@theboocock.bsky.social
Postdoctoral scholar at UCLA working on yeast genetics and genomics research.
Zara Weinberg passed away earlier this week. She joined my lab earlier this year when her postdoc lab formally closed.
She was a brilliant scientist, supportive mentor, dear friend, avid music fan, rabid believer in public transit, open science champion, and above all just an amazing human.
Incredible. We should be investing MORE in science, not less.
28.07.2025 02:12 — 👍 712 🔁 149 💬 12 📌 4
#TheLastOfUs: A fungus that actually infects the human brain 🧠
A recent #G3journal paper from @hitenmadhani.bsky.social and team presents a valuable auxin-inducible genetic toolkit for conditional mutation in the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans, which can cause meningitis: buff.ly/rIkC09R
When should adaptation arise from a polygenic response versus few large effect changes? https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.15.654234v1
17.05.2025 20:32 — 👍 46 🔁 25 💬 0 📌 1
Illustration featuring green/orange dots and dashes, with the heading: "Ideas and Speculation. A new article section for your next publication".
Our authors can freely speculate the meaning and implications of their data in our new section:
💡 Ideas and Speculation 💡
buff.ly/0I8lpwz
Here is a link to 60 Minutes NIH segment...
www.cbsnews.com/news/scienti...
Psychedelics reduce fear by targeting immune cells that modulate brain cells
This Nature paper uses a combination of genomic & behavioural screens to show that astrocytes in the amygdala limit stress-induced fear behaviour through epidermal growth factor receptor
🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Good.
But stay wary
www.politico.com/news/2025/04...
Protesters marching north with diverse signs demanding due process
Protesters marching east in 42nd st, Chrysler Building in the background
Happy to join a few thousand friends in midtown today.
Free Mahmoud
Free Rumeysa
Free Kilmar and everyone at Cecot
Due process
No kings
A comprehensive Schizosaccharomyces pombe atlas of physical transcription factor interactions with proteins and chromatin
04.04.2025 11:33 — 👍 13 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0
Antifungal drug discovery gets an interesting and unexpected shot of good news:
20.03.2025 21:19 — 👍 63 🔁 7 💬 3 📌 2
A slight modification to the standard yeast lithium acetate transformation protocol increases transformation efficiency substantially.
Basically, 2 fold increase if you resuspend in 2M sorbitol after heat shock, and an additive increase with some sorbitol during heat shock.
I believe we have breaking news in Inside Medicine.
I spoke to a member of the FDA vaccine committee who confirmed that the meeting to decide the 2025-2026 flu shot composition was abruptly canceled today.
My on-the-record Q&A with the FDA advisor:
insidemedicine.substack.com/p/scoop-fda-...
Despite court order, NIH grants remain frozen. Newly awarded grants, grants with fundable scores, & funds for a new budget cycle of a current project are all *FROZEN*🥶 and not being released. US research is being choked to death & is on life support right now www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
26.02.2025 12:04 — 👍 3869 🔁 1580 💬 175 📌 83
Roche's SBX sequencing by expansion - preprint out!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Good lord
21.02.2025 22:58 — 👍 105 🔁 44 💬 4 📌 1
Almost all grant-review meetings still suspended at the NIH -- the Trump administration is exploiting a loophole to keep a funding freeze in place, leaving researchers in limbo.
@maxkozlov.bsky.social reports for @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Biomedical graduate admissions paused or cut back as some universities respond to Trump orders on research - STAT
apple.news/APlQhGHRrSfy...
a grim but essential read, if you care about American science
the system was already under stress from underfunding over many years (nominal increases were sub-inflationary)
but this is a sudden and severe shock to the system
Distinct explanations underlie gene-environment interactions in the UK Biobank.
www.cell.com/ajhg/abstrac...
Insufficient evidence for a severe bottleneck in humans during the Early to Middle Pleistocene transition
academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-...
A big loss and very bad sign for NIH, folks
12.02.2025 16:40 — 👍 496 🔁 144 💬 15 📌 4I would expect to see this at every research institute until there's clarity on funding and budgets.
14.02.2025 20:40 — 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0NEW: approximately 330 National Cancer Institute probationary employees will be fired this afternoon. That’s a bit less than 10% of its entire staff.
14.02.2025 18:09 — 👍 372 🔁 215 💬 15 📌 39Tragic.
14.02.2025 18:12 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Is it only probationary employees? If so, they’ll have less job security in the contracts. I assume they’ll keep coming for the rest of the federal workers as best they can.
14.02.2025 18:05 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Scoop: The databases powering DOGE.gov are insecure, and people outside the government have already pushed their own updates to the site to prove it:
www.404media.co/anyone-can-p...
Biopharma companies and CEOs are keeping their heads down at their own peril. They should speak up about what’s happening to the NIH and other science agencies before it’s too late.
Silence gives consent. And no one should consent to this.
Trump & Musk are making massive cuts to the National Institutes of Health.
I know there is a lot going on right now, but this is one of worst things they have done so far, will affect cancer research and trials, the search for cures, innovation and competitiveness, our universities. Your lives.
If these NIH cuts stick -- and who knows in this environment -- my whole metro will to be screwed. Not to mention the actual lives affected.
Talk about cutting off your nose for spite.
www.al.com/news/2025/02...
