Scott Keeney

Divergence and conservation of the meiotic recombination machinery - Nature Reviews Genetics In this Review, the authors describe the evolutionary conservation and divergence of the meiotic recombination machinery, focusing on proteins that are required for meiotic double-strand break formati...

For more of our thoughts on the topic I also want to highlight again our review article, where we discuss many of the questions that led to this project: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The main project of my postdoc with @spo11rulz.bsky.social is now available on bioRxiv! By systematically integrating structural information with molecular evolution analyses, we gained new fascinating insights into the evolution of key meiotic recombination proteins: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Check this out. @artermeret.bsky.social and @spo11rulz.bsky.social cleverly used protein structural information to pinpoint the action of selection and evolutionary constraints in 3D space on meiotic recombination proteins.

Insight into Meiotic DNA End Resection: Mechanisms and Regulation Meiosis generates reproductive cells with a reduced genome complement, with most species using homologous recombination to promote accurate meiotic ch…

New review about DNA double-strand break resection during meiosis, with @alhajijoker.bsky.social and Soonjoung Kim. Please check it out: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Please repost: I'm looking for suggestions for activities (scientific, social, team-building, whatever) for a lab retreat. What worked well in retreats you've been to?

(I put this on Twitter a while ago and got some great responses, but lost the info when I deleted that account.)

Amidst all the terrible and terrifying news, so lovely to hear of
@jkpritch.bsky.social's election to the National Academy of Sciences. Congratulations!

Proud of PhD student Zack Zheng for his successful thesis defense today. Here's the cake to prove it...

Public Statement on Supporting Science for the Benefit of All Citizens TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE We all rely on science. Science gave us the smartphones in our pockets, the navigation systems in our cars, and life-saving medical care. We count on engineers when we drive acr...

>1900 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering & Medicine issued a statement supporting science for the benefit of all citizens, and ... 1/2
docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Pro tip: if you have a really important zoom interview, double check that you are not in the same room as a cat that is likely to start crying to be let out #HypotheticallySpeaking

America's Greatest Workplaces for Inclusion & Diversity 2025 Newsweek is partnering with Plant-A Insights Group to honor America's Greatest Workplaces for Inclusion & Diversity 2025. These companies are committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse work envir...

MSK has been recognized as one of the national's top workplaces for inclusion and diversity by @newsweek.com magazine. 🎉

MSK earned five stars, the highest ranking, among mid to large employers in America. Learn more: www.newsweek.com/rankings/ame...

Key process in sex-cell formation can finally be studied in vitro Activity of the purified SPO11 enzyme reconstituted in cell-free system.

Cell-free system enables detailed study of the role of SPO11 in meiosis
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@ccb-lab.bsky.social @spo11rulz.bsky.social

Near 100% efficient homology-dependent genome engineering in the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans We recently described CRISPR/Cas9-based short homology-dependent genome engineering in the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans , a haploid budding yeast that is the most common cause of fung...

Our latest preprint describes methods and tools that enable >99% efficient short homology-dependent genome editing in the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans. Congratulations to Matt, Sanjita, and Manning!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

the version of record (VoR) of our most recent paper has been published @elife.bsky.social! 🎉🥳 🧪

elifesciences.org/articles/102...

Probably not all that stout... looks like it's just puffed up to stay warm

Looking forward to having you as a neighbor!

And I'm waiting for someone to correct my saying Vanya instead of Nenya 🫢

Or was that the Chekhov/Tolkien mashup we didn't know we needed?

"I have a comment and a question. The comment is just to clarify: of course, as everyone knows, that inscription is not in Elvish, it's the Black Speech of Mordor." Scott never forgave me.

2) At the start of an absolutely fabulous talk about three new RING genes his group had discovered and named Narya, Vilya, and Vanya after the three Elven rings in LOTR, Scott showed the inscription from the One Ring and described it as being in Elvish. After the talk, I raised my hand...

Two Scott stories that stick in my head, both from talks at Meiosis Gordon conferences. 1) After mentioning something about Gregor Mendel's son, a pause, then "Mendel was a great geneticist but terrible monk"

Sadly, our colleague and friend Scott Hawley passed away this morning. He was an irreplaceable presence and force for good in the meiosis an Drosophila communities and will be sorely missed.

Feeling very lost today with the news of the passing of my undergrad advisor Scott Hawley. He had a huge impact on the field and on me personally. He was the first person to see me as a scientist and gave me the confidence to apply to grad school. I am so grateful to be a part of his legacy.

Oh no! This is very sad news.

New year, new beginnings! 🎉

The Aviram Lab will officially open its doors on March 1st @mskcancercenter.bsky.social!

We’ll study microbial immune systems and their connection to fundamental cellular processes like #RNA transcription and #DNA integrity.

#NewPI #AcademicSky #WomenInSTEM
(1/2)

Spatchcock for the win!

Bioart, courtesy of the NIH. All images are in the public domain and available for download as high-quality SVGs.
bioart.niaid.nih.gov

Hmmmm, that's surprising that the Galangal syrup ended up tasting cheesy. Couldn't have been the added rutabaga, so...? 🤔

Osmotic disruption of chromatin induces Topoisomerase 2 activity at sites of transcriptional stress - Nature Communications Transcription creates superhelical stress in DNA, challenging genome stability. Here the authors find Top2 activity is uncorrelated with transcription unless chromatin is disrupted suggesting that chr...

Delighted to share the ground-breaking work from BBSRC Discovery Fellow @whgittens.bsky.social mapping physiological Top2 activity without poisons. Acute sensitivity enables sub-minute visualisation of Top2 hotspots hidden within sites of latent topological stress: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Shoutout to the unknown artist and their work in the mskcc elevator this morning 😂

Recurrent DNA nicks drive massive expansions of (GAA)n repeats | PNAS Over 50 hereditary degenerative disorders are caused by expansions of short tandem DNA repeats (STRs). (GAA)n repeat expansions are responsible for...

Our latest paper showing that DNA nicks drive expansions of both normal and disease-size alleles. All credit goes to a fantastic graduate student Liangzi Li as well as to a terrific team of current and former undergraduate and graduate students in the lab.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2413298121

‘DNA Typewriters’ Can Record a Cell’s History Labs around the world are trying to turn cells into autobiographers, tracking their own development from embryos to adults.

Pretty excited to see our review & DNA Typewriter covered by NY Times! Perhaps too much excitement for one Monday 🥲 www.nytimes.com/2024/11/25/s...