Pete Williams

Dr Pete Williams @petetheteapot.bsky.social @ki.se will be our next webinar speaker!

'From bench to bedside and back again: Targeting NAD for neuroprotection in #glaucoma'

Aug 11, 2025
10-11am ET
Host: Dr Diane Bovenkamp @dianebovenkamp.bsky.social @brightfocus.bsky.social
Register: bit.ly/4o6WrqY

Doing science today feels like playing a video game on legendary difficulty.
With shrinking budgets, extreme publication fees, subjective rejections, and daily lab chaos, the path of a scientist is tougher than ever.

At least we have Parafilm to hold it all together.

Stay strong, scientists.

A baby surrounded by medical devices is being held up by someone with gloved hands. A headline reads: "Baby Is Healed With World's First Personalized Gene-Editing Treatment." Photo courtesy of Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania.

Breaking News: A baby with a rare disorder made medical history by receiving the first custom gene-editing treatment. The technique used has the potential to help people with thousands of other uncommon genetic diseases. nyti.ms/4j49xBy

Spatial analysis of mitochondrial gene expression reveals dynamic translation hubs and remodeling in stress Quantitative imaging of the mitochondrial central dogma identifies translation hubs that are suppressed during stress.

'we define how mitochondrial gene expression is spatially organized at sub-organellar scales into regulatory hubs that are subject to stress-induced remodeling. We propose that this remodeling into mitochondrial stress bodies may serve to aid in recovery of mitochondrial proteome quality control'

Is the UK paying the price for world’s most expensive visas? | The Observer Competing political and economic goals on immigration are resulting in the loss of valuable skills and talent in the UK

“The visa fees are so exceedingly high that it makes coming here very difficult for some people. We are fishing for the best scientists in the world. They want to come and work here because we are such an effective country at science, but if we have these high costs, they can and will go elsewhere.”

Monitoring in real time and far-red imaging of H2O2 dynamics with subcellular resolution - Nature Chemical Biology This paper highlights the far-red chemigenetic H2O2 reporter oROS-HT635, which enables detailed insights into intricate intracellular and intercellular H2O2 dynamics, along with their environmental in...

Monitoring in real time and far-red imaging of H2O2 dynamics with subcellular resolution www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Image features three circular badges. The first badge shows a gecko wearing glasses with text 'EYE NERD'. The second badge reads 'ARVO 2026 May 3-7 Denver' with a mountain range graphic. The third badge is black with the text 'CELEBRATE DIVERSITY IN RESEARCH' and 'ARVO'.

Remember to pick up your EyeVenture pins today. Collect 7 different ones during #ARVO2025, bring them to @arvoinfo.bsky.social Central by May 8 and you could win free registration to #ARVO2026 in Denver, Colo.! Check our website for today's collection locations. bit.ly/2GErnw4

Why an overreliance on AI-driven modelling is bad for science Without clear protocols to catch errors, artificial intelligence’s growing role in science could do more harm than good.

The authors of a Comment article in Nature write that hopes are high that AI can accelerate scientific discovery but warn that the rush to adopt AI has consequences. “Establishing clear scientific guidelines on how to use these tools and techniques is urgent.” 🧪

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

Meta used at least 16 of my books, and numerous articles, to help train the AI it will use to make billions.

Authors, search your name here:

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Comparison of injury response in both young and middle-aged mice. A: 36 metabolites were significantly differently regulated in the retina of 3 months of age (young) mice after injury in comparison to the non-injured 3 months of age retina, whereas 19 metabolites were significantly differently regulated in the 12 months of age (old) injured retina in comparison to the 12 months of age non-injured control. Of these metabolites, 13 metabolites were found to be differently regulated in both the old and the young retina after injury. All these metabolites showed the same mode of change (increased or decreased levels) in the 12 months of age (black) and the 3 months of age (orange) retina after a single short term IOP elevation injury. N = 8 mice/group. B shows the signal intensity of GABA and Taurine, which are both found in significantly lower levels after IOP injury in the retina of 3 months of age and 12 months of age mice Violin plots show the non-normalized signal intensities. The black bar shows the median, the dotted lines show the 1st and the 3rd quartile. C shows localization of GABA immunoreactivity within the retina. CRALBP staining (green) highlights especially Mueller cells and the retinal pigment epithelium and allows to identify the different retinal layers. GABA immunoreactivity (purple) is seen in the IPL, INL and RGC layer. Exemplary grey scale images of GABA immunoreactivity in the CTRL and at Day 3 after IOP elevation are shown on the right. Arrows with small arrowheads point towards GABA-hi cells and arrows with large arrowheads point towards GABA-lo cells. Scale bar represents182µm D shows the GABA-hi and the GABA-lo cell numbers/182µm in the CTRL and Day-3 post-IOP elevation retina (D3) (* p < 0.05). N = 3 mice/group.

New publication out with Katharina C Bell, Vicki Chrysostomou, Markus Karlsson, myself, Pete A Williams @petetheteapot.bsky.social , and Jonathan G Crowston

Excitatory and Inhibitory Neurotransmitter Alterations With Advancing Age and Injury in the Mouse Retina

bryanwjones.com/2025/03/exci...

Cardiff Uni jobs threat leads to toxic culture - Leighton Andrews Professor and former education minister says plan to cut 400 jobs has created a

"What they have done is, frankly, destroy trust and good will within the university."

@leightonandrews.bsky.social
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Why academia is sleepwalking into self-destruction. My editorial @brain1878.bsky.social If you agree with the sentiments please repost. It's important for all our sakes to stop the madness
academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

* snort *

My favorite thing about journal editors in the upper echelons of impact is that they deem my manuscripts of not being of sufficient quality or impact for their journal, but within the same week they are very happy to have me as a reviewer to judge said quality...

Metabolic Dysfunction in Glaucoma: From Bench to Bedside (and Back Again) - Glaucoma Today A review of nicotinamide treatment for neuroprotection.

What a fun review to write with @petetheteapot.bsky.social on metabolic dysfunction in glaucoma! It’s out today in Glaucoma Today 😆 enjoy the read at the link below🧪 #glaucoma

glaucomatoday.com/articles/202...

"[The] findings indicate that young children with AIPL1-related retinal dystrophy benefited substantially from subretinal administration of rAAV8.hRKp.AIPL1, with improved visual acuity and functional vision and evidence of some protection against progressive retinal degeneration [...]."

Gene therapy in children with AIPL1-associated severe retinal dystrophy: an open-label, first-in-human interventional study Our findings indicate that young children with AIPL1-related retinal dystrophy benefited substantially from subretinal administration of rAAV8.hRKp.AIPL1, with improved visual acuity and functional vi...

Another success for gene therapy!

From The Lancet: Gene therapy in children with AIPL1-associated severe retinal dystrophy: an open-label, first-in-human interventional study

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

#ophthalmology #genetherapy
@

Putting the brakes on mitochondrial fusion to prevent escape of mitochondrial DNA Organelle network is regulated to prevent cellular inflammation.

Putting the brakes on mitochondrial fusion to prevent escape of mitochondrial DNA
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

How the Trump administration could end a century of American scientific dominance Slashing federal funding for scientific research will have catastrophic and long-lasting impacts far beyond the laboratories where government research funds are spent.

Nice opinion piece by @adamsobel.bsky.social about destruction of U.S. science.

thebulletin.org/2025/02/how-...

What if We Can't Rely on PubMed? - Absolutely Maybe PubMed is incredibly reliable. And a lot depends on it. It’s an ecosystem built around MEDLINE, the steady feed of new publications…

Hate that it has come to this, but it's time to consider PubMed vulnerable to enshittification. My latest post @plos.org discusses the lines we need to fight to hold – and alternatives we can rely on internationally:

absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2025/02/14/w...

#medlibs

Bingo. F&A (equivalent of our SA + INDI + rent) is additive to the direct (research costs). Which is a pretty good gig when an R01 maxes out at 500k (5 MSEK) a year (not that everyone gets funded at the top level).

I've been itching to post this with fear of being canceled haha!

100% agree. The powerful thing with the NIH is overheads AFTER research budget, not as part of.

Imagine how far our KI money would go if we didn't lose 20-25% in admin + rent + 55% on social security ...

ISER / BRIGHTFOCUS GLAUCOMA SYMPOSIUM: CONCEPTS AND BREAKTHROUGHS IN GLAUCOMA ATLANTA, GEORGIA, USA OCTOBER 8-11, 2025

Hello Vision Science Peeps!
Be sure to put the @iser.bsky.social / @brightfocus.bsky.social Concepts and Breakthroughs In Glaucoma Meeting on your schedule. It will be in Atlanta, Georgia, USA from October 8-11, 2025
iserbrightfocusglaucoma.org

HHMI kills program aimed at boosting inclusivity in STEM education “Inclusive excellence” program had committed $60 million to 104 institutions

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the nation’s largest private funder of biomedical research, yesterday killed a $60 million program aimed at making universities’ STEM education more inclusive. scim.ag/3EtS0US

IMAX only right now. I need it on streaming ASAP !

Neurogliovascular alterations in brain pathologies across lifespan Neurological and psychiatric illnesses present significant challenges across different stages of life. Adolescence is associated with a high incidence…

Super cool new review by @caromenard666.bsky.social’s team on neuro-glio-vascular alterations #cerebrovascular

Are you sure Maine wants you back haha!

Yvette Cooper Rules Out The UK Signing Up To Giving Young People Free Movement To The EU "That's not the right starting point for us at all," she told Sky News.

** Phillips then said: “So no youth mobility scheme?”

The home secretary said: “That’s not the right starting point for us at all because what we need to do is to bring net migration down.” **

Good times ahead for British science and academia /s

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/yvette...

Celebrating this fantastic work lead by Kristýna Kárová (with some EvaLab contribution!), its new home in Molecular Therapy. Spinal cord axon regeneration with improvements in paw reaching, grip strength, and ladder walking using a gene therapy approach. Delta is the way! tinyurl.com/55en9z6d

How the Occult Gave Birth to Science For scientists of yore anything—from mermaids to alchemy—was on the table.

For many of the early modern thinkers who laid the foundations of modern science, the world teemed with the uncanny: witches, unicorns, mermaids, metals that could be distilled into elixirs of eternal life. 🧪