Keith Robison

F1000Research Article: Workflow graphical editor and translator to Nextflow. Read the latest article version by Ilya Kiselev, Anna Ryabova, Fedor Kolpakov, at F1000Research.

Workflow graphical editor and translator to Nextflow f1000research.com/articles/15-...

Non-coding DNA's Alpha Moment
🧬🖥️

omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/02/non-...

For anyone interested in the history of molecular biology, I cannot recommend Judson's The Eighth Day of Creation highly enough. One of the great book on the history of science.

I have two copies because a actually wore out the first one (paperback)

www.cshlpress.com/default.tpl?...

To summarize:

Most important

Max Perutz was NOT an example of someone with a great idea who went against the establishment wisdom to solve an important problem that he had uniquely identified.

He was part of an organized team working on this problem. He got lots of help.

11/14

He said that "All of the professors told him that this was too hard, don't do this... He just ignored them.

He putzed around Cambridge and figured it out. And then he figured out the structure of hemoglobin which absolutely transformed hematology."

Great story. But completely inaccurate.

3/14

A targeted combination therapy achieves effective pancreatic cancer regression and prevents tumor resistance | PNAS Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has one of the lowest cancer survival rates. Recent studies using RAS inhibitors have opened the door to mo...

Has anyone read this much hyped paper (I haven’t yet talked myself into posting for access)?

What is the nature of the tumor model?

I hate to be a wet blanket, but my hunch is this won’t translate anywhere near as impressively to human patients

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

Mmm. So the disagreement we all have with ONT here is *really* about the bigger picture future direction of the company [and the field], not about support for us users.

Companies aren't used to getting big picture feedback from users, so they defaulted to answering with a 'fix' for existing users..

ONT claimed that they were primarily making this decision for accessibility reasons. I rejected this claim, because making something a lot more expensive doesn't make it more accessible.

If ONT wanted to improve accessibility, it'd be better to offer more support, rather than shut it down.

Other community members said their own experience was that P2 Solo had setup challenges, but was usually fine beyond that.

My hypothesis is that many people have setup issues because many are encountering high-throughput sequencing for the first time; the low cost is bringing in new customers.

Opinion | A Plan to Restore Trust in Science From a ‘Fringe Epidemiologist’

I wouldn't wish an hour-long podcast featuring Russ Douthat and Jay Bhattacharya on my worst enemy but let's simply say that Podcast Jay still appears more concerned about perceived slights for his COVID crackpottery than with protecting US biomedical science from a full-on Trump-and-RFK onslaught.

YouTube video by Bio ITWorld Episode: 38 - Third Rock’s John Keilty on What Lies Ahead for Bioinvestment

Great Trends from the Trenches podcast interview with Thitd Rock Venture’s John Keilty

Host Eleanor Howe deftly guides the conversation

youtu.be/Elm8Rdxk730?...

Sequencer vs. Library Prep Market Structures

🧬🖥️

omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/01/sequ...

I don't understand it.

ONT seemingly out of the blue announces that the P2s is going to be killed off in 5 months [sales stop 30th June 2026], there's a community backlash, and their appeasement offer is to extend the hardware/software support end date [not the sales stop date] from 2028 to 2030.

P2 Solo: ONT Extends Support But Not Sales

🧬🖥️

omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/01/p2-s...

P2 Solo: ONT Extends Support But Not Sales

🧬🖥️

omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/01/p2-s...

JD Vance @JDVance X.com Today we remember the millions of lives lost during the Holocaust, the millions of stories of individual bravery and heroism, and one of the enduring lessons of one of the darkest chapters in human history: that while humans create beautiful things and are full of compassion, we're also capable of unspeakable brutality. And we promise never again to go down the darkest path.

Legitimately a feat of carefully calculated writing to issue a Holocaust Remembrance Day statement of this length without mentioning either (1) the people who perpetrated the Holocaust or (2) the people against whom they perpetrated it

YouTube video by mouselounge Walt Disney's "Der Fuehrer's Face" (1943) (4K) (((REMASTERED AUDIO )))

People thinking “this is not the time for humor” are ignorant of history. History is filled with moments of peril where the people mock the authoritarians. It undermines their attempt at controlling us. It is vital. youtu.be/I7vb89c6pQY?...

Calling it now: layoffs, doubling down on current strategy, more right leaning content, and reliance on cheap AI slop to cut costs.

ONT Axes P2 Solo, Roiling Community Oxford Nanopore has a serious case of user community unrest, triggered by the announcement that the P2 Solo (aka P2s) will be phased out sta...

ONT Axes P2 Solo, Roiling Community
🧬🖥️

omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/01/ont-...

Vibrant color portrait of Jane S. Richardson, the visionary biophysicist and artist who revolutionized structural biology with her invention of ribbon diagrams. She gazes warmly at the camera with a bright, knowing smile that radiates quiet brilliance and decades of curiosity. Her silver-blonde hair woven with gentle waves. Large, elegant dangling earrings catch the light, and she wears a richly patterned brown blouse embroidered with intricate turquoise paisley motifs and delicate beadwork that echoes the molecular elegance she has spent her life depicting. Behind her floats a luminous, dreamlike backdrop of glowing molecular structures--interlocking hexagonal and ribbon-like forms in electric blues, teals, and greens--blending science and art in a single, living canvas.

Hand-drawn and hand-colored (by Jane Richardson) scientific artwork known as a Richardson ribbon diagram (or “ribbon model”), one of the iconic visual inventions of Jane Richardson that transformed the way we see and understand protein structures. A graceful, three-dimensional tangle of protein backbone ribbons twists and spirals through space, rendered in soft pencil lines and luminous watercolor hues. Smooth golden-brown coils represent α-helices that curl like elegant ribbons, while broad teal-green arrows trace the flat, pleated strands of β-sheets slicing through the molecule with directional purpose. Thin, looping golden threads connect the secondary structures, creating a delicate, almost dance-like choreography of biology’s hidden architecture. The entire form is framed by a simple olive-green mat and dark border, giving the drawing the quiet dignity of both fine art and precise scientific illustration—a timeless bridge between molecular reality and human imagination.

Jane Richardson was born #OTD in 1941

+ Developed the Richardson (ribbon) diagram to represent proteins' 3D structure (becoming a standard representation for protein structures)
+ MacArthur Fellow, 1985
+ Elected, Nat'l Academy of Sciences, 1991
+ President, Biophysical Society, 2012

#WomenInSTEM

We’d like to make the pricing attractive & uniform

I’ll work on a longer form

Maybe I should have gone with “wet lab”

What lab experiments would *you* like to run remotely on Ginkgo’s autonomous lab?

How will *you* unlock biology if you can focus on hypotheses & data and leave the wet work to us?

Reach out to me if you’d like to brainstorm!

JP Morgan 2026 Roundup

🧬🖥️

omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/01/jp-m...

NASA quietly ends financial support for planetary science groups The U.S. space agency will quit funding several independent science advisory groups this year

NASA quietly ends financial support for planetary science groups

The U.S. space agency will quit funding several independent science advisory groups this year

www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasa...

google map shot of Real Madrid's stadium Confused American family visiting European football stadium can’t find parking lot to get drunk in before the game, ends up in a restaurant.

"Confused American family visiting European football stadium can’t find parking lot to get drunk in before the game, ends up in a restaurant."

Bacterial metabolites induce cell wall remodeling, antifungal resistance, and immune recognition of commensal fungi Davis et al. demonstrate that common gastrointestinal bacteria secrete metabolites that induce global cell remodeling in Candida albicans. C. albicans uses the HOG cascade, a central stress pathway, t...

Bacteria get payback for penicillin

'Here, we demonstrate that bacterial species induce fungal cell wall remodeling to increase exposure of both β-1,3-glucan and mannan, resulting in increased immunogenicity.'

In remembrance of Peer Bork  | EMBL EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation’s Interim Director General. 

We mourn the passing of Peer Bork, EMBO Member since 2000: https://www.embl.org/news/embl-announcements/in-remembrance-of-peer-bork/

My notes on the #JPM2026 schedule - when the genomics and related companies will be presenting

omicsomics.blogspot.com/2026/01/jpm-...

Best TikTok thing going is the two dudes trying food from every country without leaving NYC. If you haven’t seen them yet, it’s incredible. My favorite so far is last week’s. Legit got me emotional.