Christopher Douse
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chdouse.bsky.social
Christopher Douse
@chdouse.bsky.social
Scientist (chromatin, epigenetics, repetitive elements, brain development).
British male human living in Sweden.
Views are my own.
Reposted by Christopher Douse
Had an absolute blast presenting my “Last Minute Breakthrough talk” at #EMBOmobilegenome today! 🔥 What an incredible crowd, the energy in the room was unreal. Huge thanks to the organizers for selecting me and to everyone who came, asked questions, and made it such a fun session! 🙌
November 5, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
Having a lot of fun at #EMBOMobileGenome 😃
Perfect timing for our paper from the lab of @toddmacfarlan.bsky.social to be out @natcomms.nature.com!!

…and I’m currently on the job market looking for a new scientific home!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Young KRAB-zinc finger gene clusters are highly dynamic incubators of ERV-driven genetic heterogeneity in mice - Nature Communications
KRAB-zinc finger proteins repress retrotransposons and rapidly evolve in mammals. Here, the authors show that ERV insertions drive the emergence and diversification of new KZFP genes in mice, revealin...
www.nature.com
November 6, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
How do pluripotent stem cells resist harmful interferon responses to safeguard development? Through total epigenetic lockdown of ligands, sensors and effectors of IFN-I. In our preprint, James Holt shares his PhD discoveries on the ground state of immune evasion 😊: www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
Epigenetic lockdown of type I interferon sensing and signalling in human pluripotent cells.
The Human Silencing Hub (HUSH) complex safeguards genome integrity in human somatic cells by repressing transposable elements and regulating type I interferon (IFN-I) induction. In early development, ...
www.biorxiv.org
October 29, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
🌟Im happy to share that this winter I'll be starting my lab at the Wallenberg Center for Molecular Medicine at Umeå University! Excited to join the Department of Medical and Translational Biology as a Wallenberg Fellow and looking forward to new collaborations and cool transposon research 🤩 🧬
October 26, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
The @crick.ac.uk is recruiting Early Career Group Leaders

- Lab set-up, research costs, salaries for up to 5 researchers
- Support for up to 12 years
- Access to our core facilities
- Competitive salary
- Fantastic colleagues
- All areas of biology

Deadline 27 Nov

www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...
Early career group leaders
We appoint researchers from across biology and biomedicine to set up their first groups at the Crick.
www.crick.ac.uk
October 10, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
⚡⚡Excited to announce I'll be starting my lab at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Genetics (@molgen.mpg.de) in Berlin in December! Leaving sunny California to join a fantastic environment with colleagues who do super cool work.
🔬🦠I'm hiring at all levels! 🔬🦠Check: www.molgen.mpg.de/fueyo-lab
October 6, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
#1 Centromeres are epigenetic loci defined by CENP-A, positioned in unmethylated DNA flanked by highly methylated regions. Our work, published in @natgenet.nature.com in collaboration with @naltemose.bsky.social investigates the role of DNAme at human centromeres www.nature.com/articles/s41...
DNA methylation influences human centromere positioning and function - Nature Genetics
Genome-wide and targeted perturbation of DNA methylation at centromeres affects CENP-A positioning and centromere structure, resulting in aneuploidy and reduced cell viability.
www.nature.com
September 4, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
Reposted by Christopher Douse
Civilization, visualized

Positively mesmerizing: www.chronotrains.com/en/explore/2...
August 10, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
Nature research paper: Complex genetic variation in nearly complete human genomes

go.nature.com/44YuyIV
Complex genetic variation in nearly complete human genomes - Nature
Using sequencing and haplotype-resolved assembly of 65 diverse human genomes, complex regions including the major histocompatibility complex and centromeres are analysed.
go.nature.com
July 28, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
Very happy to share our protocols paper for CELLO-seq. This will make single cell long read RNA-seq more accessible and provides analysis guidelines. We hope this helps the #transposon #TEsky community and folks working on #singleCell isoform and allelic #gene expression. doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Long-read RNA sequencing of transposable elements from single cells using CELLO-seq - Nature Protocols
Single-cell long-read RNA sequencing enables the high-fidelity mapping of single-cell expression data from highly sequence-similar transposable elements to unique genomic loci by correcting errors fro...
doi.org
July 16, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
Reposted by Christopher Douse
We are looking for new colleagues to come join us in Galway as group leaders (Junior and Senior). The Centre for Chromosome Biology is a great place and it is a good time to join. Please reach out if you want to chat about the opportunity!
www.nature.com/naturecareer...
July 16, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
Finally out! 🥳 Our paper showing how a transposable element (TE) insertion can cause developmental phenotypes is now published @natgenet.nature.com 🧬🦠🐁
Below is a brief description of the major findings. Check the full version of the paper for more details: www.nature.com/articles/s41588-025-02248-5
Enhancer adoption by an LTR retrotransposon generates viral-like particles, causing developmental limb phenotypes - Nature Genetics
Activation of an LTR retrotransposon inserted upstream of the Fgf8 gene produces viral-like particles in the mouse developing limb, triggering apoptosis and causing limb malformation. This phenotype c...
www.nature.com
July 9, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Very proud of this work where we define how the MORC2 ATPase directs CpG methylation of active human L1 transposons in early development.

Thanks to co-authors, funders & wonderful environment @lundstem.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Brief thread below (do people still do that?) 1/X
MORC2 directs transcription-dependent CpG methylation of human LINE-1 transposons in early neurodevelopment
Methylation of CpG dinucleotides is essential for silencing genomic repeats such as LINE-1 retrotransposons (L1s) in the germline and soma. Evolutionarily-young L1s are transcribed in human pluripoten...
www.biorxiv.org
July 1, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
We wrote a review on Transposable Elements (TEs) and almost all aspects of TE silencing and their roles in biological processes & disease.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of transposable elements and their roles in development and disease - Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology
Transposable elements (TEs) comprise nearly half of the human genome. This Review discusses transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms that repress TE activity, how TEs escape this suppressio...
www.nature.com
June 30, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
A major KI initiative to recruit new assistant professors with outstanding proposals in all areas of medicine, biomedicine and public health. We offer an amazing research environment, great colleagues and generous startup packages. Check it out and get working on your applications! (repost please!)
Applications are now open! We are recruiting 20 Assistant Professors in a wide range of subject areas. We're looking for early-career researchers with strong scientific merits and future potential.
🔗 All positions: ki.se/en/about-ki/...
June 25, 2025 at 10:08 AM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
Lund University is offering 2-year visiting professorships (20% time) for full professors, with a deadline of August 17. Women are encouraged to apply. More info: https://lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/jobID:835541/ #job
Visiting Professor at Faculty of Science, Lund University Visiting Professors Programme
Visiting Professor at Faculty of Science, Lund University Visiting Professors Programme
lu.varbi.com
June 25, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
The call just opened!

ki.se/en/about-ki/...

You can apply to several departments simultaneously, check out which depts better fit your profile! Here is the call for our Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics

ki.varbi.com/what:job/job...
June 25, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
📢 ONLINE @natgenet.nature.com

📰 Conservation of regulatory elements with highly diverged sequences across large evolutionary distances.

By Mike Phan, @danielibrahim.bsky.social and colleagues.

⬇️

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Conservation of regulatory elements with highly diverged sequences across large evolutionary distances - Nature Genetics
Combining functional genomic data from mouse and chicken with a synteny-based strategy identifies positionally conserved cis-regulatory elements in the absence of direct sequence conservation.
www.nature.com
May 30, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
How to find Evolutionary Conserved Enhancers in 2025? 🐣-🐭
Check out our paper - fresh off the press!!!
We find widespread functional conservation of enhancers in absence of sequence homology
Including: a bioinformatic tool to map sequence-diverged enhancers!
rdcu.be/enVDN
github.com/tobiaszehnde...
Conservation of regulatory elements with highly diverged sequences across large evolutionary distances
Nature Genetics - Combining functional genomic data from mouse and chicken with a synteny-based strategy identifies positionally conserved cis-regulatory elements in the absence of direct sequence...
rdcu.be
May 27, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Reposted by Christopher Douse
Reposted by Christopher Douse
I am looking for postdocs to join my group at NIH. Are you interested in Development, Evolution, Genetics, Genomics, and Human health? Please apply! www.training.nih.gov/jobs/pdf-mb-...
www.training.nih.gov
April 29, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Exome on a triple word score and they say doing a PhD isn’t worth it…
April 18, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Come to Lund! We are looking for a postdoc to join the team. #transposons #epigenetics
April 17, 2025 at 12:29 PM