Adrian Woolfson
@adrianwoolfson.bsky.social
Opinions @WSJ.com & @Science.org. Author Life Without Genes @harpercollins.bsky.social & On The Future of Species bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social (12 Feb 2026) & @MITpress.bsky.social (17 Mar, 2026). www.adrianwoolfson.com. Founder Genyro.com
I am greatly enjoying #TheTreeofLife by @maxjtelford.bsky.social published by @wwnorton.com, which I am reviewing for @wsj.com
November 10, 2025 at 2:02 PM
I am greatly enjoying #TheTreeofLife by @maxjtelford.bsky.social published by @wwnorton.com, which I am reviewing for @wsj.com
I tremendously enjoyed Matthew Cobb’s definitive new biography of Crick. It was hard to put down and provides many new perspectives. My review of it will appear in Science later this week.
November 10, 2025 at 1:45 PM
I tremendously enjoyed Matthew Cobb’s definitive new biography of Crick. It was hard to put down and provides many new perspectives. My review of it will appear in Science later this week.
Reposted by Adrian Woolfson
💫NEW: @sarawickstrom.bsky.social @katemiro.bsky.social & co show that mechano-osmotic changes in the #nucleus induce general #transcriptional repression and prime #chromatin for cell fate transitions by relieving repression of specific differentiation genes. #pluripotency
bit.ly/3VMcyNZ
bit.ly/3VMcyNZ
Mechano-osmotic signals control chromatin state and fate transitions in pluripotent stem cells - Nature Cell Biology
McCreery, Stubb et al. show that mechano-osmotic changes in the nucleus induce general transcriptional repression and prime chromatin for cell fate transitions by relieving repression of specific differentiation genes.
bit.ly
October 4, 2025 at 2:40 PM
💫NEW: @sarawickstrom.bsky.social @katemiro.bsky.social & co show that mechano-osmotic changes in the #nucleus induce general #transcriptional repression and prime #chromatin for cell fate transitions by relieving repression of specific differentiation genes. #pluripotency
bit.ly/3VMcyNZ
bit.ly/3VMcyNZ
Reposted by Adrian Woolfson
Appreciate Quanta for shining a light on our joint work with Simon Gsell, Sham Tlili (@shamtlili.bsky.social), and Matthias Merkel (@merkellab.bsky.social).
Biophysicists are realizing that there is an undervalued element at play in early development: Aside from genes, mechanical forces also steer the growth of embryos. @annademming.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/genes-have-h...
Genes Have Harnessed Physics to Help Grow Living Things | Quanta Magazine
The same pulling force that causes “tears” in a glass of wine also shapes embryos. It’s another example of how genes exploit mechanical forces for growth and development.
www.quantamagazine.org
October 11, 2025 at 7:04 AM
Appreciate Quanta for shining a light on our joint work with Simon Gsell, Sham Tlili (@shamtlili.bsky.social), and Matthias Merkel (@merkellab.bsky.social).
Fusing transcription factors (TFs) to intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs), to drive the formation of transcriptional condensates that concentrate TFs at their target promoters.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Phase separation to buffer growth-mediated dilution in synthetic circuits
Fluctuations in host cell growth pose a critical challenge for maintaining reliable function in synthetic gene circuits. Growth-mediated dilution caus…
www.sciencedirect.com
November 8, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Fusing transcription factors (TFs) to intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs), to drive the formation of transcriptional condensates that concentrate TFs at their target promoters.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A new method for the precise insertion of large DNA sequences into the genome using engineered recombinases that don’t require DNA cutting or rely on the cell’s repair machinery.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Site-specific DNA insertion into the human genome with engineered recombinases - Nature Biotechnology
Engineered DNA recombinases efficiently and specifically insert genetic cargos without the use of landing pads.
www.nature.com
November 6, 2025 at 9:30 PM
A new method for the precise insertion of large DNA sequences into the genome using engineered recombinases that don’t require DNA cutting or rely on the cell’s repair machinery.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Prime editing can go far beyond single base pair edits producing, for example, 1MB deletions
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Generating long deletions across the genome with pooled paired prime editing screens
Engineered deletions are a powerful probe for studying genome architecture, function, and regulation. Yet, the lack of effective methods to create them in large numbers and at multi-kilobase scale has...
www.biorxiv.org
November 6, 2025 at 2:44 AM
Prime editing can go far beyond single base pair edits producing, for example, 1MB deletions
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Targeting of Cis-regulatory elements to up-regulate haploinsufficient genes
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Large-scale discovery of neural enhancers for cis-regulation therapies
CRISPR-based gene activation (CRISPRa) has emerged as a promising therapeutic approach for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) caused by haploinsufficiency. However, scaling this cis -regulatory therap...
www.biorxiv.org
November 5, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Targeting of Cis-regulatory elements to up-regulate haploinsufficient genes
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Engineering chloroplasts - an important paper for plant synthetic biology.
share.google/W9d423qo1l1A...
share.google/W9d423qo1l1A...
A modular high-throughput approach for advancing synthetic biology in the chloroplast of Chlamydomonas - Nature Plants
This study reports a modular-cloning-based platform for high-throughput chloroplast engineering in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii that allows large-scale characterization of genetic parts and prototyping o...
share.google
November 4, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Engineering chloroplasts - an important paper for plant synthetic biology.
share.google/W9d423qo1l1A...
share.google/W9d423qo1l1A...
Reposted by Adrian Woolfson
I had a long conversation with MIT Tech Review’s @willdouglasheaven.bsky.social about AGI; it fed into this very good read on the rise of AGI orthodoxy
How AGI became the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time
The idea that machines will be as smart as—or smarter than—humans has hijacked an entire industry. But look closely and you’ll see it’s a myth that persists for many of the same reasons conspiracies d...
www.technologyreview.com
November 2, 2025 at 2:19 AM
I had a long conversation with MIT Tech Review’s @willdouglasheaven.bsky.social about AGI; it fed into this very good read on the rise of AGI orthodoxy
