I am hiring a popgen postdoc!
Looking for a creative scientist to join us at USC to investigate recessive variation and complex traits in model or non-model species. The project is funded by a multi-year NIH grant, contract can be renewed.
Job add & details 👇🏽
usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...
The program for the 2026 New York Population Genetics meeting, hosted by at the @simonsfoundation.org on March 9th 2026, is now up: events.simonsfoundation.org/event/7c91dd....
Registration for the 2026 NY Area Population Genetics meeting is now open, at events.simonsfoundation.org/e0mEoL?rt=8k.... Registration is free but required; if you are submitting an abstract, note that the deadline is *January 30th*.
I'm just delighted to announce our new preprint on genome-scale perturb-seq in CD4+ T cells. We learned both general lessons about the power of perturb-seq, and specific lessons about T cell biology.
Led by amazing postdocs Emma Dann and Ronghui Zhu, with my wonderful collaborator Alex Marson.
Together with @ronghuizhu.bsky.social, we are thrilled to present our new perturb-seq study of 22M primary CD4+ T cells, across donors and timepoints – the result of a decade-long collaboration between the Marson @marsonlab.bsky.social and Pritchard @jkpritch.bsky.social labs 🧵 tinyurl.com/gwt2025
New preprint alert: we use sign errors as a test of how well TWAS works.
Very worryingly we find that TWAS gets the sign wrong around 1/3 of the time (compared to 50% for pure guessing). You can read more about our analysis here, and what we think is going on 👇
How well does TWAS estimate a gene’s direction of effect on a trait? We think of this as an important stress-test for the accuracy of TWAS.
In a new pre-print, we find that TWAS gets the sign wrong around 20-30% of the time!
doi.org/10.64898/202...
1/n
I guess the preprint came out in 2024 but it was published this year so I'll say this paper from @jeffspence.github.io and @hakha.bsky.social which is probably the paper that pleiotropy-pilled me the most. Really got me to think about what GWAS means www.nature.com/articles/s41...
My lab is recruiting postdocs in AI/ML for genetics & genomics through the Malone Postdoctoral Fellows program. Apply by Jan 30! Lots of other great labs across the Malone Center as well.
GWAS has been an incredible discovery tool for human genetics: it regularly identifies *causal* links from 1000s of SNPs to any given trait. But mechanistic interpretation is usually difficult.
Our latest work on causal models for this is out yesterday:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A short🧵:
After time in the Bay Area, I’ve started a new role as Lecturer in the Department of Allergy and Rheumatology at the University of Tokyo. We’re the group of clinicians who see patients with autoimmune diseases, while researching new treatments and patient stratification. (continued)
Thank you Alex! Excited to see our paper published in @nature.com ! Huge thanks to @jeffspence.github.io , @tkyzeng.bsky.social , @emmamarydann.bsky.social, @nikhilmilind.dev, @marsonlab.bsky.social, @jkpritch.bsky.social, and all the members of the Pritchard and Marson labs for your enormous help!
As promised, a longer thread on what I consider to be some of the most interesting and important contributions of this paper (1/10)
It was a total pleasure to work with @roshnipatel.bsky.social on this, who really led the charge in all respects. Anyone interested in learning about the intersection of population genetics and statistical genetics should check out her new lab in Oregon!
Excited to share a preprint of my PhD project looking at interactions between SNPs and polygenic scores in the UK Biobank!
A thread... 🧵
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
A painting of a house by one of Charles Darwin's children. We see a simple outline of a house with a pitched roof, two chimneys and some lead-paned windows. We see the kitchen fire, with a clock on a mantle, and some cast iron pots on a window sill. In a window at the stop of the house we see a cat, or possibly a squirrel!
A hand-written page of Charles Darwin's original manuscript for the Origin of Species. There are many ink blots and crossings out, and some foxing consistent with its age.
#OnThisDay in 1859, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was first published.
Much of the original manuscript was used as scrap paper by Darwin's children. On the back of this painting of a house is an original manuscript page from Origin!
#CambridgeUniversityLibrary (DAR 185)
@hakha.bsky.social and I wrote a Research Briefing (with a lay summary + "behind the scenes") of our paper on how genes are prioritized by GWAS and rare variant burden tests. 🧬🧪
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Congratulations!
SAVE THE DATE: the yearly NY Population Genetics meeting will be back on March 9 2026, generously hosted by the
@simonsfoundation.org. Details to follow. Please RT.
My center at NYU SoM is hiring an Assistant/Associate Professor in human genetics and genomics. It's a wonderful place to do science. Please apply or pass along. apply.interfolio.com/177375
An empirical approach to evaluating the prevalence of long-lived balancing selection in humans--and important limitations. Work by @hannahmm.bsky.social
Very excited for our paper in @nature.com on what genes association studies discover and why. It was a privilege to work closely with @jeffspence.github.io, @jkpritch.bsky.social, and our collaborators.
Excited to share our latest work on the factors that determine what genes we find (and don't find!) in GWAS and burden tests.
We describe a critical concept that we call *specificity*.
Led by Jeff Spence and Hakhamanesh Mostafavi:
How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities?
Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.
🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
Why do complex traits differ in their genetic architecture?
In our new PLOS Biology paper, we will try to convince you that two simple scaling laws drive differences in the number, effect sizes and frequencies of causal variants affecting complex traits.
Thread:
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
I’ll be attending #ASHG25! I’m currently hiring for (i) a Senior Research Scientist or (ii) a Postdoc position in my lab. If you’re interested, please reach out to arrange a time to meet and discuss.
Bittersweet to be leaving @docedge.bsky.social after a wonderful postdoc, but excited to share that I'm joining @uoregon.bsky.social next month as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Data Science.
The 2026 Probabilistic Modeling in Genomics (ProbGen) meeting will be held at UC Berkeley, March 25-28, 2026. We have an amazing list of keynote speakers and session chairs:
probgen2026.github.io
Please help spread the news.
Thanks Jazlyn!