Yeah and each day working in the academic sector becomes harder, which will also lead to shrinkage or at least brain drain. How I read it this is a UKRI decision as well, not direct government direction. Could find a much better solution. Also there has been a move to focus areas already.. blegh..
Exactly. It is the reorganisation that is costly.
We also show higher body temperatures were selected for - again this was independent of growth.
Thermal physiology meets quantitative genetics - our new paper explores the drivers of body temperature in nestling sparrows #ornithology
@jevbio.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/jeb/article/...
Interesting work. But the actual costs on lifespan are minimal right? So the costs on lifespan cannot pose a constraint on reproductive effort even in a harsh environment? Half a year is tiny. Immediate mortality costs would have a stronger fitness effect.
What do the naked mole rat and bowhead whale (lives to ~200 years) have in common to explain their remarkable longevity?
Enhanced DNA repair
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
erictopol.substack.com/p/a-long-awa...
CIRBP expression in the fly extends lifespan and improves resistance to lethal radiation. For myself it sparked a renewed interest in DNA repair and somatic mutations. We are trying a few things in this space at the moment in the lab.
Latest paper. Super interesting comparative biology on ageing in the bowhead whale.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Congrats to Denis Firsanov, Max Zacher, Jan Vijg, Andrei Seluanov, Vera Gorbunova, et al, for this work. Thanks for including us in this work and also Dan Hayman (excellent postdoc).
Come and study Biology at the University of Sheffield (UK)! We cover every aspect of biology and offer specialised degrees with plenty of module choice and research. Feel free to contact me should you want any information. A brilliant video made by our students:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=syup...
Please help spread the word about our inaugural public lecture on Wednesday. Sign up and if you are in the ageing field it’s a great opp for your family to finally understand what you do! 😀
Thanks for your support 🙏
bsra.org.uk/events/bsra-...
Latest exciting work from me and @mirresimons.bsky.social (and the first bit of data from my @vivensa.bsky.social ECR Fellowship) now out as a preprint, looking at effects of knocking down individual spliceosome components on lifespan in vivo: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
and aging remain elusive, why longer-lived organisms show more signs of aging during their natural lifespans, and why longer-lived organisms can be less responsive to treatments of aging that work well in short-lived organisms. We provide predictions of our theory that are empirically testable.
Our model explains many puzzling aspects of aging. These include why aging appears (but is not) programmed, why aging is gradual yet heterogeneous, why cellular and hormonal signaling are closely related to aging, the compensation law of mortality, why trade-offs between reproduction...
Optimisation models of physiology often use immunity as an example, with the cost of underactivating immunity being steepest, as this would lead to death by infection. Our model predicts that the system will on average drift to overactivation of immunity during aging.
The regulation of such physiology will be asymmetrical as the costs of loss of regulation are not equal for under- and over-activation. When asymmetrical regulation breaks during aging it causes physiological function to drift towards the physiological range where costs of dysregulation are lowest.
A synopsis:
Life has evolved to secure reproduction and avoid system failure in early life and it is the physiological regulation that evolves in response to those early life selection pressures that leads to the emergence of aging.
The biology of aging is something fundamental to all life, but we have a limited understanding of its physiology and its evolution. I presented this idea at #ARDD2025 and at the #BRSA2025 and many of you asked if there was a preprint, now there is. I welcome any feedback!
We present a novel idea of how aging evolves. This idea was developed together with Marc Tatar, and it was such a joy to think about. I think this is one of the best ideas I worked on for a while, ..or ever.. ;):
arxiv.org/abs/2509.15911
Lifelong restriction of dietary valine has sex-specific benefits for health and lifespan in mice
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#mTOR research field never ceases to amaze, what a tour de force! 👇🏼
mTORC1 senses glutamine and other amino acids through GCN2 | The EMBO Journal www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
@miriamgotz.bsky.social
The majority of this work was done by my student Miriam, she has done an amazing job. Similarly interested in studying in one of the best biology departments in the UK?: sheffield.ac.uk/biosciences
Our study in the fly shows that suppression rather than activation extends lifespan in the fly. Opening up a lot of interesting questions, including how we can target ATF4 or its downstream targets to gain longevity benefits.
Mild stress is associated with longer lifespans. Activation of the integrated stress response, governed by the transcription factor ATF4 is therefore thought to lead to longer lifespans, but has received limited study.
New preprint. ATF4 activation is thought to lead to longer lifespans. However, our study shows that suppression rather than activation extends lifespan in the fly. New Qs: how we can target ATF4 or its downstream targets to gain targeted longevity benefits.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A huge project has analysed more than 1,000 claims about the immunity of Drosophila fruit flies in scientific papers published over some 50 years
go.nature.com/4lxhwJB
Proudly presenting Simon’s @simonsterson.bsky.social paper on asymmetric apportioning of old mitochondria biasing intestinal stem cells for the Paneth cell linage through aKG-dependent metabolism
@naturemetabolism.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s42... @helsinki.fi @metastem.bsky.social 🧵1/8
It’s because we are top100 now, hahahaha
If using Bloomigton #Drosophila Stock Center stocks, pls. acknowledge them & their NIH funding (P40 OD018537). Papers listing this no. are being harvested as evidence. We massively depend on the @bdsc.bsky.social & they need our support in these dire times! @flybase.bsky.social @fly-eds.bsky.social
