Walter W. Chen, MD, PhD

Regulated decay of microRNAs plays a critical role in controlling body size in mammals! Check out our new paper in @genesdev.bsky.social and see thread previously posted with our pre-print 👇 for more info. Congrats to Collette LaVigne, Jaeil Han, and all authors!
genesdev.cshlp.org/cgi/content/...

Big Congrats to @zhengwu1.bsky.social and Phong Nguyen on this beautiful work!!

NUDT5 regulates purine metabolism and thiopurine sensitivity by interacting with PPAT Cells generate purine nucleotides through de novo purine biosynthesis (DNPB) and purine salvage. Purine salvage represses DNPB to prevent excessive purine nucleotide synthesis through mechanisms that ...

1/New paper from Zheng Wu, Phong Nguyen et al. @cri-utsw.bsky.social shows how cells balance the two pathways that produce purine nucleotides: de novo purine biosynthesis (DNPB) and purine salvage. The surprising mechanism involves NUDT5, a Nudix hydrolase

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Advances in Proteomics & Metabolomics 2025 Proteomics and metabolomics are unlocking new dimensions in our understanding of biology and disease. This event will highlight the latest developments in mass spectrometry, single-cell proteomics and...

Interested in organellar metabolomics? Check out my talk tomorrow on how the Rapid Organellar IP technology has enabled discoveries in organellar biology over the past 10 years! Ty Tech Networks for the invite! @cri-utsw.bsky.social @rjdlab.bsky.social www.technologynetworks.com/proteomics/o...

Thrilled to announce the launch of my lab
@cri-utsw.bsky.social at UTSW this January!

We will explore how cells sense and respond to mechanical forces, focusing on membrane mechanics to reveal how tension and signaling work together to shape cell behavior.

New paper - MAPL strikes again! Interested in mitochondrial signalling, inflammation, lysosome biology, pyroptosis, and Parkinson's disease? Have a look, there's something for everyone! Feeling grateful! @mitocollier.bsky.social Funded by #CIHR, @asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org.
rdcu.be/eKKz1 🇨🇦

Beautiful work as usual Kara!! Fascinating and exciting study! 💪🏻

Lab’s 1st preprint!

Menstruation is understudied due to societal taboos + a biological challenge: mice (a key system for research + drug discovery) don’t menstruate.

@cagricevrim.bsky.social made menstruating mice + used them to discover early events in menstruation.

He is on the job market!

Ubiquitin-mediated mitophagy regulates the inheritance of mitochondrial DNA mutations Mitochondrial synthesis of adenosine triphosphate is essential for eukaryotic life but is dependent on the cooperation of two genomes: nuclear and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). mtDNA mutates ~15 times as...

Exciting study from @frisophagy.bsky.social in @chinnery in the Chinnery lab @mrc-mbu.bsky.social. Congratulations to all authors involved in the study! #mitochondria

Ubiquitin-mediated mitophagy regulates the inheritance of mitochondrial DNA mutations | Science
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Congrats Isha!! 🎉👏🏻

Bringing Modern Science to Vitamin Biology: Isha Jain Wins NIH Transformative Research Award Leveraging modern scientific tools and techniques, Jain intends to transform our understanding of the critical roles that vitamins play in health and disease.

Leveraging modern scientific tools and techniques, @ishahjain.bsky.social intends to transform our understanding of the critical roles that vitamins play in health and disease.

Excited to present my research at the upcoming University of Utah Rising Stars Symposium and meet fellow scientists who love metabolism! @cri-utsw.bsky.social @rjdlab.bsky.social

Big congrats and welcome! Looking forward to seeing you around campus and your future science!

Excited to share that I’ve started my lab as an assistant professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Thank you to all the mentors, friends, and colleagues who have supported me throughout the years!

Covariation MS uncovers a protein that controls cysteine catabolism - Nature A mass spectrometry-based approach globally identifies protein regulators of metabolism and reveals the role of LRRC58 in controlling cysteine catabolism.

First post here! Excited to share a new paper and online resource from our lab published today. We developed a mass spectrometry approach that leverages genetic diversity to systematically nominate functional relationships between metabolites and proteins.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy to share our new paper in @nature.com led by staff scientist Xuejing Liu. We report identification of a UCP1-independent pathway of brown fat thermogenesis involving ATP-consuming metabolism of BCFA in peroxisomes. #Obesity #T2D
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to join the @cri-utsw.bsky.social community to advance discoveries in genome instability. We are grateful to UTSW Pathology for 6 wonderful years.

🚨 We are also recruiting motivated postdocs to study how mitotic errors and aberrant nuclear structures drive cancer genome evolution—join us!

Lysosomal RNA profiling reveals targeting of specific types of RNAs for degradation Autophagy targets a wide variety of substrates for degradation within lysosomes. While lysosomes are known to possess RNase activity, the role of lysosomal RNA degradation in post-transcriptional gene...

I am excited to share my graduate work in the Sabatini and @bartellab.bsky.social labs. Since their discovery, we have known lysosomes possess RNase activity; however, their substrates were not known. Surprisingly we find specific RNAs are targeted for degradation! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Woo!! Congrats Zheng!! 🎉🎉

PEX39 facilitates the peroxisomal import of PTS2-containing proteins - Nature Cell Biology Chen et al. show that PEX39 cooperates with PEX7 in the peroxisomal import of proteins containing a PTS2 site and uncover an (R/K)PWE motif in PEX39 and PEX13 that binds to PEX7 and facilitates the im...

🍹 @walterwchen.bsky.social et al show that PEX39 cooperates with PEX7 in the peroxisomal import of proteins containing a PTS2 site and uncover an (R/K)PWE motif in PEX39 and PEX13 that binds to PEX7 and facilitates the import of PTS2-containing proteins.
bit.ly/4lmjv2l

Big congrats Nick!!! 🎉🎉

Pew Awards 22 Researchers Biomedical Science Grants

I’m really beyond thrilled to be included in this years Pew Biomedical Scholars cohort and to be able to meet all the incredible scientists in this program. I was in Scott Kennedy’s lab when he was a Pew Scholar and never thought I’d be lucky enough to also be one! www.pew.org/en/about/new...

Happy to announce that I was awarded a pathway to independence award (K99) from the NCI/NIH today to work on studying whole-body metabolism driving cancer cachexia. None of this would be possible without support from @damonrunyon.org, @transactivator.bsky.social and @mvhlab.bsky.social.

RNA N-glycosylation enables immune evasion and homeostatic efferocytosis by chemically caging acp3U. Excited to report this work lead by Vinnie @vinnieviruses.bsky.social and in collaboration with @vijayrathinam.bsky.social in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I’m extremely honored to be recognized with the WICB Junior Research Award. ASCB and WICB have been key to my career development since I attended my first annual meeting in 2005. Congrats to the other awardees!

A new tragedy for the Endocrine community An outstanding scientist leaves us too soon

I am unspeakably humbled and grateful for this honor - to "wear" Goeddel's name is simply insane. I can only promise to do my best to do it justice.

ONWARDS!!!

Our lab has derived over 50 trophoblast organoid lines to better understand how chronic conditions like hypertension and obesity influence placental development and metabolism. (Check out this figure made with @biorender.bsky.social)

Pieces of the peroxisomal import puzzle - Nature Cell Biology Peroxisomes are single membrane-bound organelles containing numerous enzymes to perform metabolic functions. However, our view of peroxisomal protein import has remained incomplete. Two recent studies...

Big thanks to Jianguo Wu, Min Zhuang, @natcellbio.nature.com for a great News and Views on our work and that of Michael Skowyra, Tom Rapoport.

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

Pulsatile flow dynamics determine pulmonary arterial architecture BACKGROUND Single ventricle congenital heart disease (SV-CHD) is a uniformly lethal condition. Survival depends upon the Glenn surgery, which shunts venous blood directly to the pulmonary arteries wit...

Happy to share our work on the role of biomechanical PULSATILITY on lung vessels.

Following surgery to alleviate overload in kids with single ventricle hearts, lung arteries form AVMs. #DevBio #EndothelialCell #CHD

Beautiful work from Steve Spurgin. #DevBio 🫁 🫀 ❤️‍🩹

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