Sean Eddy
cryptogenomicon.bsky.social
Sean Eddy
@cryptogenomicon.bsky.social
Professor, Molecular & Cellular Biology, Harvard University
I don't see anything in the Cornell agreement that keeps the US government from coming back with new adverse actions in the future. The agreement is only about current actions, and it explicitly says: "The United States is not releasing Cornell ... from any other liability."
November 7, 2025 at 7:57 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
Registration to the next RNA BENASQUE meeting July 05-17 2026 is open.
benasque.org/2026rna/

Yes, Benasque is my profile pic. This #RNA meeting puts together for 2 weeks researchers in computational methods for structural RNA. 9th edition already! #RNAsky
Computational Approaches to RNA Structure and Function
benasque.org
November 1, 2025 at 1:03 AM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
RNA BENASQUE
July 05-17 2026
November 1, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity!

We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have:
(1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs)
(2) better hand dexterity
(3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵
October 22, 2025 at 8:41 PM
If you wonder why doesn't Harvard use its endowment: the answer, of course, is that we do. A major source of Harvard's annual budget is the endowment investment return.

For anyone seriously interested in how university endowments work, an excellent wonky reference:

www.nber.org/papers/w32506
Economic Budgeting for Endowment-Dependent Universities
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
www.nber.org
October 21, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
Thrilled to see our preprint featured in Science News! 🩸

Big thanks to Holly Barker for writing such a thoughtful piece about our work. So exciting to see broader attention to menstruation research and new model systems!

www.science.org/content/arti...
Lab mice can now have periods like humans
Studies of rodents with a menstrual on/off switch could help people with endometriosis and other disorders
www.science.org
October 20, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
A newly designated butterfly species, Euptychia andrewberryi, has been named in honor of Harvard lecturer Andrew J. Berry by postdoctoral fellow Shinichi Nakahara, who identified the species.

Tess E. Sumner and Juliana L. Yao report.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
New Butterfly Species Named After Harvard Lecturer Andrew Berry | News | The Harvard Crimson
A newly designated butterfly species, Euptychia andrewberryi, has been named in honor of Harvard lecturer Andrew J. Berry by postdoctoral fellow Shinichi Nakahara, who identified the species.
www.thecrimson.com
October 14, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
RNA3DB 2025-10-01 release
github.com/marcellszi/r...
#RNA #RNAsky

The database of all RNA chains in PDB arranged in structurally disimilar components, including Rfam annotation.

More chains (25,666), more independent components (144), more Rfam families represented (853).
October 10, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
I’m thrilled to share my postdoc work and the first paper from the McKinley Lab! 🎉
@karalmckinley.bsky.social
We built the first transgenic model of menstruation in mice.
We used it to uncover how the endometrium organizes and sheds during menstruation. 🧪
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧵
Induction of menstruation in mice reveals the regulation of menstrual shedding
During menstruation, an inner layer of the endometrium is selectively shed, while an outer, progenitor-containing layer is preserved to support repeated regeneration. Progress in understanding this co...
www.biorxiv.org
October 10, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
Lab’s 1st preprint!

Menstruation is understudied due to societal taboos + a biological challenge: mice (a key system for research + drug discovery) don’t menstruate.

@cagricevrim.bsky.social made menstruating mice + used them to discover early events in menstruation.

He is on the job market!
October 10, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
If I were choosing this year’s Nobel Peace Prize
October 9, 2025 at 8:02 PM
In the history of authoritarian regimes promoting pseudoscience for ideological reasons, one that I just learned about: "World Ice Theory" and the Nazis.

www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/s...
A Song of Ice and Fire | Eric Kurlander
World Ice Theory and the supernatural imaginary of the Third Reich.
www.laphamsquarterly.org
October 8, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
There's an update on the state of FlyBase on the FlyBase.org front page. You can contribute to FlyBase at this link wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase...
We express enormous gratitude to the people, labs, groups, and foundations who have already helped us.
#FlyBase #Drosophila
October 3, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
Integrated prediction of RNA secondary structure jointly with 3D motifs and pseudoknots guided by evolutionary information.
@aakaran31.bsky.social and @rivaselenarivas.bsky.social

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
All-at-once RNA folding with 3D motif prediction framed by evolutionary information - Nature Methods
Structural RNAs exhibit a vast array of recurrent short three-dimensional (3D) elements found in loop regions involving non-Watson–Crick interactions that help arrange canonical double helices into tertiary structures. Here we present CaCoFold-R3D, a probabilistic grammar that predicts these RNA 3D motifs (also termed modules) jointly with RNA secondary structure over a sequence or alignment. CaCoFold-R3D uses evolutionary information present in an RNA alignment to reliably identify canonical helices (including pseudoknots) by covariation. Here we further introduce the R3D grammars, which also exploit helix covariation that constrains the positioning of the mostly noncovarying RNA 3D motifs. Our method runs predictions over an almost-exhaustive list of over 50 known RNA motifs (‘everything’). Motifs can appear in any nonhelical loop region (including three-way, four-way and higher junctions) (‘everywhere’). All structural motifs as well as the canonical helices are arranged into one single structure predicted by one single joint probabilistic grammar (‘all-at-once’). Our results demonstrate that CaCoFold-R3D is a valid alternative for predicting the all-residue interactions present in a RNA 3D structure. CaCoFold-R3D is fast and easily customizable for novel motif discovery and shows promising value both as a strong input for deep learning approaches to all-atom structure prediction as well as toward guiding RNA design as drug targets for therapeutic small molecules.
link.springer.com
October 3, 2025 at 12:42 PM
"Trump has repeatedly claimed that the White House has been on the verge of a deal with Harvard. .... in June, he claimed that a deal was coming “in the next week or so.” More than three months passed without signs of a finished deal."

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Trump Claims White House Has Struck Deal With Harvard | News | The Harvard Crimson
President Donald Trump told reporters on Tuesday in the Oval Office that the White House had “reached a deal” with Harvard, before cautioning that the agreement had not been finalized.
www.thecrimson.com
October 1, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
the postcard cited in judge young's ruling isn't just at the top, it's a framing device. the whole opinion is a letter to the postcard writer. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
September 30, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
It's official! We are moving to Stowers!
Very exciting opportunity to expand our studies of insect-plant interactions. We have many opportunities available in biochemistry, development, behavior, genetics, evolution, genomics, AI, and even pest control. Interested in any of these things? Reach out!
NEWS🎉 We’re excited to announce @hhmijanelia.bsky.social Investigator David Stern will join the Institute from Janelia Research Campus. His lab studies how aphids transform plants at the genetic level, uncovering secrets of #evolution & new strategies for pest control. @hhmi.org bit.ly/4np96Fb
Stowers Institute recruits renowned developmental and evolutionary…
David Stern, Ph.D., brings groundbreaking research on insect–plant interactions for next-generation pest control to the Institute.
bit.ly
September 30, 2025 at 8:15 PM
This reply by Judge Young should be remembered by history.
OMG this William G. Young opinion that just dropped (12:30pm) in AAUP v. Rubio.
It begins with a postcard sent to Chambers and Young's reply

card: "Trump has pardons and tanks, what do you have?"

WGY: "We the People of the United States — you and me — have our magnificent Constitution"
September 30, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
Sea slugs steal foreign chloroplasts for photosynthesis and starvation resistance. Photo by Anik Grearson. #evolution #symbiosis. #cellbiology. @cellpress.bsky.social
September 18, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
A huge shoutout to all the dedicated grants management specialists at the NIH who are working around the clock to push grants out before the Sep 30 deadline. And also to the POs responding to frantic emails.
Not an easy job under the best of circumstances and right now it's the pits.
Thank you!
September 15, 2025 at 8:17 PM
"We are watching a scientific superpower destroy itself."

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/o...
Opinion | We Are Watching a Scientific Superpower Destroy Itself
www.nytimes.com
September 8, 2025 at 7:24 PM
John Oliver is always terrific ... but for us at Harvard getting pummeled by the White House, telling us to "fight" is like a bystander watching an assault in progress and telling the victim to fight back better. Harvard will refuse to surrender, sure - but this is an attack, not a fight.
September 8, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Sean Eddy
I will work with any Republicans willing to put science and facts over politics and ideology to push out RFK Jr.

That man is a serious threat to public health and American lives.

It's never too late to do the right thing. Join me in calling for RFK Jr. to be fired immediately.
September 7, 2025 at 8:51 PM