Rachel N. Arey

Some shit is about to go down with NIH study sections, friends. Keep your eyes peeled for change that may affect your grant submissions.

Monitoring gene expression in the brain with a simple blood test?

In collaboration with @jerzyszablowski.bsky.social & his lab we figured out how to do it nonhuman primates using noninvasive neuroengineering of synthetic serum markers.

nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Hell yes!! Congratulations - this is so cool!

Me too!!! So excited that this is going to work out for myself and a student!

Congrats Kyle and Team!

just want to state for the record that I am incredibly proud of the althletes representing the USA that are using their platforms to speak out about what is happening here.

Very much worth 3 min of your day.

Today called for comfort food. Pinto beans cooked in the leftover deliciousness from a last batch of carnitas + jalapeno cheddar cornbread + greens did the trick.

We're hiring! The Hoffman lab at Yale is recruiting for Post-Doctoral Associate and Post-Graduate Associate positions available immediately. Join us! www.hoffmanlab.net/jobs #zebrafish #zebrafishjobs

a man from schitts creek is making a funny face and the word yup is above him ALT: a man from schitts creek is making a funny face and the word yup is above him

watching non-Texans discover that there's a town near Fort Worth called "White Settlement" today

YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free

As a someone with a 33 year NIH-funded lab whose grant is supposed to be reviewed this week, shut NIH down if that is what's needed to end ICE terrorism. Innocent lives are more important 🧪

Good morning #acnp2026! Off to a beautiful start and looking forward to a week of excellent science!

Discovered these serving size suggestions while rummaging in some parental cabinets. I refuse to adhere to the guidelines of the pasta patriarchy.

Elixr was always on my list when I would go down for a Philly visit during my postdoc. Enjoy!

Definitely Mediterranean Diet approved

Thanks! Another one not far behind I hope. But that just jinxed it I am sure.

P.S. Both Katie and Emily are so fantastic and are thinking about next steps. Anyone would be lucky to have them as postdocs! I am so fortunate to have a lab full of fabulous trainees - they are a real bright light during these difficult times for science.

INS-17, an insulin-receptor ligand, confers specificity in adult IIS-regulated phenotypes in C. elegans Insulin/IGF growth factor (IGF) signaling (IIS) is a pleiotropic signaling pathway that functions across tissues to coordinate phenotypic changes in response to nutrient status. Thus, the ubiquity of ...

If you want to know more - as I hope you do, here is the link! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

In studying INS-17 in great detail, Emily made clever use of a new technique we worked on with @jsrinivasanwpi.bsky.social to manipulate neuropeptides by feeding, along with a bunch of other fun genetics to understand why INS-17 was special, and why the worms might need it in the first place.

But Emily and I got to thinking, how would this pathway be regulated in the worms' world to affect behavior? Ligand receptor interactions! So she decided to ask if INS-17 was special. Spoiler alert: it was!

The fact that insulin signaling was important for memory wasn't surprising - beautiful work from the lab of my postdoc mentor Coleen Murphy found that reduced insulin receptor function boosted memory, and described the molecules downstream that are involved in these phenotypes in so many cool ways.

Now time for the food a.k.a. how we accidentally ended up looking at insulin signaling without trying. This work started with another grad student @emilyleptich.bsky.social who was studying neuropeptides that might be important for behavior, and a screen turned up an insulin like peptide, INS-17.

Altered glr-1 expression is linked to EtOH cessation-mediated behavior deficits in C. elegans. Chronic ethanol (EtOH) exposure and withdrawal are linked to worsened memory and cognitive outcomes. One target of EtOH is the glutamatergic alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazoleproprionic acid r...

She found something surprising to us - that removal from chronic alcohol, as close as we can get to withdrawal in the worm, was not so great for their ability to remember. She then went on to chase down the genetic why - read her paper here to find out!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We used to both spend a lot of time thinking about mood, and reward. Katie decided to ask if she could use the worm for these questions, specifically how alcohol disrupts cognition. This was a fearless undertaking, as she had to develop and modify protocols to study this problem.

Since I love a good aperitivo - let's start off with the work of grad student Katie @katiebrandel.bsky.social! Katie and I were distantly scientifically related before she joined the lab, as we both trained in labs from the same scientific lineage (Eric Nestler).

Happy Pre-Thanksgiving weekend everyone! In the spirit of overindulgence I invite you all to feast on a cornucopia of Arey lab preprints (okay only two)! And fittingly their themes happen to be in the realm food and drink! Settle down next to the metaphorical fire as I share the stories...

Oh Jason, how heartbreaking. I am so sorry for your loss.

Congrats!

Here's a big thank you to everyone at NIH who is trying to get everything regarding grants and reviews re-started!!!