It is with great sadness that we share the news of the death of our founder, colleague, mentor and friend, Professor Sir John Gurdon. His vision and dedication will continue to inspire generations of scientists.
🔗 www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/nobel-laurea...

🚨New preprint from the lab🚨
🧬 What keeps certain chromatin domains anchored at the nuclear periphery? Our new genome-wide HiDRO screen uncovers a key role for RNA-binding protein hnRNPK.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The university of California is a powerhouse of innovation, healthcare, and social mobility for California and the US.

1/
New preprint!
How do transcription factors (TFs) use intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) to find their target sites?

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#TranscriptionFactors #IDPs #SingleMolecule #Biophysics

🧬@science.org ASB7 is a negative regulator of H3K9me3 homeostasis | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#epigenetics #chromatin #genetics #histone

I’m excited to announce that my paper describing non-canonical mitotic mechanisms in the early mouse embryo is out in @science.org ! (link at end of 🧵)

It has taken decades to get to this point, but stem cells for Parkinson's disease showing promise in 2 clinical trials
nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com/articles/s41...

Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions - rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking steps to make sure students can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope others follow suit.

As a Jew I will feel a lot safer at Columbia knowing that there are fewer graduate students toiling in labs to cure cancer and drug addiction.

Recently joined Bluesky, so sharing here. Our latest work on bioRxiv. Using cell-cycle dynamics and NIPBL depletion, we show that long-range enhancer-promoter interactions can form de novo without loop extrusion. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Another assault on US competitiveness at a time when biomedicine is roaring with innovation, an own-goal in a high-stakes international tournament. Of course the real losers are American people needing medicines and cures.

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

Our latest work: how can compartmentalization emerge in a eukaryotic genome lacking canonical heterochromatin?
By investigating bacterial genomes put in yeast, we show that the presence or absence of transcription is sufficient!
#chromatin #3Dgenome #generegulation
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
👇

Before Christmas I did threads on the application areas of genomics in rare disease (bsky.app/profile/ewan...) and in common disease (bsky.app/profile/ewan...) - now I am going to focus on Cancer genomics

Has anyone had success modeling histone peptides (with PTMs) or nuclesomes (with histone tail PTMs) with chromatin reader proteins using Alphafold or Chai1? If so, any tips? Most iterations I try have the histone tail flopping off to the side #Chromatin #Alphafold #Epigenetics

Late to the party, but alphafold is mind blowing. A high confidence heterodimer that would take an entire team months can be predicted by a grad student procrastinating writing, in minutes, on coffee shop wifi.

"Dark TFs": new manuscript mapped 166 uncharacterized human transcription factors, finding half bind genomic "dark matter," often closed chromatin rich in transposable elements.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

So. Much. Cool. Science. Here. Really invigorating. To my old friends and new, hi 👋