Quaid Morris

The most important paper in evolutionary biology I'd never heard of:

1/

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

📌

Finalized my 2025 book tour!

Coming through New York, DC, Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Oxford and Cambridge. Click here for details:
timwu.net#booktour

DNA mutagenesis driven by transcription factor competition with mismatch repair Competition between transcription factors and mismatch repair machinery drives localized hypermutation at regulatory elements, with implications for cancer and genome evolution.

I'm very pleased to announce the official publication of our lab's paper "DNA mutagenesis driven by transcription factor competition with mismatch repair" in today's issue of Cell! www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

NIH races to spend its 2025 grant money — but fewer projects win funding Despite political obstacles, officials are on track to disburse all of the research funds allocated to US biomedical behemoth.

Staff members at the NIH seem to have done the impossible: spend the agency's $48 billion budget.

“Everyone has been rallying together to clean up the mess, but it’s a mess that did not need to be made,” an NIH program officer told me.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Segmentation fault (core dumped)

The DND1-NANOS3 complex shapes the primordial germ cell transcriptome via a heptanucleotide sequence in mRNA 3'UTRs The RNA-binding proteins DND1 and NANOS3 are essential for primordial germ cell survival. Their co-immunoprecipitation and overlapping loss-of-function phenotypes suggest joint function, yet how they ...

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

Delighted to share the story of two germline RBPs - one with little (DND1) and one with no (NANOS3) intrinsic sequence-specificity - that together build a continuous RNA binding surface recognizing a 7-mer (AUGAAUU) in target mRNA 3’UTRs, leading to deadenylation.

Collective homeostasis of condensation-prone proteins via their mRNAs - Nature The authors discover a homeostatic process termed interstasis, in which an increased concentration of proteins within RNA–protein condensates induces the sequestration of their own mRNAs.

This is a fascinating paper that particular types of RNA binding proteins with IDRs that target nuclear speckles also can recruit their own RNAs to nuclear speckles as a negative feedback mechanism for condensation the authors call "interstasis" www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hi @npr.org! We worked late tonight putting together this handy pocket guide!

It doesn't address road design issues, but if we're going to educate road users, we should include drivers.

It's the size of a folded business card. Print it, fold it, put it in your wallet!

hey bluesky 👋 visa hurdles mean I’m looking for opportunities outside the US. I’m a computational biologist (bacterial + phage genomics, postdoc in Koonin’s group @ NIH). I am interested in teaming up on funding apps. reach out if this resonates!

Nice work, thanks for sharing!

A huge shoutout to all the dedicated grants management specialists at the NIH who are working around the clock to push grants out before the Sep 30 deadline. And also to the POs responding to frantic emails.
Not an easy job under the best of circumstances and right now it's the pits.
Thank you!

Machine Learning in Computational Biology 2025 YouTube video by Machine Learning in Computational Biology

YouTube link for MLCB2025 is up! Starting in 30 min. www.youtube.com/live/19I7xTh...

MLCB - Schedule The in-person component will be held at the New York Genome Center, 101 6th Ave, New York, NY 10013. All times below are Eastern Time.

2025 Machine Learning in Computational Biology (#MLCB) meeting starts TODAY (9/10) at 9:30a (EST) at the NY Genome Center in NYC!

We have a great lineup of keynotes, contributed talks, and posters today and tomorrow

Schedule: mlcb.org/schedule

Join for free via livestream: m.youtube.com/@mlcbconf

FYI, if your code is written in MATLAB, your 2025 manuscript will not be read by me

If you like transcription regulation and its mechanisms, this WIP list is for you.

I'm sure I've forgotten lots of people, so don't hesitate to let me know so I can add you to the list.

go.bsky.app/8vTgeXB

RNA is far more than a messenger.

Its structures regulate, evolve, and catalyze — carrying out functions DNA alone cannot.

But predicting #RNA structure from sequence is still extremely difficult.

In our recently published paper in @narjournal.bsky.social we present a way forward.

🧵 ⤵️

Thrilled to see my postdoctoral work published in @cellpress.bsky.social

OncoGAN generates simulated genomes to train genomic analysis tools —without the confidentiality risks of real genomes.

News story: t.co/J9QJZInPOE
Paper: t.co/ygEjM5vuGZ

#Genomics #Cancer #AI #Bioinformatics

Most animals are dinosaurs, geese or sheep for our 19 month old

Tile promoting the Asia RNA Club Symposium 2025

Tile promoting the Asia RNA Club Symposium 2025

Interested in #RNA research in the Asia-Pacific region? Join us at the first Asia RNA Club Symposium 2025!

🗓️ Nov 3-5, 2025
📍Seoul National University, Seoul, 🇰🇷

Submit your abstract by Aug 22nd
Register by Oct 10th

More info: asiarnaclub.org

#AsiaRNA2025 #RNASky @rnasociety.bsky.social

🔄🙏🏽

I wonder whether it is due to high reviewer load and high trainee-only reviewing

D’oh

That's what the peanut butter is for

Group Leader - Genome Biology Unit Are you ready to lead groundbreaking research in Genome Biology? Join us at EMBL! We are seeking a motivated scientist to lead an independent research group addressing exciting and original biological...

To all post-docs: The Genome Biology dept ‪@embl.org
has an Independent faculty position. Fantastic place to set up your lab –great package: core funding, fantastic Ph.D. students, cutting edge core facilities & great colleagues. Closing date Sept 19th
embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...

Introducing... Jernej Ule and Ben Blencowe We spoke to Jernej Ule and Ben Blencowe, who recently set up the Brain RNA Regulatory Networks satellite lab here at the Crick.

Meet Jernej Ule (@ulelab.bsky.social) and Ben Blencowe, who set up the Brain RNA Regulatory Networks satellite lab here at the Crick.

We spoke to Ben and Jernej about their research into RNA auto-gated vectors and their potential applications in gene therapy.

www.crick.ac.uk/news/2025-07...

An excellent systematic analysis of RBPs by @quaidmorris.bsky.social and colleagues (with a tiny contribution from us) #RNAsky #RNAbiology

A resource of RNA-binding protein motifs across eukaryotes reveals evolutionary dynamics and gene-regulatory function - Nature Biotechnology RNA-binding motifs in eukaryotic proteins are presented in a comprehensive resource.

New in @natbiotech.nature.com: a team led by scientists at MSK and ‪University of Toronto have developed a new platform to facilitate the study of RNA-biding proteins (RBPs) across hundreds of species of plants, insects, and animals.

Please welcome @nickymcgranahan.bsky.social to Bluesky! I'm excited that he is here

mRNABench: A curated benchmark for mature mRNA property and function prediction Messenger RNA (mRNA) is central in gene expression, and its half-life, localization, and translation efficiency drive phenotypic diversity in eukaryotic cells. While supervised learning has widely bee...

We are excited to introduce mRNABench, a comprehensive benchmarking suite that we used to evaluate the representational capabilities of 18 families of nucleotide foundation models on mature mRNA specific tasks.

Paper: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Code: github.com/morrislab/mR...

A 🧵

We're excited to release 𝐦𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡, a new benchmark suite for mRNA biology containing 10 diverse datasets with 59 prediction tasks, evaluating 18 foundation model families.

Paper: biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
GitHub: github.com/morrislab/mR...
Blog: blank.bio/post/mrnabench