Dena Goldblatt
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denagoldblatt.bsky.social
Dena Goldblatt
@denagoldblatt.bsky.social
Postdoc at NINDS. Interests in spinal circuit assembly & function, neuro-evo-devo. 🐟—>🐭. Prev. Brandeis, NYU Neuro, DSPAN fellow
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
I've updated my Bioinformatics Bootcamp: Zebrafish Special Edition blog post on @the-node.bsky.social! Please do share with trainees or anyone new to the community. I hope it adds some breadth to the many resources available to #zebrafish researchers. 🔗 thenode.biologists.com/bioinformati...
Bioinformatics Bootcamp - Zebrafish Special Edition - the Node
A deep-dive into the many cool (and free) resources available to zebrafish researchers! Disclaimer: This is not a comprehensive list but a list of useful
thenode.biologists.com
November 2, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
Thread coming soon, but be the first to read the latest from @franziau.bsky.social!
Oligodendrocytes support functional development of subcortical premotor neurons and navigation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.01.686017v1
November 2, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
Latest from the lab. Beautiful work from Joanna Lau and a fantastic collaboration with James Fitzgerald.

www.cell.com/current-biol...
Supraspinal commands have a modular organization that is behavioral context specific
Lau et al. use calcium imaging and statistical modeling to comprehensively survey reticulospinal activity during diverse locomotor behaviors. They find that a small set of functional modules act combi...
www.cell.com
August 23, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
I got this in my head and I couldn't focus on work until it existed.

Microscopy image file alignment chart, based on how I feel if you give me an image to analyze:
August 7, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
Excited to share that our manuscript "In situ lightfield imaging of octopus locomotion reveals simplified control" has been published in @nature.com. www.nature.com/articles/s41... If you love 🧪🌎🦑🌊, keep reading this thread! 1/n
August 7, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
In case you've ever wondered, I talked with @amjeve.bsky.social about science, myself, and the future of #DevBio as part of the Pathway to Independence Fellowship @biologists.bsky.social 🧪 journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...
Pathway to Independence – an interview with Joaquín Navajas Acedo
Joaquín Navajas Acedo is a Postdoc in the lab of Dr Alexander Schier in Biozentrum at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He is interested in how the nervous system evolves and develops at the singl...
journals.biologists.com
August 5, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
New preprint!



tl;dr — We ran around late at night to record wild rats in NYC and figured out how to quantify their behavior and environment. 🧵

w/ Dima Batenkov, @zamakany.bsky.social, Emily Mackevicius

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Computational Urban Ecology of New York City Rats
Urban rats are highly adaptable, thriving in the dynamic and often inhospitable conditions of modern cities. Despite substantial mitigation efforts, they remain an enduring presence in urban environme...
www.biorxiv.org
July 25, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Incredible — close enough to see, too far away to hear… @capitalweather.bsky.social from Bethesda
July 17, 2025 at 2:23 AM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
Good Science

xkcd.com/3101/
June 12, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Meanwhile, in RI: “Well you drive past the big blue bug and the old Apex building and then turn left at the Dunkin…”
I am officially one of The Ancients, Keeper of Knowledge of the Before Time
June 4, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
Are all muppets the same species just with wildly different phenotypes like dogs or are there a lot of different species of muppet
June 3, 2025 at 12:20 AM
Hooding day for @ericfranklin.bsky.social !!!!!!
May 26, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
I was today years old when I learned that the Magic Schoolbus was an NSF-funded project.
May 16, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
Cross-posting from LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/posts/kevin-...

These are useful (and free!) websites that I found in my search for all things #zebrafish as part of my Bioinformatics Bootcamp. If there’s enough interest, I may do a blog post on the Node. Enjoy!
#zebrafish | Kevin Thiessen, Ph.D.
A while back, I put together a Bioinformatics Bootcamp for #zebrafish researchers. Here are some of the helpful links & resources that I've come across in my search: Disclaimer: This is not a...
www.linkedin.com
May 17, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
PI: "this draft is so great, why didn't we write it this way in the first place??"

PhD student: "I did, and then you told me to change it"
May 15, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
When I read ideas about ChatGPT as a replacement for writing, I immediately go to Weick’s explanation of the old adage, “How do I know what I think, until I see what I say?” If it replaces or profoundly shapes the writing process, then it changes the thinking process… which will align w/ its outputs
Sam Altman describes ChatGPT as merely “a calculator for words”

the man responsible for destroying education doesn't understand writing, thinking, or math, although, to be fair, he certainly does understand capital
May 9, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
This time-lapse captures 17 hours of axonal growth from a chicken dorsal root ganglion explant, visualized through the actin cytoskeleton using live confocal imaging.
I just submitted this video to the Nikon Small World in Motion competition. Today is the last day to upload yours! 😉
🧪
April 30, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
one of the healthier ways I’ve been managing stress lately is to bottle up all of my rage and anxiety during the day and channel it into watching a baseball game the goddamn Phillies try to lose at 10pm on a weeknight
April 30, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
Our latest manuscript (7 years in the works) tackles the question of how diurnal ground squirrels evolved a cone-dominant retina, in contrast to the ancestral rod-dominant retina retained by virtually all other mammals./1
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Heterochronic transcription factor expression drives cone-dominant retina development in 13-lined ground squirrels.
Evolutionary adaptation to diurnal vision in ground squirrels has led to the development of a cone-dominant retina, in stark contrast to the rod-dominant retinas of most mammals. The molecular mechani...
www.biorxiv.org
April 29, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
An example of what we in the NIH Intramural program can accomplish. Excited to share our latest paper in close collaboration with Nick Ryba's group. We examined how inflammation transforms representation in somatosensory neurons to cause pain. Lots of surprises here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com
April 23, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
Happy to share a new preprint from my lab! We characterize the on/off kinetics, light dosage-dependence, and more for a suite of optogenetic signaling activators in zebrafish embryos 💡 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
An optogenetic toolkit for robust activation of FGF, BMP, and Nodal signaling in zebrafish
Cell signaling regulates a wide range of biological processes including development, homeostasis, and disease. Accessible technologies to precisely manipulate signaling have important applications in ...
www.biorxiv.org
April 21, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
It has been a while since I advertised some of the tools we have released to help researchers analyze the zebrafish genome. So a brief Bluetorial on our zebrafish genomics UCSC public data hub and the bigger effort led by @ferencmueller.bsky.social to create a zebrafish ENCODE project (Danio-CODE):
April 15, 2025 at 4:54 PM
So much joy: my incredible undergrad Marlyn Li from @schoppik.com’s lab is a Goldwater Scholar!!! Check out her profile here 👇 and keep an eye out — she’s applying for MD-PhD programs soon 👀

as.nyu.edu/features/imp...

#zebrafish #devbio 🧠
Goldwater Scholar 2025
as.nyu.edu
April 4, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
Stepwise photobleaching of the economy
April 4, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Dena Goldblatt
3/3

We are looking for a lab technician, a lab manager and researchers to join us in this new chapter. Read the post here: portugueslab.com/the-lab-is-h...
Reach out to us if you are interested.
portugueslab.com
April 2, 2025 at 1:02 PM