Ana Viñuela
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anavinuela.bsky.social
Ana Viñuela
@anavinuela.bsky.social
570 followers 780 following 230 posts
Computational Biologist interested in genomics of age related diseases, T2D and more. Digo (más) tonterías en español. Lecturer at University of Dundee, UK.

More than ever: trans women are women

🇪🇸->🇳🇱->🇬🇧->🇨🇭->🇬🇧->🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3771-8537
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anavinuela.bsky.social
Ana Viñuela @anavinuela.bsky.social · Nov 13
Very proud of David for pulling this off! Cool work too, but I'm clearly bias 😏
🧪🧬🖥️
arnsbr.bsky.social Andrew Brown @arnsbr.bsky.social · Nov 13
So my former PhD student David Davtian has produced his first paper from his PhD, and since we're so proud of it, I'm going to steal all the tweets he wrote about it and post them here:

x.com/DavidDavtian...
x.com
x.com
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
agingbiology.bsky.social
AbbVie cuts ties with Google-backed longevity company, lays off scientists
www.statnews.com/2025/11/12/a...
AbbVie cuts ties with Google-backed longevity company, lays off scientists
AbbVie is ending a decade-long partnership with Calico Life Sciences, an Alphabet-funded biotech company focused on aging research, and laying off scientists.
www.statnews.com
November 15, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
kakape.bsky.social
The deadly fever in Ethiopia has been identified as Marburg disease.
It’s the first time a Marburg outbreak has been identified in Ethiopia.
#IDsky 🧪

www.afro.who.int/countries/et...
Ethiopia confirms first outbreak of Marburg virus disease
Ethiopia’s Ministry of Health has confirmed an outbreak of Marburg virus disease in the South Ethiopia Region, the first of its kind in the country, following laboratory testing of samples from a clus...
www.afro.who.int
November 14, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
statsepi.bsky.social
Valuable reporting here from @cathleenogrady.bsky.social for @science.org, adding context and other important voices to our perspective piece (linked further below, with @wiringthebrain.bsky.social and @deevybee.bsky.social)

www.science.org/content/arti...
November 14, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
gensocuk.bsky.social
Congratulations to @zaminiqbal.bsky.social from @milnerevolution.bsky.social on being awarded the 2026 Mary Lyon Medal!
November 14, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
pwgtennant.bsky.social
I'm concerned about the health research community rushing to *require* patient/public involvement (PPI) for all methodological research.

🧵 1/12
November 13, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
ducuuo.bsky.social
We held a rally to mark one-year of the financial crisis at the University of Dundee.

We resolve to continue opposing compulsory lay-offs and a radical reshaping of the institution.

If we fight together we win!

www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/...

#SaveHE #SaveDundeeUni #WeAreTheUniversity
‘Angry and exhausted’ Dundee University staff rally against jobs cut to save university
Campus unions organised the event where there was palpable anger at the current and former leadership of Dundee University.
www.thecourier.co.uk
November 14, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
girlscientist.bsky.social
Adding more signs of how NIH science is/was broken: my lab team could not show up for 3 more accepted talks at scientific conferences, totaling 9 for the year now. If you interview current NIH trainees for grad or med schools please understand that we are giving them the best experience we can.
drrabbithole.bsky.social Dr. Rabbithole @drrabbithole.bsky.social · 2d
While the government was shut down, 379 NIH study section meetings (containing 24,380 grant applications) were postponed. NIH is committed to getting these reviewed, but please be patient and understanding with staff, as this is a complex and heavy lift.
November 13, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
greally.bsky.social
A handy translation guide for non-academic speakers.
November 13, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
harmitmalik.bsky.social
Are there also folks looking for unmotivated, unenthusiastic postdocs or graduate students? Judging from how often I see these words in ads or postings, there must be some ads I am missing...

:)
November 13, 2025 at 4:31 AM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
loic-yengo.bsky.social
First time on Bsky and first big announcement!

I am excited to announce that our new study explaining the missing heritability of many phenotypes using WGS data from ~347,000 UK Biobank participants has just been published in @Nature.

Our manuscript is here: www.nature.com/articles/s41....
Estimation and mapping of the missing heritability of human phenotypes - Nature
WGS data were used from 347,630 individuals with European ancestry in the UK Biobank to obtain high-precision estimates of coding and non-coding rare variant heritability for 34 co...
www.nature.com
November 12, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
hansonmark.bsky.social
Fundamentally, what we need is leadership. But we break with the chorus of most #OpenScience initiatives here and emphasize very strongly that this leadership must come from funders and institutions.

We researchers can support the battle, but we cannot lead the charge. Funders hold the cards.

6/n
The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
bedform.org
ooof this feels like most every university rn
bunch of executives on the deck of a ship with only one guy rowing and a quote "I don't understand, after so many budget cuts why dont we move faster?"
November 12, 2025 at 3:28 AM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
harmitmalik.bsky.social
Are you an early-stage graduate student (2nd or 3rd year) or early-stage postdoc based in the US or Canada, working primarily in Drosophila? Would you like to help improve the experience of all trainees working in Drosophila research? If so, read on.

(Please repost to reach a broad audience.)
November 12, 2025 at 4:49 AM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
leguape.bsky.social
Confident in the work we have done to reach this conclusion www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Israel has destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in Gaza since ceasefire
Entire neighbourhoods controlled by Israel have been levelled in less than a month, satellite images show.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 12, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
natbiotech.nature.com
An examination of the relationship between forward citations received by patents and the gender composition of inventor teams reveals that majority-female-inventor patents receive fewer citations than comparable majority-male-inventor patents go.nature.com/3WVW1HB
rdcu.be/ePrMq
Investigating gender disparities in patent citations reveals untapped potential - Nature Biotechnology
An examination of the relationship between forward citations received by patents and the gender composition of inventor teams reveals that majority-female-inventor patents receive fewer citations than...
go.nature.com
November 11, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
stevenjrobbins.bsky.social
Metagenomics colleagues!

I'm looking for studies where both Illumina and ONT sequencing were performed on the same samples from soil, human, ruminent, and other sample types for comparison. Bonus if those studies include PacBio data.

Please help and share!
November 11, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
vivdunstan.bsky.social
How is the dispute at Dundee University affecting students? - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
How is the dispute at Dundee University affecting students?
Students say they are feeling the effects across studios, classrooms and workshops.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 11, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
barrlab.bsky.social
The C. elegans community is amazing. I email a Nobel laureate for a favor. He immediately responds yes and offers additional help!
a woman with a big hairdo is singing and the words simply the best are above her
ALT: a woman with a big hairdo is singing and the words simply the best are above her
media.tenor.com
November 11, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
ducuuo.bsky.social
Our students aren’t being heard.

“students aren't told anything at all."

"You really have to dig for all the information - online, on the website, through emails... unless you have the time to sit and dig through emails, you don't know what's going on," she says.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
How is the dispute at Dundee University affecting students?
Students say they are feeling the effects across studios, classrooms and workshops.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 11, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
esqueer.net
Women born with vaginas, raised as girls are suddenly not sufficiently womanly enough. They're branded as "men" and humiliated. They are stripped of everything they have worked to achieve and called cheats. It only serves to police womanhood based on the ability to be a breeding vessel.
November 11, 2025 at 2:39 AM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
c0nc0rdance.bsky.social
I had to transcribe a translated version of this meme.
A meme involving three military officers or soldiers whispering in each other's ears. The top reads: "Flow of genetic information be like:" and underneath there's a soldier on the far right labeled "DNA" whispering into the central soldier's ear (with hand cupped around his ear). The middle soldier is labeled "RNA" and he's whispering to a female soldier labeled "Protein".
April 16, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
pwgtennant.bsky.social
"Brexit has reduced GDP by 6% to 8%"

So actually worse than 'project fear'. Great job everyone.

cc @mrjamesob.bsky.social
davidheniguk.bsky.social David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 5d
Headline from a serious and long working paper on the economic impact of Brexit. Possible that this has been feeding into OBR and HMT discussions?
November 10, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
dreadships.bsky.social
Right, enough of James Watson - who's a senior academic you've met who's been an utter delight?

I'll go first: Jocelyn Bell Burnell
November 8, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Ana Viñuela
emilyhughes.bsky.social
pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.
brittanytrang.com Brittany Trang @brittanytrang.com · 7d
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:55 AM