The Vallee Foundation

‘Zap-and-Freeze’ Technique Successfully Used to Watch Human Brain Cell Communication

Vallee Scholar Shigeki Watanabe and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have used a “zap-and-freeze” technology to watch hard-to-see brain cell communications in living brain tissue from mice and humans
www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroo...

Unusual Discovery of Wolf Remains Thousands of Years Old on a Remote Baltic Island: They Lived with Humans, Shared Their Food, and Could Only Have Arrived by Boat The relationship between humans and prehistoric canids, a fundamental chapter in the history of our species, has just become significantly more complex. A multidisciplinary team of scientists has anno...

Interesting research that new light on ancient wolves from Vallee Scholar Pontus Skoglund: www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/11/u...

How Bat Research Sheds Light on the Brain and Behavior | HHMI HHMI scientists Michael Yartsev and Gerald Carter are uncovering how bats learn, remember, and form social bonds — findings that could reshape how we understand our own brains and behaviors.

And Vallee Scholar Michael Yartsev is discovering how bats learn, remember and form social bonds:
www.hhmi.org/news/bat-res...

Cell-type- and locus-specific epigenetic editing of memory expression - Nature Genetics CRISPR-based epigenetic editing is used in a cell-type-specific, locus-restricted and temporally controllable manner in the adult mouse brain to modulate memory expression.

Two new papers from Vallee Scholar Johannes Gräff on memory consolidation:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Decoding the brain: From neural representations to mechanistic models Understanding how the brain works has been a formidable challenge in neuroscience, but advances at the computational level are now driving us closer. This perspective discusses core concepts of neural...

and from Vallee Scholar Mackenzie Mathis: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Fruit fly study reveals genetic targets for rare childhood brain cancer treatment Using fruit flies, University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers have developed a new model for investigating the genetic drivers of a rare but aggressive brain tumor in children. The work has already i...

Interesting study from Vallee Scholar Melissa Harrison: medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10...

Study Reveals How Aging Affects Spatial Memory in Mice - SSBCrack News In a groundbreaking study, researchers at Stanford Medicine have discovered critical insights into how spatial memory declines with aging, revealing potential

Vallee Scholar Lisa Giocomo reveals how aging affects special memory news.ssbcrack.com/study-reveal...

Dan Jarosz becomes first senior associate dean for basic science Jarosz is the inaugural appointment to the newly created position, which will support basic science faculty throughout the Stanford School of Medicine.

Vallee Scholar Daniel Jarosz becomes first senior associate dean for basic science at Stanford University. med.stanford.edu/news/all-new...

Madeline Lancaster appointed Joint Head of the Cell Biology Division - MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Group Leader Madeline Lancaster joins Manu Hegde to oversee the LMB’s Cell Biology Division.

Vallee Scholar Madeline Lancaster appointed Joint Head of the Cell Biology Division at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge:
www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/madeline-lan...

YouTube video by Nobel Prize “A fundamental discovery about the principle that keeps our immune system in check” | Medicine prize

Vallee scholar Rickard Sandberg, professor of Molecular Genetics, member of the Nobel Committee, is interviewed by Sharon Jåma about this year's Nobel prize.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fxn...

Vallee Scholar Weizhe Hong has a new paper out in Nature which shows a remarkable convergence of neuroscience and artificial intelligence: www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

Vallee Scholar Bob Datta is on Instagram with an important message about Alzheimer's research
www.instagram.com/reel/DKzuKjR...

Congratulations to Vallee Fdtn Director Wade Harper (HMS) on $5M+ Fox Fdtn grant for PD research & collab with VVPs Brenda Schulman, Ulrich Hartl (MPI), Judith Frydman (Stanford) among others in international, multidisciplinary Collaborative Research Network (CRN)
hms.harvard.edu/departments/...

Tanmay Bharat awarded EMBO Gold Medal - MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Tanmay Bharat, Group Leader in the LMB’s Structural Studies Division, received EMBO’s Gold Medal in recognition of his work on prokaryotic surface molecules.

Many congratulations to Vallee Scholar Tanmay Bharat, Group Leader in the MRC Lab of Molecular Biology, who has been awarded the EMBO Gold Medal for his research in the field of structural microbiology! www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/tanmay-bhara...

Faculty members receive President’s Awards for Distinguished Teaching Professors Rebecca Carey, Gabriel Crouch, Danelle Devenport and Nathaniel Fisch received the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Commencement ceremonies May 27.

Congratulations to Dr Danelle Devenport (Vallee Scholar 2014), Shirley M. Tilghman Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton U, who received the President's Award for Distinguished Teaching at Commencement ceremonies on Tuesday, May 27

www.princeton.edu/news/2025/05...

ERC grantee wins the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine 2025 Shaw Prize honours ERC-funded research in molecular imaging

So happy for our Vallee Visiting Professor Wolfang Baumeister who has just been named the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine: erc.europa.eu/news-events/...

Pancreatic cancer–restricted cryptic antigens are targets for T cell recognition Translation of the noncoding genome in cancer can generate cryptic (noncanonical) peptides capable of presentation by human leukocyte antigen class I (HLA-I); however, the cancer specificity and immun...

Research teams working with Tyler Jacks (VVP 2016) (MIT) and William Freed-Pastor (Dana-Farber and MIT) have a new article in Science in which they show how a class of proteins expressed in pancreatic cancer cells, could serve as targets for immune cell therapy.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Evolution-guided protein design of IscB for persistent epigenome editing in vivo - Nature Biotechnology A combination of engineering approaches is used to improve the function of IscB for a variety of editing activities in vivo.

Feng Zhang (Vallee Scholar 2013) and his team at the McGovern and Broad Institutes have reengineered a compact RNA-guided enzyme they found in bacteria into an efficient, programmable editor of human DNA. See their paper in Nature Biotch
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Elena Conti, PhD (Vallee Visiting Prof 2019), Director, MPI of Biochemistry in Martinsried, shares this year’s prestigious Jung Prize for Medicine with Jorn Piel, MD, ETH Zurich.
thevalleefoundation.org/news/elena-c...

Duke to Award Three Honorary Degrees at 2025 Commencement Ceremony | Duke Today

Congratulations to Feng Zhang (Vallee Scholar 2013) (Broad Inst, MIT, HHMI Investigator) who received an honorary doctorate from Duke University on Sunday!

today.duke.edu/2025/04/duke...

Chris Mason (Vallee Scholar 2014) at Weil Cornell Medicine is one of the PIs seeking to catalog the normal human virome, the immense ecosystem of viruses that lives in and on us.
news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2025/04...

Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptides mediate immune protection in marsupial neonates Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptides protect marsupial neonates by mediating immune defense against pathogens.

Vallee Scholar (2021) Ricardo Mallarino (Princeton) has been using the sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps) to investigate immunological defense strategies. Check out his recent paper in Science
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/....

Excited to share our exploration @naturemethods.bsky.social into new horizons opening up in the era of low cost sequencing!

🔥 Deeper sequencing at WGS scale for PPM sensitivity of tumor informed MRD
🔥Duplex sequencing at WGS scale for plasma only exploration of ctDNA

Check out thread 👇

Join us at the Royal Society in London 14 November for a day on Ancient genomes, human biology and medicine!

Many slots are reserved for talks from submitted abstracts related to the topic, alongside speakers Svante Pääbo, Priya Moorjani, @mathiesoniain.bsky.social and Lluis Quintana-Murci.

ESCRT function, evolutionary diversity and mechanism of action The ESCRTs (Endosomal Sorting Complexes Required for Transport) were discovered in 2002 and became one of the most dynamic fields of research in membrane cell biology. ESCRTs are protein complexes fo…

Abstract submissions for short talks are still opened until April 20th for the EMBO Escrt meeting 2025. There are plenty of options for short talks, please apply online at meetings.embo.org/event/25-escrt

When the pressure is on, Archaea go multicellular Mechanical compression induces multicellular organization in archaea

Tanmay Bharat (Vallee Scholar 2018) has been working with colleagues at Brandeis University and the Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tubingen, on The Role of Mechanical Forces in Multicellularity:

ARMC1 partitions between distinct complexes and assembles MIRO with MTFR to control mitochondrial distribution ARMC1 partitions between distinct outer mitochondrial membrane complexes and the cytosol to control mitochondrial distribution.

New paper from Vallee Scholar (2018) Sichen (Susan) Shao in Science: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Epithelial polarization by the planar cell polarity complex is exclusively non–cell autonomous For cells to polarize collectively along a tissue plane, asymmetrically localized planar cell polarity (PCP) complexes must form intercellular contacts between neighboring cells. Yet, it is unknown wh...

Check out Danelle Devenport's latest paper in Science. Danelle, Shirley Tighten Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton, was a 2014 Vallee Scholar.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Effect of Layer Thickness and Particle Size Distribution on the Microstructure and Properties of Ti6Al4V Processed by Laser Powder Bed Fusion | Request PDF Request PDF | Effect of Layer Thickness and Particle Size Distribution on the Microstructure and Properties of Ti6Al4V Processed by Laser Powder Bed Fusion | The technological advancements in laser po...

And more from Rickard Sandberg (Vallee Scholar 2015) at the Karolinska
www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Spatial genomics of AAV vectors reveals mechanism of transcriptional crosstalk that enables targeted delivery of large genetic cargo - Nature Biotechnology Profiling transcriptional crosstalk between promoters and cell-type-specific enhancers allows large gene cargo delivery.

New paper from Vallee Scholar Viviana Gradinaru

www.nature.com/articles/s41...