Anna Williams

The lab went to our institute Halloween party as research models- spot yeast, human, E.coli, naked mole rat, axolotl, fusing organoid, frog, drosophila, excitatory neuron and oligodendrocyte!!!

PhD opportunities | Centre for Regenerative Medicine | Centre of Regenerative Medicine Information about available funded PhD Positions

We have an exciting PhD position available in the Williams lab related to cerebral small vessel disease and funded through our Racing Against Dementia project - if you are interested then do apply here: regenerative-medicine.ed.ac.uk/postgraduate...
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

And he won the Ian Wilmut Prize! Hurray!

Amazing talk by Karl from our @annawilliamslab.bsky.social (who was also nominated for the Wilmut Prize) about his PhD work on Oligodenrocyte Progenitors and their differentiation potentials at the CRM away day.

The Edinburgh participants at dinner at VasCog!

Ronja gets the top abstract prize at Vascog!!

Trials are happening in MS right now- to find out if it really works in people with MS. They should report fairly soon....🙂

The lncRNA MYRACL regulates human oligodendrocyte maturation and myelination Recent studies have described disease-associated expression patterns of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) associated with neurodevelopment and neurodegen…

The lab is having a good few months for publications with this one as well in case you missed it: doi.org/10.1016/j.ym...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

(Thank you Themis and Francesca, and all!)

Metformin alters mitochondria-related metabolism and enhances human oligodendrocyte function Nature Communications - Metformin is under clinical trial for brain neuroprotection but how it may work is poorly understood. Here, the authors show that metformin helps myelin formation by human...

Our new paper on metformin, myelin, mitochondria and metabolism is now out at rdcu.be/eDbFD
Thanks to Nina and all of the team!

Now out in Molecular Therapy! With Francesca Vacante, we describe MYRACL, a novel candidate lncRNA driving human oligodendroglia differentiation & myelination. Grateful to our amazing co-authors & mentors @annawilliamslab.bsky.social & Andrew Baker!

Read more👇
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Our reception team smiling at the camera in front of IRR South Reception

On National Receptionist's Day we would like to thank our fantastic reception team for all they bring to our Institute. They are the friendly face of IRR and help make our staff, students and visitors feel so welcome. Thank you! #NationalReceptionistsDay

Activity-driven myelin sheath growth is mediated by mGluR5 - Nature Neuroscience Employing pharmacology, genetics and all-optical approaches in zebrafish, Braaker et al. find that neuronal activity influences the growth of myelin sheaths along axons by signaling through metabotrop...

For those who want a distraction and/ or are interested, here's the latest from the group, led by Phil Braaker

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

BBC Inside Science - How vulnerable is our power supply? - BBC Sounds Massive power cuts brought parts of Spain, Portugal and France to a standstill this week.

EDINBURGH AXOLOTLS!

Super-excited to hear my wonderful colleague @aidarodrigo.bsky.social on BBC Radio 4 talking about the axototl colony she has established in our institute @edinuni-irr.bsky.social 😃

Available on BBC sounds: Aida's section starts at 23.37

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Genetic subtypes predict multiple sclerosis severity and response to treatment #NeuroDegeneration 🧪🧠
http://medrxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2025.04.15.25325853v1

📣 Open call for early-career composers. 📣

The successful applicant will be invited to collaborate with the choir in a composition, and receive £1000 upon completion of the work.
🔹Deadline: 25th April 2025
🔹Details: caltonconsort.org.uk/compose/

Today I met @rodtmitchell.bsky.social at our Fringe bootcamp. We will be representing the @edinuni-irr.bsky.social at the @edfringe.bsky.social this year! Super excited. Lot's of thought-provoking talks by amazing academics - stay tuned!

Exploring the Priorities of People with Dementia and Multiple Conditions | Global Brain Health Institute Most people with dementia have at least two further health conditions. However, research usually studies dementia on its own. People with several co-existing conditions are often excluded from drug tr

The findings from my focus group project on #dementia and #multimorbidity are now available to download as an infographic

Thanks to the Global Brain Health Institute and @nrs-ndn1.bsky.social for supporting this work. It was an enjoyable and illuminating process!

www.gbhi.org/projects/exp...

"Neurons are like trees with roots and branches that talk!" was my favourite comment from a 4-year old from my last workshop for #BrainAwarenessWeek at the Little Muslims children's group. Thanks @edinuni-irr.bsky.social and @edinunineuro.bsky.social for the support!

Book now at www.ticketsource.co.uk/calton-consort
#choral #whitacre #tallis #liveperformance #edinburgh #acappella #sadmusic

"Your brain is your superpower!" was the takehome message of my second workshop for #BrainAwarenessWeek2025. So glad to represent @edinuni-irr.bsky.social and @edinunineuro.bsky.social again at Danderhall Primary School.

It’s international woman’s day! Well we have a lot of amazing women in our group to celebrate from our fierce leader @annawilliamslab.bsky.social to our PhD students, postdocs, bioinformaticians, and everyone in between💪🏻 Thank you ladies for being amazing scientists, colleagues and friends 💜💙🩵

Looking for a #postdoc in #regenerative #biology? 🔬🧬Look no further than this amazing opportunity with my super office mate @aidarodrigo.bsky.social at @edinuni-irr.bsky.social to explore regenerative capacity across species! 🐭 🐁
Closing 📅 01/04/25

Book your tickets in advance at www.ticketsource.co.uk/calton-consort
7:30pm Saturday 22nd March
Canongate Kirk

Delighted to announce @rikeshrajani.bsky.social as the first Group Leader to join our flagship vascular dementia research centre with @thebhf.bsky.social 🎉👏

The Rajani Lab will investigate how the protective myelin sheath around brain cells is damaged in small vessel disease👉 buff.ly/4hIGaVM

The Fragile X Messenger Ribonucleoprotein 1 Regulates the Morphology and Maturation of Human and Rat Oligodendrocytes Loss of FMRP impairs human and rat oligodendrocyte (OL) morphology in vitro. FMRP-deficient OLs show impaired maturation when engrafted in hypomyelinated mice. Rat Fmr1 knockout OLs show a delay in m...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Hot off the press! We find changes in oligodendrocytes that lack FMRP! An excellent collaboration supported by @sidb-edinburgh.bsky.social .

I was thrilled to receive this news—I’ve been awarded the #MSCAPostdoctoralFellowship for my project, PHOS-SVD! Extremely grateful for the support of @annawilliamslab.bsky.social, @nadlerlab.bsky.social and my colleagues for their feedback. Excited to begin the journey into membrane lipid research!

snRNA-seq stratifies multiple sclerosis patients into distinct white matter glial responses Macnair and Calini et al. analyze 632,000 snRNA-seq profiles from multiple sclerosis and control brain samples, identifying distinct cellular responses in white and gray matter. They stratify MS patie...

www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

Book now at www.ticketsource.co.uk/calton-consort

New funding for spinal cord imaging research study Jan 2025: Congratulations to Dr Rozanna Meijboom and colleagues from the MS imaging group, who have recently been awarded funding for a research study to examine changes in the spinal cord of people w...

Soon we'll be starting a new research study looking at #MRI imaging of spinal cord in people with multiple sclerosis #MS

Congrats @rozannameijboom.bsky.social from our imaging team on being awarded @mssocietyuk.bsky.social funding for this important study.

www.annerowlingclinic.org/about/news/n...

Protocol for assessing myelination by human iPSC-derived oligodendrocytes in Shiverer mouse ex vivo brain slice cultures Human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived oligodendrocytes are a powerful tool for studying aberrant myelination in neurodegenerative and neu…

⚠️Useful!⚠️

Protocol for assessing myelination by human iPSC-derived oligodendrocytes in Shiverer mouse ex vivo brain slice cultures

by Themistoklis Tsarouchas, @erinmgibson.bsky.social @lidazoupi.bsky.social
@annawilliamslab.bsky.social

#neurosky

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