Jacob Corn

Dunedin welcomed me to my sabbatical at @universityofotago.bsky.social with @peterfineran.bsky.social with style.

I’m an @univpugetsound.bsky.social alum. Super cool to see UPS STEM highlighted. 10/10 would recommend. Liberal arts education FTW.

AI reviewers are here — we are not ready Artificial intelligence promises rapid and polite feedback on papers — but we must first review the reviewer.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

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Sometimes I'm excited to read a paper and every paragraph blows me away. And sometimes I'm just as excited and every paragraph leaves me wondering if the referees were sleeping on the job. Today it was one of the latter.

ERC Plus Grants
• No career limit, current ERCs are not eligible
• Major challenge, transformative research
• Up to 7 million euros, up to 7 years
• 30 grants per year, 2 years, only once per lifetime
• Same application format, plus vision statement
• Deadline in September 2026, 2 stage evaluation

What controls expansion & contraction of DNA repeats (e.g. Huntington's)? We were thrilled to collaborate w/ the lab of Marta Olejniczak to find out. Check out the cool screen from @sebasiegner.bsky.social and @matthiasmuhar.bsky.social that reads out repeat sequence. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I’m very grateful to @ethz.ch @vseth.ethz.ch.web.brid.gy for a Golden Owl award. People who know me know that I respectfully decline science awards. But recognition directly by students hits different!

Congratulations to @sebasiegner.bsky.social who defended his PhD on Friday! His name will be on 6-7 papers by the time he leaves the lab, including a co-first Nature paper. What a superstar! Keep an eye out for his postdoc application 😉

Reposted in edited form b/c I realized my original post could have been misinterpreted.

I recently received an AI-generated referee report. Almost all suggested experiments were already main figures & referee admitted using AI when asked by the editor. But they claimed they only used AI to write. No way. Editors, what do you do in this case? Referees, at least read the paper!

For me, it was the referee who used AI. Though AI generated papers and edits are certainly a problem.

I just realized my original post could be read the wrong way. Paper was from my lab and out for review in a high profile journal. Four years of work by a dozen people in multiple labs and AI slop seem to have been the judge.

Didier Trono Interview “Switzerlands Genetic Diversity is Unique” - PHRT – Personalized Health & Related Technologies Success Story Didier Trono While other countries are pressing ahead with the Genome of Europe, Switzerland is still hesitating. A huge mistake, says Didier Trono from the Genome Center in Geneva “I do...

It has been disappointing to see the general lack of interest and investment into population genetics and genomic medicine in Switzerland. While we can resort to other national cohorts for research the country can only benefit if the know-how can be applied locally
www.sfa-phrt.ch/success-stor...

Applications for ERC Synergy Grants 2026: Facts and figures The ERC Synergy Grants 2026 call closed for applications on 5 November 2025. These are the preliminary data on the submitted proposals:

957 proposals were submitted in the latest round of ERC Synergy applications. They expect to fund 50 which means around 5% success rate. This is really not sustainable and a lot of people are likely avoiding doing this knowing how poor the chances are.
erc.europa.eu/news-events/...

Congrats to Moritz Schlapansky, who successfully defended his PhD thesis on Friday! You can read his work on "scOUT-seq" profiling of single cell transcriptomes + editing outcomes in millions of cells and living mice at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

In 2026 I'm taking a sabbatical in @peterfineran.bsky.social lab @universityofotago.bsky.social. I'm looking forward to learning a lot from Peter's lab and excited to get back to my prokaryotic/viral roots! Also planning to some trips to the rest of the Pacific and Asia. So much to look forward to!

This was a great collaboration with the lab of Virginijus Siksnys!

Directed evolution of compact RNA-guided nucleases for homology-directed repair in mammalian cells RNA-guided nucleases enable DNA editing and offer promise for treating genetic diseases, particularly when used for precise sequence replacement. However, many of the most effective enzymes, such as S...

Sometimes #Cas9 is too dang big. But mini Cas proteins are bad at both NHEJ & HDR. PhD student Fedor Gorbenko used mammalian cell evolution for *HDR* to make REALLY super #Cas12f1 and #TnpB. As good as or better than Cas9! Base editors included! www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2025.10.27.684765v1

An ETH spin-off aims to bring gene scissors to the clinic Thanks to CRISPR/Cas technology, researchers can precisely edit genetic material to treat hereditary diseases. To achieve this, they need to identify undesirable cuts in the genome at an early junctur...

Thanks to CRISPR/Cas technology, researchers can precisely edit genetic material to treat hereditary diseases. To achieve this, they need to identify undesirable cuts in the genome at an early juncture. Pioneer Fellow Lilly van de Venn is developing such testing methods. ethz.ch/en/news-and-...

This was an incredible collaboration with the labs of Randall Platt, Gerald Schwank, Steve Jackson, Helmuth Gehart, and Timm Schroeder. Special thanks also to the NOMIS Foundation who supported some of the very ambitious experiments.

Definitely true that epigenetic state can affect repair. We try to control for this by editing in highly expressed housekeeping genes with approx equal epigenetic states in all cells. And HDR is just one change. There are stereotyped differences in categorical and molecular end joining outcomes.

Generally true, but I'm pretty sure we're not seeing sampling error. If that were true, then equally populated cell subtypes would have similar differential outcomes. Instead, we can recover cell type solely by clustering on differential outcomes! And "stemmy" cells share outcomes across lineages.

There's some crazy stuff in this preprint. For example, did you know that some neuronal subsets actually do HDR with surprising efficiency?

Cell-stereotyped DNA repair outcomes are widespread during genome editing Genome editing outcomes are governed by DNA repair pathways that vary with cell type and state. We developed scOUT-seq (single-cell Outcomes Using Transcript sequencing), a scalable approach that join...

Ever noticed that #CRISPR editing results differ between cells? Awesome PhD student Moritz Schlapansky developed "scOUT-seq" to measure single cell transcriptomes + editing. 1.2 million cells, 74 cell types, living 🐭. Cell subtypes differ wildly from bulk average! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Long time no see, everyone! Things have been a bit more busy than ususal, hence the radio silence. But stay tuned for some fun news in the next few days.

Excited to share our latest preprint. Work led by PhD student @jordancjwilson.bsky.social with @profmarciniak.bsky.social, @villungerlab.bsky.social & our @erc.europa.eu partners @jcornlab.bsky.social & @loizoulab.bsky.social, that sheds light on the action of WEE1 inhibitors. bit.ly/4bDpxZl

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Do you want to know about the invisible secrets of #HDR during #CRISPR genome editing? Check out our preprint at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... New methods, crazy biology, and theft from the genome! From PhD student @charlesyeh.bsky.social

I’m still learning Bluesky, so now tagging people I mis-tagged. Sorry! @charlesyeh.bsky.social @albertomarin.bsky.social @fedeteloni.bsky.social @gerlichlab.bsky.social

If you’re interested in how loop-extruding cohesin drives the homology search during HR, check out also this new preprint from albertomarin.bsky.social in the Taekjip Ha lab (doi.org/10.1101/2025...)

Curious about how cohesin guides homology search via loops & sister chromatid linkages? Check out this new preprint by fedeteloni.bsky.social & gerlichlab.bsky.social! 👉 tinyurl.com/DSBcohesin