Supraja Varadarajan

Text reads "Congratulations to the 2025 Leading Edge Fellows" followed by the Leading Edge logo and www.leadingedgesymposium.org. Below are the headshots and names of the 40 new Leading Edge Fellows. They are Cel Welch Lianna Wat Maria Toro Moreno Sarah Talley Xulu Sun Ines Sturmlechner Virginia Savy Amelie Raz Kali Pruss Caterina Profaci Sarah Pierce Melissa Pamula Kehinde Odufowora Patricia Nano Ariana Musa de Aquino Nour El Houda Mimouni Kathleen Martin Brea Manuel Mable Lam Miri Krupkin Elaine Kouame Megan Kirchgessner Sumin Kim Shubhangini Kataruka Geraldine Jowett Andrea Jones Leanne Iannucci Emily Heckman Allison Girasole Florencia Fernandez Chiappe Tonie Farris Hannah Elam Erin Doherty Xiaoyun Ding Maria Bustillo Julia Brunner Debadrita Bhattacharya Lorena Benedetti Ashley Anderson Krisha Aghi

We are thrilled to announce the 2025 Leading Edge Fellows! 40 outstanding postdoctoral fellows doing pioneering research in a wide range of biological and biomedical disciplines.

Learn more about these exceptional scientists:

www.leadingedgesymposium.org/fellows

Announcing The 2025 Rita Allen Foundation Scholars - Rita Allen Foundation Investing in transformative ideas in their earliest stages to promote breakthrough solutions to significant problems

Thrilled to join the Rita Allen Scholars community (ritaallen.org/stories/2025...) and grateful for the support! Glad to (re)discover many inspirational colleagues as current and former award in pain scholars.

Thrilled to announce that my lab has been awarded the Research to Prevent Blindness Career Development Award!

Now the lab has a *funded* opening for a post-doctoral fellow interested in studying neurodevelopmental disorders in the retina. More info here! www.vlasitslab.org/joinus

Come join the vibrant Neuroscience community at UT Southwestern! Apply for tenure-track positions between the Neuroscience Department and the O'Donnell Brain Institute: apply.interfolio.com/158889
More info: nature.com/naturecareer...
Reach out if you have questions! #UTSW @futurepislack.bsky.social

Identification of a non-canonical planar cell polarity pathway triggered by light in the developing mouse retina Housset et al. show that basal bodies of cone photoreceptors in the mouse retina are planar polarized in a light-dependent manner by the action of transducin and G-protein-signaling modulator protein ...

Our latest work is out!! Short thread below.

www.cell.com/developmenta...

Netrin1 patterns the dorsal spinal cord through modulation of Bmp signaling We have identified an unexpected role for netrin1, a canonical axonal guidance cue, as a suppressor of bone morphogenetic protein (Bmp) signaling in t…

A summary thread of our Cell Reports paper published last week. In brief, we found a novel activity for netrin1 in the developing spinal cord: it acts as a boundary, to limit Bmp signaling to the dorsal most spinal cord. 1/9 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Where does the retina go in the brain and how does it get there? Check out new review I wrote with the brilliant Daniel Kerschensteiner. bit.ly/3GxadP2

APPLY! You cannot go wrong!

The Varadarajan Lab is hiring at all levels (research technicians, grad students, postdocs)!
Learn more about us at varadarajanlab.org
If you are interested in working with us and are at SfN later this week, email me and let's meet at #SfN23 .

Professor (all ranks) Microbiome and Neurodegenerative Diseases - Tempe, Arizona Arizona State University (ASU) invite applications for Professor (all ranks) in the area of Microbiome in Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Open rank faculty position in Microbiome & Neurodegeneration is now open at ASU. Come join our collaborative, interdisciplinary research community!

jobs.chronicle.com/job/37531324...

Supporting nonlinear careers to diversify science Those who follow non-linear career trajectories often face disadvantages in academia. This Perspective looks at why individuals might choose non-linear careers and how these benefit diversity in scien...

Many people take "non-traditional" career paths in academia.
My Leading Edge colleagues and I did! We wrote for
PLOS Biology about how non-linear careers are increasingly common, but funding agencies and search committees penalize these paths. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Faculty search (tenure-track position) in Integrative Immunobiology at Duke in a terrific, expanding department (Raphael Valdivia, chair). Informational webinar on September 20, with applications due mid-October.
immunobiology.duke.edu/join-us

With fall here, just want to post my offer for 1-1 mentoring. I've talked to undergrads, tenured faculty, and everything in between. Career, science, whatever—email me and we'll find a time. Esp. happy to talk with people from diverse backgrounds. Done ~100 so far, so don't be shy!

Our review on retinal development is now out in TIGS, with a neurogenesis landscape cover image.

www.cell.com/trends/genet...

Anyone else run in this problem recently? #neuroscience

Unbalanced redox status network as an early pathological event in congenital cataracts The lens proteome undergoes dramatic composition changes during development and maturation. A defective developmental process leads to congenital cata…

Long-term collaboration with @bwjones.bsky.social, myself, and the groups of Sheldon Rowan and Allen Taylor out today!

ScienceBsky – Contribute Invite Codes If you're a fan of Science Twitter (RIP) and would like to help folks move over to Bluesky by contributing your invite code, please fill out this form. You may fill it out more than once to contribu...

I gave away mine here docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... courtesy of @vancleve.bsky.social

BlueSky for Scientists BlueSky for Scientists Authors: Steve Haroz and Mark RubinURL: http://blueskyscience.steveharoz.com Features you may miss from Twitter or Mastodon As BlueSky is in beta, some features are not impleme...

Scientist?

New to BlueSky?

Trying to figure out what the hell a "feed" is and why hashtags aren't working the same as on Twitter?

Check out this quick start guide by @steveharoz.com and me 👇

Looking forward to present our project on neural spike signatures for cerebellar movement disorders today at the Cerebellum GRS. First in the poster session, and directly followed by a talk! Link to preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.07.539767v1
🧪

Hi Bluesky scientists..finally getting around to my intro post!! I am a neuroscientist who loves neural circuit development and regeneration. My lab at UT Southwestern (opening Jan 2024) will work on regenerating retinal ganglion cell axons and restoring vision. Stay tuned for more....

So so happy for this announcement! The Vision Professor Barbies (2023-2024 edition) are lit!

Photo of Anna Vlasits overlaid with the Barbie meme and "This Barbie is going to be a professor" Photo credit

I'm thrilled to announce that my lab will be opening at University of Illinois, Chicago Department of Ophthalmology in January 2024! The Vlasits Lab will study information processing in the retina. And the lab website is live! https://vlasitslab.org