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orrlaboratory.bsky.social
Orr laboratory
@orrlaboratory.bsky.social
Studying dementia, astrocytes, neurotherapeutics. Pursuing audacious team-based neuroscience and helping the next generation achieve their highest potential. Lab website: https://www.orrlaboratory.com/
Pinned
Thrilled to publish our new study on #mitochondrial ROS coming from complex III, revealing this key site in #astrocytes 🎯as a crucial immunometabolic signal transducer🤯 and potential therapeutic target for #dementia #FTD 💊 rdcu.be/eOc0m 👈💪 Great commentary by H. Pan and F. Yin🤩! tinyurl.com/4hdytw4c
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Pre-long weekend story:

Multiyear funding for NIH grants has become a sticking point in negotiating HHS’s appropriations package for 2026

www.statnews.com/2026/01/16/n...
Limit on multiyear funding of NIH grants is a sticking point in Senate budget talks
A clause limiting the use of multiyear NIH grant funding has become a sticking point as the Senate appropriations panel finalizes the HHS spending bill
www.statnews.com
January 17, 2026 at 12:02 AM
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Doing a PhD is - at heart - one long discussion with your mentor. The discussion changes over time - with unexpected turns and ups & downs - but through it all is a pair of people discussing a topic endlessly to make sense of it.
PhD students: choose someone you like to talk to!
December 19, 2025 at 4:35 PM
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Reposted by Orr laboratory
Phosphorylated tau exhibits antimicrobial activity capable of neutralizing herpes simplex virus 1 infectivity in human neurons
www.nature.com/articles/s41... @natneuro.nature.com
December 17, 2025 at 3:43 PM
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Textbooks said neurons don’t burn fatty acids for energy🤔. Our study delivers the first in vivo demonstration that fatty acid oxidation in defined memory neurons fuels memory formation.

Closing chapter of my PhD 🥳, out today in Nature Metabolism💥 @natmetabolism.nature.com
Neuronal fatty acid oxidation fuels memory after intensive learning in Drosophila - Nature Metabolism
Neurons are shown to use fatty acid β-oxidation as a fuel source for memory formation upon intensive learning in Drosophila, challenging the view that neurons are unable to use fatty acids for energy ...
www.nature.com
December 10, 2025 at 11:13 AM
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Update: a Targetome commentary by Zhao, Agarwal & Bai discusses our Cell paper as part of a broader paradigm of glia–glia coordination—linking microglia–astrocyte signaling in synaptic pruning to cooperative glial mechanisms in processes such as myelination.

www.maxapress.com/article/doi/...
Glial Wnt dialogue controls synapses
www.maxapress.com
December 16, 2025 at 2:03 PM
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Another great preprint on neuronal APOE4 from the Huang lab!
Neuronal APOE4 alone is sufficient to drive tau pathology, neurodegeneration, and neuroinflammation in an Alzheimer's disease mouse model https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.25.690488v1
November 29, 2025 at 5:27 PM
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Our new review is out today!

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗽𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝘇𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗿’𝘀 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻: 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗔𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗖𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀

We argue that Alzheimer’s disease is not just a problem of brain hypometabolism, but a disorder of metabolic inflexibility.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
The Energetic Collapse of the Alzheimer's Brain: Metabolic Inflexibility Across Cells and Networks
Metabolic inflexibility in Alzheimer's disease. Schematic illustrating the biphasic trajectory of metabolic activity relative to canonical Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarkers. In the presymptomatic p...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 13, 2025 at 8:17 PM
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The Cummings Lab is hiring a postdoc to work in the areas of reward and addiction! Please see the ad below:
October 23, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Thrilled to publish our new study on #mitochondrial ROS coming from complex III, revealing this key site in #astrocytes 🎯as a crucial immunometabolic signal transducer🤯 and potential therapeutic target for #dementia #FTD 💊 rdcu.be/eOc0m 👈💪 Great commentary by H. Pan and F. Yin🤩! tinyurl.com/4hdytw4c
November 4, 2025 at 6:30 PM
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Happy to share our latest work led by @kevincziegler.bsky.social and Aydan Askarova, examining cell type contributions of vascular cell types to dementia risk. Many thanks to the donors, and for support from @ukdri.ac.uk and @alzassociation.bsky.social.
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
October 31, 2025 at 10:10 AM
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TT faculty job opening in #Neuroscience!
We are looking for a colleague to join us in our fantastic Biology Department and Neuroscience Program at Brandeis. We are a group of *very* collaborative, supportive, and productive scientists (& humans!) so please apply
academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30961
Brandeis University, Biology Department
Job #AJO30961, Assistant Professor in Biology and Neuroscience Program, Biology Department, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, US
academicjobsonline.org
October 22, 2025 at 11:28 PM
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ATTN: Two faculty positions are available in my department (neuroscience) at the University of Minnesota. This is a general search with no topic focus. November 20th application deadline.

Apply here: hr.umn.edu/jobs/Find-Job
Assistant Prof job code: 364920
Associate/Full Prof job code: 364921
October 30, 2025 at 3:59 PM
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If you’re interested in glia and you’ll be at SfN in San Diego, please join us!
If you are attending #SfN25, please join @amygleichman.bsky.social and I on Monday at 9PM for a casual social gathering to discuss all things non-neuronal!

Date: Monday, Nov 17th
Time: 9PM till close
Location: The Smoking Gun SD, 555 Market St.

All welcome, please free to spread the word!
October 29, 2025 at 8:49 PM
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Excited to share our study out in @natcellbio.nature.com! Led by @mikelangelipid.bsky.social, we identify the first #LipidDroplet lipid quality control pathway: LD-localized FSP1 protects stored lipids from oxidative damage and prevents LD-initiated #ferroptosis.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
FSP1-mediated lipid droplet quality control prevents neutral lipid peroxidation and ferroptosis - Nature Cell Biology
Lange et al. identify a lipid droplet quality control pathway in which FSP1 safeguards stored neutral lipids from lipid peroxidation, thereby preventing the induction of ferroptosis.
www.nature.com
October 29, 2025 at 5:21 PM
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We are #hiring for a Tenure Track Assistant Professor position in the Department of Molecular&Cellular Physiology (med.stanford.edu/mcp.html) at @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social. Please apply or forward the opportunity to anybody who might be interested.
facultypositions.stanford.edu/en-us/job/49...
Stanford | Faculty Positions: Details - Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology
facultypositions.stanford.edu
October 29, 2025 at 5:13 PM
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💡 Research Spotlight: Primary cilia in astrocytes are key for their development, metabolism & synaptic regulation. Defects lead to neuronal and behavioral issues in mice, offering new insights into neurodevelopment & ciliopathies.
🔗 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-024-01726-z
Primary cilia signaling in astrocytes mediates development and regional-specific functional specification - Nature Neuroscience
Astrocyte diversity is greatly influenced by local environmental modulation. Wang et al. report a critical role for astrocytic primary cilia in transmitting local cues that drive the region-specific diversification of astrocytes within the developing mouse brain.
www.nature.com
October 23, 2025 at 10:49 AM
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what Piali said! Looking to recruit a new assistant professor to our fabulous neuroscience group and department at Brandeis. Please circulate far and wide and alert anyone you know who is on the job market!
#neuroscience
TT faculty job opening in #Neuroscience!
We are looking for a colleague to join us in our fantastic Biology Department and Neuroscience Program at Brandeis. We are a group of *very* collaborative, supportive, and productive scientists (& humans!) so please apply
academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30961
Brandeis University, Biology Department
Job #AJO30961, Assistant Professor in Biology and Neuroscience Program, Biology Department, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, US
academicjobsonline.org
October 23, 2025 at 12:53 AM
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It’s official: ChatGPT can't draw a GPCR, but you’ll master them in the Filizola Lab
😜 Join Us! (send your CV and the names of at least two references to my institutional email) #Postdoc #scientist #research
October 17, 2025 at 4:50 AM