/our-braini...

A 6-year long study from the Lab is finally out @genomeresearch.bsky.social

Mastered by @annanordin.bsky.social in collaboration with Chaitali Chakraborty from @remeseiro-lab.bsky.social

Why is our work Important? Discover it in the quick Bluetorial 👇

genome.cshlp.org/content/earl...

We wrote this introductory review on how concepts from dynamical systems can help us understand developmental biology, hope it’s useful to somebody! It was a lot of fun to put together, and great to collaborate with brilliant colleagues across theory and experiments

Very proud to share the first review from the lab with contributions of all lab members. Writing this gave our new lab opportunity to read and discuss many papers and grow as a team. www.frontiersin.org/journals/imm...

Now out @genomeresearch.bsky.social this fantastic work in collaboration with Claudio Cantù's lab.

About how #Wnt signalling activation induces #CTCF binding and formation of new #chromatin #loops at #CREs of target genes.

genome.cshlp.org/content/earl...

Episode 99: June 2025 In this episode, we hear about giant viruses, monkeys who wash their food, sepsis in infant pigs, how cancers can cause extra tentacles to grow in hydra, and the impact of speaking multiple languages…

A compost heap in Finland has yielded the country’s first giant virus. Bigger than some bacteria and packed with hundreds of mysterious genes, it might hold clues to early life and new biotech tools.

Gabriel Almeida explains in the eLife Podcast.

Out today in @jclinical-invest.bsky.social! We discovered a novel regulator of adaptive beta cell proliferation, the protein deacetylase SIRT2, that acts through a metabolic mechanism. Bluetorial below (1/5).
tinyurl.com/ydvv9u2s

Helsinki goes a full year without a traffic death A city traffic engineer credits the success to lower speed limits and smarter design.

Helsinki hasn't had a traffic fatality in a year: "Helsinki's current traffic safety strategy, covering 2022–2026, is nearing completion. It has focused on improving safety for children, youth, pedestrians and cyclists with safer crosswalks and smarter intersection design."

An updated inventory of genes essential for oxidative phosphorylation identifies a mitochondrial origin in familial Ménière’s disease Harhai and collaborators expand the catalog of genes essential for oxidative phosphorylation and implicate FAM136A in mitochondrial proteostasis. Their findings suggest a mitochondrial contribution to...

Our updated inventory of genes required for #OXPHOS & findings on #mito defects in #Menieres is now out at Cell Reports! 🎉

🧫 New galactose #CRISPR screen
🎯 481 genes required for #OXPHOS
⚙️ #FAM136A in IMS proteostasis
👂 Mito defects in #Menieres

www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell Animation videos explaining things with optimistic nihilism since 12,013. We’re a team of illustrators, animators, number crunchers and one dog who aim to spark curiosity about science and the world ...

Big news, friends! I just joined the team at Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell @kurzgesagt.org as a Researcher & Fact-Checker 🐦💻🔍

Basically I get to nerd out over science with wildly creative people every day. Dream job 💚

Go watch their stuff if you haven’t already!
www.youtube.com/@kurzgesagt

Marsupial single-cell transcriptomics identifies temporal diversity in mammalian developmental programs Menchero et al. generate a single-cell transcriptomic atlas in the opossum and show rapid progression of transcriptional programs in specific tissues relative to morphological landmarks. This shift in...

Thrilled to share that our latest work on marsupial heterochrony is now online at @cp-devcell.bsky.social @cellpress.bsky.social @lab-turner.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk We used scRNAseq to understand the asynchronous progression of developmental programmes in marsupials www.cell.com/developmenta...

✨New issue!✨

🧪

Check out the latest in #metabolism research from across all disciplines.

Read about #Triglycerides in the #Brain, #CagriSema, #Exercise, #LipidMetabolism, the #Microbiome - and many more topics!

www.nature.com/natmetab/vol...

Pre-print alert 🚨: We have developed 2D and 3D stable iPSC endothelial-differentiation models through dox inducible ETS expression. We demonstrate endothelial identity and used these models for studying malaria pathogenesis research. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I hear the July issue of @natmetabolism.nature.com is a real page turner, check it out.

bit.ly/3GIeTFM

Excited to share our latest work with @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social .

A global #cis-regulatory temporal program guides how spatial cues are interpreted in neural progenitors. We show how #space and #time can be integrated to generate cell type diversity in the #spinalcord.

Congrats to all authors.

Evolutionarily conserved temperature dependency leads to loss of protein O-GlcNAc in mammalian hypothermia O-N-acetylglucosaminylation (O-GlcNAcylation) is a conserved, non-canonical glycosylation of intracellular proteins suggested to regulate a wide spectrum of fundamental cell processes and stress respo...

In our new preprint, we show that protein O-GlcNAc is decrerased in mice with mitochondrial disease. We found that O-GlcNAc is strictly dependent on temperature in fruit flies, zebrafish, cultured mammalian cells and in the hypothermic mice. @folkhalsanresearch.bsky.social @stemmprogram.bsky.social

The antigen presentation landscape of cytokine-stressed human pancreatic islets Nanaware et al. characterize peptides presented by MHC proteins in inflamed human pancreatic islets and test them for reactivity with CD4 and CD8 T cells from patients with T1D. These results identify...

Inflammation, unfolded protein response, and secretory hormone processing create #T1D epitopes in human cytokine-treated #islets www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Quantification of transcript isoforms at the single-cell level using SCALPEL - Nature Communications Single-cell RNA-seq facilitates the study of transcriptome diversity in individual cells. Here, authors introduce a tool for isoform quantification at the single-cell level using 3’ scRNA-seq data, co...

I’m really happy to present #SCALPEL, a new #Nextflow tool to quantify transcript isoforms at the single-cell level using conventional 3’ scRNA-seq data #scRNA-seq #single-cell #tools #isoforms
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

PDK4 and nutrient responses explain muscle specific manifestation in mitochondrial disease Mitochondrial disease triggers opposite responses in different muscles. Mitochondrial integrated stress response (ISRmt) and aerobic glycolysis characterize large muscles. Eye muscles show no ISRmt b....

Excited to share our recent work uncovering how muscle-specific mitochondrial stress responses and nutrient preferences contribute to the vulnerability of extraocular muscles in mitochondrial myopathy (MM). (#OA tinyurl.com/3estfu4y) 🦵👁️🔬 1/5

Just published: The cis-regulatory logic integrating spatial and temporal patterning in the vertebrate neural tube

A global temporal chromatin program, operating across the CNS, directs binding of specific spatial TFs & hence when/where neurons & glia are born

authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Old mitochondria regulate niche renewal via α-ketoglutarate metabolism in stem cells - Nature Metabolism Andersson et al. show that intestinal stem cells enriched for old mitochondria are metabolically distinct and have enhanced ability to regenerate the epithelial niche.

Proudly presenting Simon’s @simonsterson.bsky.social‬ paper on asymmetric apportioning of old mitochondria biasing intestinal stem cells for the Paneth cell linage through aKG-dependent metabolism
@naturemetabolism.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s42... @helsinki.fi @metastem.bsky.social 🧵1/8

Enhancer adoption by an LTR retrotransposon generates viral-like particles, causing developmental limb phenotypes - Nature Genetics Activation of an LTR retrotransposon inserted upstream of the Fgf8 gene produces viral-like particles in the mouse developing limb, triggering apoptosis and causing limb malformation. This phenotype c...

Finally out! 🥳 Our paper showing how a transposable element (TE) insertion can cause developmental phenotypes is now published @natgenet.nature.com 🧬🦠🐁
Below is a brief description of the major findings. Check the full version of the paper for more details: www.nature.com/articles/s41588-025-02248-5

- A postdoc to work on cancer extravasation (4-year project).
- A postdoc help in completing Filopodia-related lab projects (2-year).
- Multiple Marie Curie postdoc positions that will open in the fall.
- We will open a 5-year position to cover my teaching (70% research and 30% teaching).

Come join us in Vancouver! Exciting opportunity for a more senior investigator researching new regenerative medicine approaches for Type 1 diabetes. $8M in funding for successful candidate research.ubc.ca/media/file/j...

I am very happy to have posted my first bioRxiv preprint. A long time in the making - and still adding a few final touches to it - but we're excited to finally have it out there in the wild:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Read below for a few highlights...

Paper alert! I am really pleased to share the final version of the work led by Irène Amblard in the team on a regulatory switch controlling Cdx2 expression during posterior body development! #regulatorylogic #devbio @mrc-lms.bsky.social @imperialmed.bsky.social