Wendy Bickmore

UK’s £8bn research fund faces “hard decisions” as it pauses new grants UKRI boss Ian Chapman said it had been told by the government to

Helpful update into UKRI and research council funding changes from Zoe Kleinman @zsk.bsky.social

But please more focus on 2 things...

1) Immediate effects (eg funding decisions expected in March)

2) Likely disproportionate effects on early career scientists

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

So richly deserved

So sorry to hear that Pradeep. Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

... and we're off. Great kick-off meeting for the start of the ERC synergy GeneMotors project. So much energy and enthusiasm. @ceesdekker.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu

At a time when the UK should be capitalising on its global reputation as a great place to do science, this is an enormous own goal. I am so sorry for all those who jobs are going to be impacted.

MRC instructs grant review boards to slash funding rates - Research Professional News Boards asked to recommend just three applications for funding, as BBSRC also suspends calls

Both MRC and BBSRC responsive modes now withdrawn until further notice. Existing applications unlikely to succeed (late 2025 round expecting 1-5% success rate).

Listen, I get that UKRI wants to pivot. But killing both at once is devastating.

Let's hope at least one opens by summer... #AcademicSky

A nowhere-to-hide mechanism ensures complete piRNA-directed DNA methylation - Nature In mice, a SPOCD1–TPR-dependent ‘nowhere-to-hide’ mechanism is required for complete non-stochastic piRNA-directed LINE1 DNA methylation by preventing transposons from escaping surveillance within heterochromatin.

Nature research paper: A nowhere-to-hide mechanism ensures complete piRNA-directed DNA methylation

go.nature.com/4pDVgPq

Delighted to have a contribution in this issue together with @eliasfriman.bsky.social

Phenylalanine-phenylalanine-serine!

The world’s problems may seem so huge that you feel helpless, but small innovations by smart people can make a world of difference.

🫣

YouTube video by BBC Sounds Are we living through the fall of civilisation? | The Reith Lectures 2025

My first Reith Lecture is now out in video form: A Time of Monsters.

On moral decay, elite cowardice, and why we need a moral revolution. Watch here 👉 youtube.com/watch?v=fUJ-...

(With one tiny edit at 4:28, for those who notice such things 😉)

Many congratulations

😀

Am I in my office, or in a Disney film? Sometimes Edinburgh just takes your breath away.

Absolutely fabulous- hope you continue to have a wonderful trip.

Why we have to continue with animal testing for medical research | Letters Letters: Dr Robin Lovell-Badge and Prof Emma Robinson respond to an editorial on using new technologies to reduce the reliance on animal experiments

Key points on the need for continued animal use in scientific research. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Excited to start working on this BBSRC sLola project to decode the semantic rules of large regulatory domains, led by @ferencmueller.bsky.social with colleagues from Birmingham, Manchester, Crick, MRC-LMS and EBI-ENSEMBL

institute-genetics-cancer.ed.ac.uk/decoding-the...

bsky.app/profile/fere...

1. We start a major consortium programme funded by the sLoLa of BBSRC (shorturl.at/aUbnt) to decipher the semantic rules of enhancer arrangements driving regulator genes of development (shorturl.at/6qcjW).

Extrachromosomal DNA associates with nuclear condensates and reorganizes chromatin structures to enhance oncogenic transcription - PubMed Extrachromosomal, circular DNA (ecDNA) is a prevalent oncogenic alteration in cancer genomes, often associated with aggressive tumor behavior and poor patient outcome. While previous studies proposed a chromatin-based mobile enhancer model for ecDNA-driven oncogenesis, its precise mechanism and impa …

To advance our knowledge about the role of ecDNAs in cancer, it would be helpful if people could at least acknowledge that not everyone concludes that ecDNAs form "hubs" in the nucleus.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40972571/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41237767/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36476408/

I just tried it out on a manuscript I am preparing. Impressed. Succinct summary of major claims and whether they are justified based on experiments done. Even more it pointed out a caveat that I hadn’t thought about and that I can now address.

Chicken and egg - the two are related!!

I’m fascinated to try this. It’s such a relief to see the journey we are on that started with the launch of BioRxiv and that could liberate us from the most depressing aspect of science - “getting published”.

Thanks Hiten!

Thank you Charlene

Thanks Ilya.

Thanks Graham - yes its really though at the moment.

So excited to be funded by @erc.europa.eu to work with this extraordinarily talented group of scientists on the GeneMotors project - unravelling how SMC motors work, how they are regulated and how they regulate gene expression.

@ceesdekker.bsky.social @uoe-igc.bsky.social

Fair smattering of vikings, celts, Picts as well