Exciting news - a huge gain for JHU!

Thanks Vikram!

I don’t think AI solves the problem - the lack of funds and plunging success rates. Either all funding agencies increase funds available, or cap the amount of money that can be requested. Maybe also bring in some level of ‘lottery’ type of mechanism.

And a very nice article by @cofford.bsky.social in Science covering our work:

www.science.org/content/arti...

More acrocentric investigations, this one led by @arhie.bsky.social 🕵🏻‍♀️ “Biobank-scale genotyping of Robertsonian translocations reveals hidden structural variation on the human acrocentric chromosomes” 🧵[1/8]
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Also many thanks to @qmulepigenetics.bsky.social, @ukri.org, @bartscharity.bsky.social, @qmul.bsky.social

In the future, it will be fascinating to understand how variants within ESs mechanistically impact ribosome function.

There seems to be an enrichment of associations with variants found in expansion segment 15L (ES15L), particularly with body size traits. ESs are found in all eukaryotic ribosomes, but their precise function is still somewhat enigmatic.

The use of monozygotic twins to establish the technical robustness of our rDNA variant calls was crucial.

Now, we show that sequence variants (SNVs and INDELs) also show association with human traits. Crucially, these variants are found within the 28S rRNA and so are incorporated into the mature ribosome.

Despite the essential nature of human rDNA, it shows substantial sequence variation within the human population. We previously showed that rDNA copy number is associated with human traits - www.cell.com/cell-genomic...

Led by the awesome Fran (@franrodalg.bsky.social) and in collaboration with our superstar friends @aphillippy.bsky.social,
@mardakheh.bsky.social, @sergek.bsky.social
and Dave Evans, Maria Conte, Maia Cooper, Elliott Whittaker (not on Bluesky)!

Super happy to share the published version of our study: “Germline sequence variation within the ribosomal DNA is associated with human complex traits” in Cell Genomics www.cell.com/cell-genomic...!

Very interesting!

Hi Chris - yes, good question. I still shy away from using AI chatbots for writing tasks, but I did enter your post into ChatGPT and, must admit, it did return some ideas that could be useable.

My first PhD student‘s, Kavan Gor, paper on 5-color single-molecule imaging of co-transcriptional RNA folding is out in @science.org Advances!

He finds how RNA modification enzymes, antisense oligonucleotides and ribosomal proteins re-route nascent RNA folding.

See more details in EMBL post below!

Restaurant bathroom. Three wooden chairs face the toilet.

Ominous seating arrangements.

LondonEvoDevo meeting's website

May 5th: if you are around London, please join the London #EvoDevo symposium at QMUL / Charterhouse campus, as usual we will have selected talks and post-event 🍻. A warm up for #EED2026 in Glasgow. Registration £0, more info here: londonevodevo.co.uk

It’s a pity other countries don’t adopt this idea. Maybe something to consider for our new funding agency @researchireland.ie ?

Some molecular machines, like ribosomes, can persist for long periods of time in cells.

Could molecular aging of ribosomes shape how proteins are made?

In our new preprint we track ribosomes as they age in cells and uncover unexpected effects on translation (1/10)

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

there's so much bad in the world but there's also people who lift up and carry an elderly bat around every day so he can pretend he's flying again, and that's the part of the world I think is worth fighting for

Excited to share this preprint that describes my latest work on using GPUs to accelerate processing of RNA-seq data.

The title says it all: "RNA-seq analysis in seconds using GPUs" now on biorxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... and github github.com/pachterlab/k...

Figure 1 shows they key result

Wow!

We're excited to announced that our 2nd Annual QMUL Centre for Epigenetics Conference is happening on June 18th, 2026 at Mile End!

To find out more and book your ticket, please follow this link: www.qmul.ac.uk/epigenetics/...

The deadline to book your tickets is Monday, June 8th 2026.

Systematic investigation of interindividual variation of DNA methylation in human whole blood - Genome Biology Background Interindividual genetic variability is well characterised, but we still lack a complete catalogue of loci displaying variable and stable epigenetic patterns. Results Here, we report a catal...

Excited to share our latest publication on interindividual variation of DNA methylation in human whole blood, spearheaded by the amazing Olivia Grant and co-led with @leo-schalkwyk.bsky.social and Meena Kumari.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A jumbo cyanophage encodes the most complete ribosomal protein set in the known virosphere www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

“Subsequent evolution is construed as a ribosomal takeover, whereby the ribosome evolved to consume most of the cell’s resources, while other cellular componentry ensured the propagation of the ribosome. Under this perspective, the
ribosome is the ultimate biological selfish element.” !! 💪🏽

Long in the making, but happy to present the Chlamydomonas chlororibosome!
Cryo-ET🔬reveals a large new domain on the small subunit, built from multiple extensions in conserved ribosomal proteins.
bioRxiv 📖: shorturl.at/q44tG
This suggests greater chlororibosome diversity than expected!
1/n 🧵

Bipartite network of ncORF-CDS co-translation in mice

🧬 A major data reanalysis in December's most-read Genetics paper uncovers thousands of previously hidden protein-coding regions in human and mouse genomes: buff.ly/Bxw7cKf

Undergraduate GPA does not predict success in PhD programs for cohorts of MS students at two minority-serving institutions - PubMed Master of Science (MS) research training programs funded by organizations such as the NIH, the NSF as well as private corporations represent the potential for significant interventions for student success, especially for marginalized or underrepresented and first-generation students, to bridge the g …

This is such a cool finding! Undergraduate GPA does not predict success in PhD programs for cohorts of MS students at two minority-serving institutions pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41628237/