UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute

A woman in a neon pink hardhat holds a large drill to the side of an approximately 8 ft mound. A light gray stripe can be seen in the place she is drilling.

A woman in full-body protective gear holding samples under a hood in a lab.

First study using sedaDNA to assess genetic impact of a natural disaster found Ice Age megafauna 🦣🐴🦬 showed no genetic diversity loss or population turnover after a volcano covered the landscape in 2.5ft of ash.🌋 news.ucsc.edu/2026/0...

A flyer that says Science on Tap featuring Olena Vaske, PhD, Associate Professor, UCSC MCD. There is a logo of an atom and two beer mugs next to a photo of Olena, and below a title reads "Clinical applications of RNA Transcriptomics: Cancer and Beyond"

Associate Professor Olena Vaske, leader of the Colligan Clinical Diagnostics Lab (CCDL) at the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute, will be speaking at Science on Tap!

⏱️ March 2 at 6:00 PM.
📍 The Garden at The Crepe Place: 1134 Soquel Ave, Santa Cruz
🎟️ Free and open to the public

A man in a lab coat looking at a computer. Through the window, other researchers can be observed leaning over lab benches.

A gloved hand holds a chip with a small chamber that contains a cortical organoid. A pipet with fluid is inserted at the edge.

We grew some brain tissue in the lab and taught it to balance a virtual pole 🕹️🤯 This isn't just a cool party trick — it's giving us a window into how neural circuits learn and adapt. news.ucsc.edu/2026/02/brai... @mrbadash.bsky.social

A male and female scientist in lab coats hold a small circular container for growing brain organoids.

A female scientist sits in front of a portable metal shelf that contains three racks of equipment, including multiple screens.

Open Culture Science is a new startup that could transform how labs grow cells and tissues worldwide. Founded by two UCSC Genomics Institute grads, it aims to automate processes that are currently painstakingly manual. 🔬🧠 news.ucsc.edu/Open-C...

@benedictpaten.bsky.social @adamnovak.graphs.vg @thinks.lol @jltsiren.bsky.social @xian-chang.bsky.social @jmonlong.bsky.social

The vg logo, which has the letters "vg" in a rectangle that has nodes at each corner. These nodes are also connected by four curved lines above each side of the rectangle.

Our pangenome team has released a new vg update, v1.72.0, codenamed "Littlefoot" 🧪🧬🖥️ github.com/vgteam/vg/re...

New features:
📈 Support for supplementary alignments in vg giraffe
📈 Sequence compression GBZ graph file format

Bioluminescent image of an organoid with brightly colored cells arranged in a loose spiral shape. Text beside the image reads "How does having an early first pregnancy lower a person's risk of breast cancer later in life?

New research from @ucsantacruz.bsky.social Genomics Institute affiliate Shaheen Sikandar shows that pregnancy may “reset” how breast tissue ages, reducing cell changes that are linked to higher breast cancer risk later in life. news.ucsc.edu/2026/01/preg...

We are excited to introduce Hub Space, a new hosting service that enables users to upload and visualize track hub files directly on the UCSC Genome Browser without relying on third-party hosting services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, or AWS.

Learn more: https://bit.ly/3NTZBkq

Treehouse Childhood Cancer Initiative’s lead computational biologist @hollybeale.bsky.social designed and leads the program, providing students with a unique opportunity to be immersed in a cancer lab that puts the people who are impacted by cancer at the center. ❤️🧬

A young woman standing outside and wearing a doctor's white coat and stethoscope over a green dress.

A young woman with wavy brown hair and a wide smile

A professional photo of a young woman with wavy blond hair and bangs smiling widely with her arms crossed in front of her.

Our TUBI program has been exposing students to childhood cancer research for seven years. Thanks to gifts from Dragon Master Initiative and @ucscscience.bsky.social Degree Defining Experiences, 80 new undergrads joining the network, becoming scientists and advocates 👏🏽👏🏿👏 news.ucsc.edu/2026/02/expa...

#ERGAReads | IChromosome-scale Genomes Show Rapid Diversification and Ancient Gene Flow Among Bear Species 🐻
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...
@genomebiolevol.bsky.social

Thanks for pointing out the Colombia typo- how embarrassing! The image is a woodcarving of people affected with syphilis being blessed by the Virgin Mary, created by Joseph Grünpeck 1496 after one of the first recorded syphilis outbreaks in Europe - hard to fit all that context into a short post!

A 1400s woodcarving of people being infected with syphilis.

🧬🦴 Our ancient DNA analysis of a 5,500-year-old human skeleton from Columbia has revealed oldest evidence yet of syphilis in the Americas. This new evidence predates previous estimates of when syphilis was present in the Americas by at least 3,000 years! phys.org/news/2026-01...

A screenshot of allele frequency mapped onto the map of Mexico on the MexVar website.

🧬🇲🇽 New research shows "Hispanic" hides vast genetic diversity with real medical implications. Variants affecting the metabolism of certain pain & cholesterol meds vary more within Mexico than between continents. Data now on the UCSC @genomebrowser.bsky.social
📃: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Apply ASAP to be a "Genomics Senior Systems Architect" AKA Linux Herder at @ucscgenomics.bsky.social !

The first test is convincing www.ucsc.edu/careers/ to show you #job number 82880.

🎉 Congratulations to Genomics Institute PhD student @mrbadash.bsky.social, associate member Holger Schmidt and emeritus affiliate David Deamer!! Read more about their innovations here: news.ucsc.edu/2026/01/sant...

Image of a wave on the beach next to a large rock structure. Text reads "Next wave of faculty in genomics symposium Call for Submissions. Submission deadline January 15, Symposium date April 7."

Tomorrow is the LAST DAY for postdocs to submit their abstracts to participate in our Next Wave of Faculty in Genomics symposium! Travel expenses will be paid for selected applicants ✈️🏖 Apply here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Tiny RNA molecules in sperm, big impact on baby health Molecular mechanism uncovered in mice by UC Santa Cruz researchers reveals how a father’s diet, stress, and other environmental factors before conception can influence his offspring’s health

🧬 We've known for years that a father's diet, stress, and environment can affect his children's risk for disease. New research by @upasnasharma.bsky.social reveals a molecular mechanism for this epigenetic inheritance in a small RNA molecule delivered by sperm: news.ucsc.edu/2026/01/tiny...

The Pangenome Mutation-Annotated Network compresses critical evolutionary information to allow us to track how pathogens mutate and spread at unprecedented scale. Published in Nature Genetics by Yatish Turakhia's lab (@ucsandiego.bsky.social) and @russcd.bsky.social 's lab (UCSC Genomics Institute)

An illustration of a PanMAN graph with colorful A T C and Gs flowing into a phylogenetic tree.

New "PanMAN" tool for pangenomics compresses millions of genomes into a tiny fraction of storage space: 8 million SARS-CoV-2 sequences in 366MB! Builds on pathogen tracking tools pioneered @ucsantacruz.bsky.social. Will improve public health response & vaccine development. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Bridging the Gap Between Legacy PCR-based Microsatellite Data with High-Throughput Sequencing Data in Conservation Genomics Abstract. Microsatellites are powerful markers for tracking genetic variation in wildlife populations due to their high polymorphism and genome-wide abunda

For species like the North American brown bear that we've tracked for decades, integrating older genetic data with modern sequencing has been a major challenge 🐻 A new paper introduces a workflow to bridge that gap, preserving continuity in long-term monitoring programs: doi.org/10.1093/jher...

Don't forget to apply to our genomics postdoc symposium by January 15!

An illustration of a beetle with long horns on its head squeezing between a triangle of three rocks.

🪲 Meet an unassuming climate warrior: the tunneling dung beetle.

New research using environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding uncovered that dung beetles are quietly reshaping the invisible microbial world in ways that could help pasturelands store carbon: doi.org/10.1002/edn3...

An illustration shows data flowing from a lab to a portal and then to researchers on computers.

New paper shares lessons learned from building 10+ data portals (ENCODE, HCA, 4DN). Key insight—FAIR data needs defined rules and human wranglers. Practical guide for how to build and run effective & sustainable portals: doi.org/10.1038/s415... @benedictpaten.bsky.social @genomebrowser.bsky.social

Bamdam: a post-mapping authentication toolkit for ancient metagenomics - Genome Biology Ancient metagenomic studies using capture or shotgun sequencing often perform pairwise alignment of individual reads against large reference databases followed by lowest common ancestor assignment for...

Announcing bamdam: a new open source tool for studying ancient DNA 🧬 It shrinks massive metagenomic files by 10x and helps distinguish ancient sequences from contamination. Tested on the oldest DNA yet uncovered (2M years) link.springer.com/article/10.1... @bdesan.bsky.social @russcd.bsky.social

Microscale maps of bursting dynamics across human hippocampal slices from epilepsy patients | Journal of Neurophysiology | American Physiological Society Neuronal firing patterning in the dentate gyrus of epilepsy patients remains unknown at the microcircuit level. Advancements in high-density CMOS-based microelectrode arrays can be harnessed to study network activity with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. We use novel computational methods with high-density electrophysiology recordings to spatially map network activity of human hippocampal brain slices from six patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. Two slices from the dentate gyrus exhibited synchronous bursting activity in the presence of low magnesium media with kainic acid, representative of seizure-like behavior. We bridged microscale circuit dynamics with alterations in theta oscillations at the network scale. Future studies may apply this approach to spatially elucidate functional networks and their possible role in seizures.

New research maps seizure activity at the single-neuron level in human brain tissue from epilepsy patients.
Scientists used high-density electrode arrays with 26,400 (😲) recording sites to discover patterns that could help us understand the onset of seizures.
doi.org/10.1152/jn.0...

David Deamer and David Haussler elected Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors The recognition is the highest professional distinction awarded to academic inventors.

🎉 Congratulations to our Scientific Director David Haussler and our emeritus affiliate Dave Deamer on being named fellows of the National Academy of Inventors! ⚙️ 👏🏿👏🏻👏🏽 news.ucsc.edu/2025/12/nai-...

NEW #ELSIFridayForum: Dextinction and Deliberate Extinction🦕

Scientists are turning the tools of genetics to the elimination–and recreation–of entire nonhuman species. How should such existential decisions be made ethically and responsibly?

Sign up: www.addevent.com/event/bfqx9d...

A bee pollenating a wild red flower

🐝 How did aggressive Africanized honey bees in Puerto Rico become gentle in just decades? New research from @russcd.bsky.social shows how genetic diversity from admixed populations enabled this change through selection on genes affecting serotonin signaling & behavior! 🧬
doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...

Image of an animated banana slug with glasses sitting at the ucsc genome browser. Text reads: we're hiring.

📢 We're hiring a Genomics Senior Systems Architect!
The incumbent will be responsible for the Genomics Institute's complex computing infrastructure, including central and departmental systems, high-throughput storage, web systems, & cloud environments.
Apply at jobs.ucsc.edu using job code 82880.