Jonathan Watts
jwattsgroup.bsky.social
Jonathan Watts
@jwattsgroup.bsky.social

Nucleic acid chemistry and RNA therapeutics at UMass Chan Medical School.

Public Health 37%
Medicine 13%

Reposted by Jonathan Watts

Hot off the press from the RTI: TDP-43-dependent mis-splicing of KCNQ2 triggers intrinsic neuronal hyperexcitability in ALS/FTD
buff.ly/X23QYQI #RNA #RNATherapeutics
TDP-43-dependent mis-splicing of KCNQ2 triggers intrinsic neuronal hyperexcitability in ALS/FTD - PubMed
Motor neuron hyperexcitability is a broadly observed yet poorly understood feature of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Nuclear depletion and cytoplasmic aggregation...
buff.ly

Reposted by Jonathan Watts

Would you like to see @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social add a share to blue sky button?! I know I would! Share this post to let @richardsever.bsky.social @erictopol.bsky.social and others at bioarxiv know!

Hey, senior PhD students working on RNA and moving toward leading independent labs: Apply for the Maraganore Early Independence Fellow program at the UMass Chan RNA Therapeutics Institute and come work with us! www.linkedin.com/posts/angela...
Angela Messmer-Blust on LinkedIn: #diversityinstem #underrepresentedinscience #rnabiology…
I am unbelievably excited and proud to launch the RNA Therapeutic Institute's new Maraganore Early Independence Fellows Program at UMass Chan Medical School…
www.linkedin.com

Reposted by Jonathan Watts

Since BlueSky now supports video, here is one of my favourite phone videos. It's a Little Owl that I met at the Hawk Conservancy Trust a year ago. I knew that owls have startling head stabilization, but I'd never been the one generating the instability. The owl didn't seem to mind.

Reposted by Jonathan Watts

I get excited whenever the carbon intensity of the UK electricity grid is below ~100g of CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity.

The 2023 average was 162g gCO2/kWh

But just look at this figure - in 2009 it was regularly ~600. We ARE making big changes. Hooray!

Source: tinyurl.com/48dwzz33

Reposted by Jonathan Watts

This needed to be on chemsky

In the latest paper from senior PhD student Samantha Sarli, we compare the activity profile of conjugated and unconjugated ASO and siRNA conjugates in glioblastoma xenograft tumors in vivo. Amphiphilic lipids help drive safe uptake! Online now at NAR: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...
Quantifying the activity profile of ASO and siRNA conjugates in glioblastoma xenograft tumors in vivo
Abstract. Glioblastoma multiforme is a universally lethal brain tumor that largely resists current surgical and drug interventions. Despite important advan
academic.oup.com

Watts lab research was selected to compete in STAT Madness again this year! This time the featured research is our collaboration with Joel Richter's lab, building on their key insight that splice-switching ASOs may be therapeutic for Fragile X. Vote here: www.statnews.com/feature/stat...
Vote now in STAT Madness 2024
Welcome to STAT Madness, a bracket-style contest to find the best innovation in science and medicine. Pick your favorites. Help us crown a champ!
www.statnews.com

Then, in the CRISPR Journal, working also with Wen Xue's lab, we describe a new fluorescent reporter mouse that's compatible with nuclease and prime editing using multiple PAM variants and Cas enzymes. doi.org/10.1089/cris...
doi.org

Our two latest genome editing papers published yesterday, both joint with the Sontheimer Lab. In GEN Biotech, we demonstrated the first LNP-mediated in vivo prime editing. Unsurprisingly, pegRNA chemistry was important for efficacy! doi.org/10.1089/genb...
doi.org

Reposted by Jonathan Watts

Lol I accidentally posted this on Twitter not here. And used the #Chemsky tag. 🧪🤭 A silly

So many emotions. On the one hand, I'm so glad that the publishers of my fifth-grader's math textbook decided that chemistry was the best example of "modeling real life" to put on the cover of their book. But could they not have talked to an actual chemist about the nature of bonds in NaCl first?

This has to be one of the best interviews I've read... contains 100% of recommended daily dose of tenacity, humor, realism, grit, and encouragement. endpts.com/qa-nobel-pri...

Thanks for the invite and shoutout, Mike. Now can somebody get Oded Rechavi to join so we can all have a constant stream of ridiculously good science memes over here?