Navin B. Ramakrishna
@navinbr.bsky.social
Sr Research Fellow, Jay Shin Lab, Genome Inst Singapore. Collab Bruno Reversade Lab
PhD Eric Miska & Azim Surani Labs, Gurdon Inst, Cambridge
Biochem Grad, Oxford
PhD Eric Miska & Azim Surani Labs, Gurdon Inst, Cambridge
Biochem Grad, Oxford
Pinned
Navin B. Ramakrishna
@navinbr.bsky.social
· Sep 15
Schematics of our increasing knowledge of in vivo human primordial germ cell development, and a summary of the exciting hPGCLC maturation protocols:
@dev-journal.bsky.social @biologists.bsky.social
@dev-journal.bsky.social @biologists.bsky.social
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
🚨Reposts appreciated‼️If I had read this PhD offer five years ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated for a second to apply 😉
Passionate about gene regulation, chromatin, and developmental biology? Just contact @radaiglesiaslab.bsky.social at @ibbtec.bsky.social 🧬✨
#PhD #3DGenome
Passionate about gene regulation, chromatin, and developmental biology? Just contact @radaiglesiaslab.bsky.social at @ibbtec.bsky.social 🧬✨
#PhD #3DGenome
November 15, 2025 at 9:53 AM
🚨Reposts appreciated‼️If I had read this PhD offer five years ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated for a second to apply 😉
Passionate about gene regulation, chromatin, and developmental biology? Just contact @radaiglesiaslab.bsky.social at @ibbtec.bsky.social 🧬✨
#PhD #3DGenome
Passionate about gene regulation, chromatin, and developmental biology? Just contact @radaiglesiaslab.bsky.social at @ibbtec.bsky.social 🧬✨
#PhD #3DGenome
Research Highlight: Mouse In vitro oogenesis breaks free of the ovary www.cell.com/developmenta... @cp-devcell.bsky.social
In vitro oogenesis breaks free of the ovary
In this issue of Developmental Cell, Nosaka et al. differentiate mouse pluripotent
stem cells to large germinal vesicle-stage oocyte-like cells in the absence of ovarian
somatic cells. Their paradigm ...
www.cell.com
November 9, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Research Highlight: Mouse In vitro oogenesis breaks free of the ovary www.cell.com/developmenta... @cp-devcell.bsky.social
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
Learn more in the open access Nature Genetics paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Complete genome assemblies of two mouse subspecies reveal structural diversity of telomeres and centromeres - Nature Genetics
Telomere-to-telomere assemblies of two mouse inbred strains, C57BL/6J and CAST/EiJ, offer improvements over the current mouse reference genome by adding telomere and centromere sequences that lead to ...
www.nature.com
October 27, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Learn more in the open access Nature Genetics paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
We are recuiting two new Associate Professors here in Oxford Biochemistry. Come join us! Reach out to me if you have any questions. Please repost! tinyurl.com/mr3m7bd3
October 17, 2025 at 2:56 PM
We are recuiting two new Associate Professors here in Oxford Biochemistry. Come join us! Reach out to me if you have any questions. Please repost! tinyurl.com/mr3m7bd3
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
A TE insertion controls throat colour in wheatears. The gene involved (ASIP) is the same one that is epigenetically affected by an IAP insertion the famous Avy mice.
As if we needed more reasons to love TEs.
As if we needed more reasons to love TEs.
A mosaic of modular variation at a single gene underpins convergent plumage coloration
The reshuffling of genomic variation from multiple origins is an important contributor to phenotypic diversification, yet insights into the evolutionary trajectories of this combinatorial process and ...
www.science.org
October 17, 2025 at 11:43 AM
A TE insertion controls throat colour in wheatears. The gene involved (ASIP) is the same one that is epigenetically affected by an IAP insertion the famous Avy mice.
As if we needed more reasons to love TEs.
As if we needed more reasons to love TEs.
The quest to make babies with lab-grown eggs and sperm.
An excellent news feature by Nature: tempered optimism, with critical caveats underscored. And great to see commentary from so many names in the field! www.nature.com/articles/d41...
An excellent news feature by Nature: tempered optimism, with critical caveats underscored. And great to see commentary from so many names in the field! www.nature.com/articles/d41...
The quest to make babies with lab-grown eggs and sperm
Sex cells made from scratch could revolutionize human reproduction. But researchers are struggling to translate promising results in mice into benefits for humans.
www.nature.com
October 16, 2025 at 3:52 PM
The quest to make babies with lab-grown eggs and sperm.
An excellent news feature by Nature: tempered optimism, with critical caveats underscored. And great to see commentary from so many names in the field! www.nature.com/articles/d41...
An excellent news feature by Nature: tempered optimism, with critical caveats underscored. And great to see commentary from so many names in the field! www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
The 'Handler genome' of OSCs, a rare and stably growing cell line that runs a piRNA pathway to silence transposons.
Dominik (@86dominik.bsky.social) assembled the genome of this Drosophila cell line.
Besides making some cool findings, the goal was to turn this into useful resource for the field.
Dominik (@86dominik.bsky.social) assembled the genome of this Drosophila cell line.
Besides making some cool findings, the goal was to turn this into useful resource for the field.
When transposons jump, genomes diverge - even in cultured cells.
I am happy to share our new preprint: a chromosome-scale genome assembly for Drosophila OSC cells, one of the key model systems in the piRNA field, especially for nuclear piRNA biology. 🧬🧵 (1/12)
I am happy to share our new preprint: a chromosome-scale genome assembly for Drosophila OSC cells, one of the key model systems in the piRNA field, especially for nuclear piRNA biology. 🧬🧵 (1/12)
October 15, 2025 at 12:18 PM
The 'Handler genome' of OSCs, a rare and stably growing cell line that runs a piRNA pathway to silence transposons.
Dominik (@86dominik.bsky.social) assembled the genome of this Drosophila cell line.
Besides making some cool findings, the goal was to turn this into useful resource for the field.
Dominik (@86dominik.bsky.social) assembled the genome of this Drosophila cell line.
Besides making some cool findings, the goal was to turn this into useful resource for the field.
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
Read ‘Sperm sequencing reveals extensive positive selection in the male germline’ from @sangerinstitute.bsky.social and collaborators in @nature.com below:
nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com/articles/s41...
Sperm sequencing reveals extensive positive selection in the male germline - Nature
A combination of whole-genome NanoSeq with deep whole-exome and targeted NanoSeq is used to accurately characterize mutation rates and genes under positive selection in sperm cells.
nature.com
October 8, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Read ‘Sperm sequencing reveals extensive positive selection in the male germline’ from @sangerinstitute.bsky.social and collaborators in @nature.com below:
nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
It is with great sadness that we share the news of the death of our founder, colleague, mentor and friend, Professor Sir John Gurdon. His vision and dedication will continue to inspire generations of scientists.
🔗 www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/nobel-laurea...
🔗 www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/nobel-laurea...
October 8, 2025 at 1:15 PM
It is with great sadness that we share the news of the death of our founder, colleague, mentor and friend, Professor Sir John Gurdon. His vision and dedication will continue to inspire generations of scientists.
🔗 www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/nobel-laurea...
🔗 www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/nobel-laurea...
Sad to hear this. John was a brilliant scientist and also someone who engaged with everyone personally & as equals, especially young scientists and students. www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...
Nobel Laureate Professor Sir John Gurdon dies aged 92
It is with great sadness that the University shares the news of the death of Professor Sir John Gurdon, founder of the Gurdon Institute.
www.cam.ac.uk
October 7, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Sad to hear this. John was a brilliant scientist and also someone who engaged with everyone personally & as equals, especially young scientists and students. www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
So sad to hear the news - John truly was an inspiration to so many, and one of a kind.
www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...
www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...
Nobel Laureate Professor Sir John Gurdon dies aged 92
It is with great sadness that the University shares the news of the death of Professor Sir John Gurdon, founder of the Gurdon Institute.
www.cam.ac.uk
October 7, 2025 at 4:02 PM
So sad to hear the news - John truly was an inspiration to so many, and one of a kind.
www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...
www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...
Very candid responses from Azim Surani here on his initially turbulent scientific journey, & accounts of genomic imprinting and the pioneering of mammalian scRNA-seq. Great to see this put together by Ashley Moffett & @geraldinejowett.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...
An interview with Azim Surani
Professor Azim Surani is the Director of Epigenomics and Germline Imprinting at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, UK. He is this year's recipient of both the prestigious Kyoto Prize and the Paul Ehrl...
journals.biologists.com
October 3, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Very candid responses from Azim Surani here on his initially turbulent scientific journey, & accounts of genomic imprinting and the pioneering of mammalian scRNA-seq. Great to see this put together by Ashley Moffett & @geraldinejowett.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
Today in @nature.com, we present our work leveraging functional genomics and human blastoids to uncover a human-specific mechanism in preimplantation development driven by the endogenous retrovirus HERVK.
Special thanks to the reviewers whose comments improved our manuscript a lot! rdcu.be/eI3tD
Special thanks to the reviewers whose comments improved our manuscript a lot! rdcu.be/eI3tD
A human-specific regulatory mechanism revealed in a pre-implantation model
Nature - Genetic manipulation of blastoids reveals the role of recently emerged transposable elements and genes in human development.
rdcu.be
October 1, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Today in @nature.com, we present our work leveraging functional genomics and human blastoids to uncover a human-specific mechanism in preimplantation development driven by the endogenous retrovirus HERVK.
Special thanks to the reviewers whose comments improved our manuscript a lot! rdcu.be/eI3tD
Special thanks to the reviewers whose comments improved our manuscript a lot! rdcu.be/eI3tD
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
Excited to share our latest News & Views published in Nature! @nature.com
rdcu.be/eI2NJ
Sherif Khodeer and I discuss how stem cell-based embryo models provide evidence that viral DNA sequences that entered the human genome in the past were repurposed to aid early stages of embryonic development.
rdcu.be/eI2NJ
Sherif Khodeer and I discuss how stem cell-based embryo models provide evidence that viral DNA sequences that entered the human genome in the past were repurposed to aid early stages of embryonic development.
October 1, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Excited to share our latest News & Views published in Nature! @nature.com
rdcu.be/eI2NJ
Sherif Khodeer and I discuss how stem cell-based embryo models provide evidence that viral DNA sequences that entered the human genome in the past were repurposed to aid early stages of embryonic development.
rdcu.be/eI2NJ
Sherif Khodeer and I discuss how stem cell-based embryo models provide evidence that viral DNA sequences that entered the human genome in the past were repurposed to aid early stages of embryonic development.
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
I do think this human egg story is being massively overhyped. To be clear, no eggs have been "generated", "created" or "made" from human skin cells - rather, existing human eggs have been given the DNA from skin cells using a kind of cloning 1/
September 30, 2025 at 4:45 PM
I do think this human egg story is being massively overhyped. To be clear, no eggs have been "generated", "created" or "made" from human skin cells - rather, existing human eggs have been given the DNA from skin cells using a kind of cloning 1/
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
Embryonic signatures of intergenerational epigenetic inheritance across paternal environment & genetic background
@jamiehackett.bsky.social et al @embl.org see transcriptome changes in offspring after fertilisation by fathers exposed to gut dysbiosis or western diet
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
@jamiehackett.bsky.social et al @embl.org see transcriptome changes in offspring after fertilisation by fathers exposed to gut dysbiosis or western diet
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
September 29, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Embryonic signatures of intergenerational epigenetic inheritance across paternal environment & genetic background
@jamiehackett.bsky.social et al @embl.org see transcriptome changes in offspring after fertilisation by fathers exposed to gut dysbiosis or western diet
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
@jamiehackett.bsky.social et al @embl.org see transcriptome changes in offspring after fertilisation by fathers exposed to gut dysbiosis or western diet
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
New paper from my lab and @jshendure.bsky.social lab! Led by the brilliant @zukailiu.bsky.social and @cxqiu.bsky.social. We tackled how anterior and posterior progenitor cells cooperate to self-organize into an embryonic structure (termed AP-gastruloid). (1/n) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 26, 2025 at 6:06 PM
New paper from my lab and @jshendure.bsky.social lab! Led by the brilliant @zukailiu.bsky.social and @cxqiu.bsky.social. We tackled how anterior and posterior progenitor cells cooperate to self-organize into an embryonic structure (termed AP-gastruloid). (1/n) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
In vitro fertilisation (IVF) pioneer Bob Edwards was born 100 years ago today. Learn more about how his legacy has contributed to both assisted reproductive technologies (ART) and developmental biology in this Primer by Martin Johnson
doi.org/10.1242/dev....
doi.org/10.1242/dev....
September 26, 2025 at 11:51 AM
In vitro fertilisation (IVF) pioneer Bob Edwards was born 100 years ago today. Learn more about how his legacy has contributed to both assisted reproductive technologies (ART) and developmental biology in this Primer by Martin Johnson
doi.org/10.1242/dev....
doi.org/10.1242/dev....
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
This year @ericmiska.bsky.social lab celebrates 20 years of science! 🥳We marked the occasion with a wonderful gathering of past and present members, sharing memories, discoveries, and friendships. Here’s to the next 20 years of breakthroughs and collaboration🥂 @cambiochem.bsky.social
September 22, 2025 at 4:31 PM
This year @ericmiska.bsky.social lab celebrates 20 years of science! 🥳We marked the occasion with a wonderful gathering of past and present members, sharing memories, discoveries, and friendships. Here’s to the next 20 years of breakthroughs and collaboration🥂 @cambiochem.bsky.social
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
Our study on the role of LTR5HS and SVAs in regulation of human neural crest migration is now published as peer-reviewed paper on @molsystbiol.org!
Congrats to first author brilliant postdoc Laura Deelen, and all the authors involved! @imperialsci.bsky.social
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
Congrats to first author brilliant postdoc Laura Deelen, and all the authors involved! @imperialsci.bsky.social
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
September 22, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Our study on the role of LTR5HS and SVAs in regulation of human neural crest migration is now published as peer-reviewed paper on @molsystbiol.org!
Congrats to first author brilliant postdoc Laura Deelen, and all the authors involved! @imperialsci.bsky.social
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
Congrats to first author brilliant postdoc Laura Deelen, and all the authors involved! @imperialsci.bsky.social
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
✨Exciting news: the main story of my PhD is out in Science!
Together with Christine Moene @cmoene.bsky.social, we explored what happens when you scramble the genome—revealing how Sox2’s position shapes enhancer activation.
📖 Read the full story here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Together with Christine Moene @cmoene.bsky.social, we explored what happens when you scramble the genome—revealing how Sox2’s position shapes enhancer activation.
📖 Read the full story here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Functional maps of a genomic locus reveal confinement of an enhancer by its target gene
Genes are often activated by enhancers located at large genomic distances, and the importance of this positioning is poorly understood. By relocating promoter-reporter constructs into thousands of alt...
www.science.org
September 19, 2025 at 2:09 PM
✨Exciting news: the main story of my PhD is out in Science!
Together with Christine Moene @cmoene.bsky.social, we explored what happens when you scramble the genome—revealing how Sox2’s position shapes enhancer activation.
📖 Read the full story here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Together with Christine Moene @cmoene.bsky.social, we explored what happens when you scramble the genome—revealing how Sox2’s position shapes enhancer activation.
📖 Read the full story here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
Thrilled to share that our Group Leader Prof. Azim Surani, together with Prof. Davor Solter, has been awarded the 2026 Paul Ehrlich & Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize 🎉 for discovering genomic imprinting—a breakthrough that reshaped genetics and launched modern epigenetics.
September 18, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Thrilled to share that our Group Leader Prof. Azim Surani, together with Prof. Davor Solter, has been awarded the 2026 Paul Ehrlich & Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize 🎉 for discovering genomic imprinting—a breakthrough that reshaped genetics and launched modern epigenetics.
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
Functional maps of a genomic locus reveal confinement of an enhancer by its target gene by the @basvansteensellab.bsky.social
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Functional maps of a genomic locus reveal confinement of an enhancer by its target gene
Genes are often activated by enhancers located at large genomic distances, and the importance of this positioning is poorly understood. By relocating promoter-reporter constructs into thousands of alt...
www.science.org
September 19, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Functional maps of a genomic locus reveal confinement of an enhancer by its target gene by the @basvansteensellab.bsky.social
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Navin B. Ramakrishna
PIWI clade Argonautes are essential for transposon silencing. Without them, animals are sterile due to massive transposon activity.
But how does piRNA-guided target interaction translate into silencing?
PhD student Júlia Portell Montserrat has an intriguing answer
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
But how does piRNA-guided target interaction translate into silencing?
PhD student Júlia Portell Montserrat has an intriguing answer
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
September 17, 2025 at 10:39 AM
PIWI clade Argonautes are essential for transposon silencing. Without them, animals are sterile due to massive transposon activity.
But how does piRNA-guided target interaction translate into silencing?
PhD student Júlia Portell Montserrat has an intriguing answer
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
But how does piRNA-guided target interaction translate into silencing?
PhD student Júlia Portell Montserrat has an intriguing answer
www.cell.com/molecular-ce...