Janna Fierst
@jannafierst.bsky.social
Associate Professor at Florida International University
Hold the line
Hold the line
Reposted by Janna Fierst
Investigating the differential microRNAs expression in young and aged Drosophila melanogaster following Flock House Virus infection www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
New paper! Congrats to all authors! @jannafierst.bsky.social
New paper! Congrats to all authors! @jannafierst.bsky.social
Investigating the differential microRNAs expression in young and aged Drosophila melanogaster following Flock House Virus infection
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs ~ 19–22 nt long that post-transcriptionally regulate their mRNA targets. In Drosophila melanogaster, the role of miRNAs has mostly been studied in regar...
www.tandfonline.com
August 25, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Investigating the differential microRNAs expression in young and aged Drosophila melanogaster following Flock House Virus infection www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
New paper! Congrats to all authors! @jannafierst.bsky.social
New paper! Congrats to all authors! @jannafierst.bsky.social
Reposted by Janna Fierst
This surprisingly relaxing footage is from SIX MILES under the ocean – and it’s the deepest ecosystem yet discovered
July 31, 2025 at 3:38 PM
This surprisingly relaxing footage is from SIX MILES under the ocean – and it’s the deepest ecosystem yet discovered
Reposted by Janna Fierst
I used inducible CRISPR/Cas9 to make Trypanosoma brucei cell line that allowed me to edit originally muti-copy histone gene. We uncovered a novel role of H4 histone tail in gene regulation. I enjoyed working on this exciting project with @joanarcf.bsky.social, a great mentor.
doi.org/10.1038/s414...
doi.org/10.1038/s414...
Precision-edited histone tails disrupt polycistronic gene expression controls in trypanosomes - Nature Communications
Transcription in trypanosomatids, such as Trypanosoma brucei, is predominantly polycistronic and involves unconventional RNA polymerase II promoters. This study uses precision gene editing, site-satur...
www.nature.com
July 6, 2025 at 3:36 PM
I used inducible CRISPR/Cas9 to make Trypanosoma brucei cell line that allowed me to edit originally muti-copy histone gene. We uncovered a novel role of H4 histone tail in gene regulation. I enjoyed working on this exciting project with @joanarcf.bsky.social, a great mentor.
doi.org/10.1038/s414...
doi.org/10.1038/s414...
Reposted by Janna Fierst
Excited to contribute to the Mitoribosome collaborative study led by @wredenberglab.bsky.social in @natcomms.nature.com🎉 "The mitochondrial methylation potential gates mitoribosome assembly"
The assembly starts before the completion of the rRNA gene cluster processing🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The assembly starts before the completion of the rRNA gene cluster processing🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
June 30, 2025 at 4:22 AM
Excited to contribute to the Mitoribosome collaborative study led by @wredenberglab.bsky.social in @natcomms.nature.com🎉 "The mitochondrial methylation potential gates mitoribosome assembly"
The assembly starts before the completion of the rRNA gene cluster processing🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The assembly starts before the completion of the rRNA gene cluster processing🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Janna Fierst
Delighted to post some cool science - a collaboration with my former grad students Cassandre and Jill, and collaborator extraordinaire @erynmcfarlane.bsky.social!
doi.org/10.1093/jher...
doi.org/10.1093/jher...
A novel sex-associated genomic region in Catostomus fish species
Abstract. Genomic regions that influence sex are hypothesized to play a key role in evolutionary diversification, as sex determination mechanisms may promo
doi.org
June 30, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Delighted to post some cool science - a collaboration with my former grad students Cassandre and Jill, and collaborator extraordinaire @erynmcfarlane.bsky.social!
doi.org/10.1093/jher...
doi.org/10.1093/jher...
Reposted by Janna Fierst
My quote of the day
I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I'm an idiot.
Steven Wright
I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I'm an idiot.
Steven Wright
June 21, 2025 at 10:23 AM
My quote of the day
I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I'm an idiot.
Steven Wright
I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I'm an idiot.
Steven Wright
Reposted by Janna Fierst
Despite all that is going on, we are still all working on our science. Our 2nd collaboration with @jisaacmurray.bsky.social and Bob Waterston (UW) is out:
Lineage-resolved analysis of embryonic gene expression evolution in C. elegans and C. briggsae | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Lineage-resolved analysis of embryonic gene expression evolution in C. elegans and C. briggsae | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Lineage-resolved analysis of embryonic gene expression evolution in C. elegans and C. briggsae
The constraints that govern the evolution of gene expression patterns across development remain unclear. Single-cell RNA sequencing can detail these constraints by systematically profiling homologous ...
www.science.org
June 20, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Despite all that is going on, we are still all working on our science. Our 2nd collaboration with @jisaacmurray.bsky.social and Bob Waterston (UW) is out:
Lineage-resolved analysis of embryonic gene expression evolution in C. elegans and C. briggsae | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Lineage-resolved analysis of embryonic gene expression evolution in C. elegans and C. briggsae | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Janna Fierst
Very happy (and frankly relieved) to see this paper finally out in peer-reviewed form. (Preprint was posted in August 2021, but this is the world we live in now). rdcu.be/erMk6
Crossover patterning through condensation and coarsening of pro-crossover factors
Nature Cell Biology - Zhang et al. provide evidence that, during meiosis, recombination proteins assemble into active droplets, the coarsening of which partially explains the phenomenon of...
rdcu.be
June 19, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Very happy (and frankly relieved) to see this paper finally out in peer-reviewed form. (Preprint was posted in August 2021, but this is the world we live in now). rdcu.be/erMk6
Reposted by Janna Fierst
🚨📢 New paper alert!
A study led by Kirsten Senti and Julius Brennecke offers new insights into how ancient endogenous retroviruses diversified to exploit different cell “niches” in the fruit fly ovary, and how the host’s defenses adapted in return. https://imba.science/Brennecke_EMBOJ
A study led by Kirsten Senti and Julius Brennecke offers new insights into how ancient endogenous retroviruses diversified to exploit different cell “niches” in the fruit fly ovary, and how the host’s defenses adapted in return. https://imba.science/Brennecke_EMBOJ
June 16, 2025 at 9:40 AM
🚨📢 New paper alert!
A study led by Kirsten Senti and Julius Brennecke offers new insights into how ancient endogenous retroviruses diversified to exploit different cell “niches” in the fruit fly ovary, and how the host’s defenses adapted in return. https://imba.science/Brennecke_EMBOJ
A study led by Kirsten Senti and Julius Brennecke offers new insights into how ancient endogenous retroviruses diversified to exploit different cell “niches” in the fruit fly ovary, and how the host’s defenses adapted in return. https://imba.science/Brennecke_EMBOJ
Reposted by Janna Fierst
Nematode towers that you can get to grow in lab using C. elegans. Maybe a new, tractable model system for studying self-organization in the lab. 🧪
"Towering behavior and collective dispersal in Caenorhabditis nematodes"
by Perez et al. (2025, Current Biology)
www.cell.com/current-biol...
"Towering behavior and collective dispersal in Caenorhabditis nematodes"
by Perez et al. (2025, Current Biology)
www.cell.com/current-biol...
Towering behavior and collective dispersal in Caenorhabditis nematodes
Perez et al. report that self-assembling nematode towers occur in nature and can function
as collective dispersal structures. Using Caenorhabditis elegans, they establish a
tractable empirical model t...
www.cell.com
June 15, 2025 at 6:49 AM
Nematode towers that you can get to grow in lab using C. elegans. Maybe a new, tractable model system for studying self-organization in the lab. 🧪
"Towering behavior and collective dispersal in Caenorhabditis nematodes"
by Perez et al. (2025, Current Biology)
www.cell.com/current-biol...
"Towering behavior and collective dispersal in Caenorhabditis nematodes"
by Perez et al. (2025, Current Biology)
www.cell.com/current-biol...
Reposted by Janna Fierst
Great work by Changde Du from Huiguang He's lab at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. How similar are visual and conceptual representations in (multimodal) large language models to those found in humans? It turns out quite similar!
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Human-like object concept representations emerge naturally in multimodal large language models - Nature Machine Intelligence
Multimodal large language models are shown to develop object concept representations similar to those of humans. These representations closely align with neural activity in brain regions involved in o...
www.nature.com
June 10, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Great work by Changde Du from Huiguang He's lab at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. How similar are visual and conceptual representations in (multimodal) large language models to those found in humans? It turns out quite similar!
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
It won’t last long but for the first time since November 26 I have no outstanding grant or manuscript reviews 🥳
June 10, 2025 at 4:12 PM
It won’t last long but for the first time since November 26 I have no outstanding grant or manuscript reviews 🥳
This is our cultural revolution and in many ways it’s already done.
The administration’s budget proposal is a disaster in so many ways, but it is most certainly a direct assault on US science.
Nothing like it has ever been seen before, and it means that we will have voluntarily stepped aside from a leading role in the scientific progress of the entire human race.
Nothing like it has ever been seen before, and it means that we will have voluntarily stepped aside from a leading role in the scientific progress of the entire human race.
The Continuing Crisis, Part XV: The Horrendous Trump Budget
www.science.org
June 4, 2025 at 6:33 PM
This is our cultural revolution and in many ways it’s already done.
Reposted by Janna Fierst
1/5 We introduce Movi Color, led by Steven Tan (a brilliant undergrad member of Langmead lab) for taxonomic and multi-class classification. It uses a full-text index based on the move structure and does not rely on predefined values (like k-mer length) for index building.
github.com/mohsenzakeri...
github.com/mohsenzakeri...
May 29, 2025 at 2:36 PM
1/5 We introduce Movi Color, led by Steven Tan (a brilliant undergrad member of Langmead lab) for taxonomic and multi-class classification. It uses a full-text index based on the move structure and does not rely on predefined values (like k-mer length) for index building.
github.com/mohsenzakeri...
github.com/mohsenzakeri...
Reposted by Janna Fierst
OUT NOW:
Structural insights into light harvesting by antenna-containing rhodopsins in marine #Asgard #archaea
@bejalab.bsky.social @labinoue.bsky.social
#microsky 🦠🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Structural insights into light harvesting by antenna-containing rhodopsins in marine #Asgard #archaea
@bejalab.bsky.social @labinoue.bsky.social
#microsky 🦠🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Structural insights into light harvesting by antenna-containing rhodopsins in marine Asgard archaea - Nature Microbiology
Uncultured open-ocean Asgard archaea can harvest light energy using rhodopsins and diverse hydroxylated carotenoid antennas.
www.nature.com
May 29, 2025 at 4:36 PM
OUT NOW:
Structural insights into light harvesting by antenna-containing rhodopsins in marine #Asgard #archaea
@bejalab.bsky.social @labinoue.bsky.social
#microsky 🦠🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Structural insights into light harvesting by antenna-containing rhodopsins in marine #Asgard #archaea
@bejalab.bsky.social @labinoue.bsky.social
#microsky 🦠🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Janna Fierst
Your regular reminder about why you should publish in @jevbio.bsky.social:
Why publish in JEB?
✅ Society-owned and not-for-profit model
✅ Dedicated submission support - in-house Managing Editor
✅ Range of article types
✅ Modern Open Science policies - our own Data Editor
✅ Large editorial board with wide-range of expertise
#societyjournal @eseb.bsky.social
✅ Society-owned and not-for-profit model
✅ Dedicated submission support - in-house Managing Editor
✅ Range of article types
✅ Modern Open Science policies - our own Data Editor
✅ Large editorial board with wide-range of expertise
#societyjournal @eseb.bsky.social
May 29, 2025 at 8:07 AM
Your regular reminder about why you should publish in @jevbio.bsky.social:
Reposted by Janna Fierst
My ongoing request:
If your NSF or NIH grant was terminated--whether at Harvard or elsewhere--please report it here.
NSF: grant-watch.us/submit-nsf.h...
NIH: grant-watch.us/submit-nih.h...
Our trackers are actively used in lawsuits and are often the only record that terminations ever occurred.
If your NSF or NIH grant was terminated--whether at Harvard or elsewhere--please report it here.
NSF: grant-watch.us/submit-nsf.h...
NIH: grant-watch.us/submit-nih.h...
Our trackers are actively used in lawsuits and are often the only record that terminations ever occurred.
NSF appears to be terminating hundreds of its grants to Harvard, per internal sources at NSF and at Harvard. At least one division has had all its grants cut.
May 14, 2025 at 2:22 PM
My ongoing request:
If your NSF or NIH grant was terminated--whether at Harvard or elsewhere--please report it here.
NSF: grant-watch.us/submit-nsf.h...
NIH: grant-watch.us/submit-nih.h...
Our trackers are actively used in lawsuits and are often the only record that terminations ever occurred.
If your NSF or NIH grant was terminated--whether at Harvard or elsewhere--please report it here.
NSF: grant-watch.us/submit-nsf.h...
NIH: grant-watch.us/submit-nih.h...
Our trackers are actively used in lawsuits and are often the only record that terminations ever occurred.
Reposted by Janna Fierst
Reposted by Janna Fierst
In this new publication, we took #archaea for a walk in the chemical garden 😉. The abiotic hydrogen produced in this setting can fuel M. jannaschii’s metabolism. Great interdisciplinary collaboration with the Orsi lab who initiated and led this study. More here www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Simulated early Earth geochemistry fuels a hydrogen-dependent primordial metabolism - Nature Ecology & Evolution
In an iron-sulfide chemical garden experiment that mimics the kind of hydrothermal vents that might have occurred in the early Archaean, mackinawite and greigite are precipitated and abiotic H2 is pro...
www.nature.com
May 1, 2025 at 8:50 AM
In this new publication, we took #archaea for a walk in the chemical garden 😉. The abiotic hydrogen produced in this setting can fuel M. jannaschii’s metabolism. Great interdisciplinary collaboration with the Orsi lab who initiated and led this study. More here www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Janna Fierst
🙏 We need your help 🙏
The government continues to cancel grants at both NIH and NSF to censor science it doesn't like.
We're tracking terminations to organize and advocate. Please report your terminated grants:
NIH:
forms.gle/J2znQ7y7YpeP...
NSF: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...
w/ @noamross.net
The government continues to cancel grants at both NIH and NSF to censor science it doesn't like.
We're tracking terminations to organize and advocate. Please report your terminated grants:
NIH:
forms.gle/J2znQ7y7YpeP...
NSF: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...
w/ @noamross.net
April 19, 2025 at 1:25 AM
🙏 We need your help 🙏
The government continues to cancel grants at both NIH and NSF to censor science it doesn't like.
We're tracking terminations to organize and advocate. Please report your terminated grants:
NIH:
forms.gle/J2znQ7y7YpeP...
NSF: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...
w/ @noamross.net
The government continues to cancel grants at both NIH and NSF to censor science it doesn't like.
We're tracking terminations to organize and advocate. Please report your terminated grants:
NIH:
forms.gle/J2znQ7y7YpeP...
NSF: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...
w/ @noamross.net
Reposted by Janna Fierst
There's been credible info of intent to delete National Science Foundation (NSF) awards from Research.gov databases during planned downtime, so I grabbed all awards from 1960 to present and uploaded them to a free and open research repository. Please share!
dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...
dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...
April 25, 2025 at 4:30 PM
There's been credible info of intent to delete National Science Foundation (NSF) awards from Research.gov databases during planned downtime, so I grabbed all awards from 1960 to present and uploaded them to a free and open research repository. Please share!
dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...
dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...
Reposted by Janna Fierst
Our study exploring the evolutionary mechanism of alphavirus opal codon retention is now online! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A conserved opal termination codon optimizes a temperature-dependent trade-off between protein production and processing in alphaviruses
Alphaviruses optimize viral polymerase production and polyprotein processing at distinct temperatures via a premature stop codon.
www.science.org
April 18, 2025 at 10:43 PM
Our study exploring the evolutionary mechanism of alphavirus opal codon retention is now online! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Janna Fierst
“Failure to object, when it is your duty to object, makes cowards of men.” —Abraham Lincoln
March 27, 2025 at 5:01 PM
“Failure to object, when it is your duty to object, makes cowards of men.” —Abraham Lincoln
Reposted by Janna Fierst
Proud of this work, led by the amazing Jeannette Tenthorey (now Assistant Professor at UCSF), demonstrating the adaptive power of single indel mutations in host-virus arms races, but a little sad that this is the coda to her amazing postdoc in the Malik & Emerman labs.
www.cell.com/cell-genomic...
www.cell.com/cell-genomic...
Indels allow antiviral proteins to evolve functional novelty inaccessible by missense mutations
Tenthorey et al. compare the effects of missense and indel mutations on the acquisition
of functional novelty by the rapidly evolving antiviral protein TRIM5α. They find
that single indel mutations al...
www.cell.com
March 27, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Proud of this work, led by the amazing Jeannette Tenthorey (now Assistant Professor at UCSF), demonstrating the adaptive power of single indel mutations in host-virus arms races, but a little sad that this is the coda to her amazing postdoc in the Malik & Emerman labs.
www.cell.com/cell-genomic...
www.cell.com/cell-genomic...