Ryan Dhindsa
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ryandhindsa.bsky.social
Ryan Dhindsa
@ryandhindsa.bsky.social
330 followers 280 following 9 posts
Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine & Texas Children's Hospital | Human genetics and single-cell genomics | Formerly Columbia Med & Duke
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ryandhindsa.bsky.social
Ryan Dhindsa @ryandhindsa.bsky.social · Mar 7
Our paper describing ITSN1 as a novel risk gene for Parkinson’s disease was published in @cp-cellreports.bsky.social today! We found that rare loss-of-function variants in ITSN1 increase Parkinson's disease risk by 10-fold

www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Haploinsufficiency of ITSN1 is associated with a substantial increased risk of Parkinson’s disease
Spargo et al. analyzed whole-genome sequence data from ∼900,000 individuals and found that protein-truncating variants in ITSN1 confer a ∼10-fold increased risk of Parkinson’s disease. Functional stud...
www.cell.com
ryandhindsa.bsky.social
Interestingly, recessive VSX2 variants are known to cause severe eye disorders (microophthlamia/anopthalmia).

We discovered that heterozygous variation can predispose to adult-onset retinal detachment, expanding the phenotypic spectrum of this gene
February 5, 2026 at 3:40 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
normanlab.bsky.social
My lab at MSKCC in New York is hiring for two positions. Join us at the frontier of functional genomics, studying fibroblast state transitions, combinatorial genetics, and ECM in disease. Please share with anyone who might be a good fit! (Mustache not required.)
February 4, 2026 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
bcmfromthelabs.bsky.social
#GeneticVariation influences how #EBV is controlled, and poorer viral control is linked with several long-term illnesses. @ryandhindsa.bsky.social @bcmhouston.bsky.social @caleblareau.bsky.social @mskcancercenter.bsky.social @astra-zeneca.bsky.social @nature.com blogs.bcm.edu/2026/02/03/f...
These 22 genes could put people at risk of long-term health conditions following common viral infection.
Differences in these genes help explain why Epstein-Barr Virus can have lasting health effects in some people but not others.
blogs.bcm.edu
February 3, 2026 at 4:27 PM
ryandhindsa.bsky.social
This was a fun and rewarding collaboration! A great example of extracting biological signal from data hiding in plain sight
January 28, 2026 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
bcmfromthelabs.bsky.social
Baylor College of Medicine @bcmhouston.bsky.social, @astra-zeneca.bsky.social, @mskcancercenter.bsky.social identified genes that increase the risk of developing chronic conditions after #viralInfection. #EBV @nature.com @ryandhindsa.bsky.social #DuncanNRI #TexasChildrens www.bcm.edu/news/dna-res...
DNA research uncovers 22 genes that could put people at risk of long-term health conditions following common viral infection
Baylor College of Medicine researchers are part of a collaborative research group with AstraZeneca and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center that have...
www.bcm.edu
January 28, 2026 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
caleblareau.bsky.social
EBV infection is a major detriment to human health. @ryandhindsa.bsky.social, Slavé, and I discussed the impact of this work with @bloomberg.com and some future outlooks

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Scientists Inch Closer to Solving the ‘Kissing Disease’ Mystery
Scientists have identified 22 genes that increase the risk of conditions like lupus, stroke, and rheumatoid arthritis in patients who’ve caught the virus behind mono, an illness known as the “kissing ...
www.bloomberg.com
January 28, 2026 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
gregfindlay.bsky.social
Our latest story is now on bioRxiv. We present PETRA, a new method for deciphering how sequence variants impact gene regulation at scale.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This work was led by Magdalena Armas Reyes, a @crick.ac.uk PhD student until very recently. Congrats, Dr. Armas!

🧵 1/9
www.biorxiv.org
January 24, 2026 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
normanlab.bsky.social
New preprint on technologies to scale up CRISPR screens.

We use them to map 665,856 pairwise genetic perturbations and outline a path to comprehensive interaction mapping in human cells.

We also introduce an approach for cloning lentiviral libraries with billions of elements.
January 20, 2026 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
jkpritch.bsky.social
Our latest preprint revisits the classic model of mutation-selection balance.

Do human recessive genes fit Haldane's 100-year old model?

This work is by the wonderful @jonj-udd.bsky.social, and co-mentored by @jeffspence.github.io

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Allele Frequencies at Recessive Disease Genes are Mainly Determined by Pleiotropic Effects in Heterozygotes
The classic theory of mutation-selection balance predicts the equilibrium frequency of genetic variation under negative selection. The model predicts a simple relationship between the total frequency ...
www.biorxiv.org
December 13, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
aaronquinlan.bsky.social
We are thrilled to announce the first official release (v0.1.8) of #𝗯𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗿, the successor to one of our flagship tool, #𝗯𝗲𝗱𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀! Based on ideas we conceived of long ago (!), this was achieved thanks to the dedication of Brent Pedersen.

1/n
Intro to Bedder – The Quinlan Lab
quinlanlab.org
December 2, 2025 at 2:28 AM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
sedlazeck.bsky.social
plsRT: Looking for a motivated postdoc!
Join us at @bcmhgsc.bsky.social to explore the mosaic & somatic landscape of the human genome: structural variants, methylation, and all things @smahtnetwrk.bsky.social
If you like long reads, complex variants & methylation come talk to me!
November 10, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
nicholaspage.bsky.social
🚀 Very excited to share the first major work from my PhD!!

We combined MPRA and CRISPRa in excitatory neurons to test and validate cis-regulation therapies for hundreds of haploinsufficient neurodevelopmental disorder genes. 🧬🔬

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
November 6, 2025 at 11:57 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
boghuma.bsky.social
A new Nature Medicine study analyzing health records from >100 million people in the US offers compelling evidence that reactivation of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) ,the same virus that causes chickenpox and shingles may contribute to dementia risk.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Varicella-zoster virus reactivation and the risk of dementia - Nature Medicine
Large-scale longitudinal health records reveal consistent association of varicella-zoster virus reactivation with dementia.
www.nature.com
October 6, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
greenrat.bsky.social
Neat trick if you polycolonal ab's suck. Incubate them with fixed cells with a KO of your protein of interest, then spin. Protocol here: www.med.upenn.edu/markslab/ass...
I was amazed how well it worked on first try (I'm sure that I can completely eliminate unspecific bands)
#WesternBlot #cellsky
On the left - western blot of B16F10 cells wt and KO for CDK8. Our in house produced antibodies give a lot of unspecific bands. On the right same probes with antibodies preincubated with fixed CDK8 KO cells - there is a specific band and faint unspecific bands, which can be probably eliminated with increase of amount of KO cells.
October 2, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
nature.com
Stem-cell models provide evidence that viral DNA sequences that entered the human genome in the past were repurposed to aid early stages of embryonic development

go.nature.com/4nRJyA4
Ancient viral DNA in the human genome shapes early development
Stem-cell models provide evidence that viral DNA sequences that entered the human genome in the past were repurposed to aid early stages of embryonic development.
go.nature.com
October 4, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
gregfindlay.bsky.social
Our latest research is out today on ‪@medrxivpreprint.bsky.social:

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Saturation genome editing of BRCA1 across cell types accurately resolves cancer risk.

Led by the amazing Phoebe Dace. This one’s packed full of data, so check out the paper. Quick highlights… 🧵 1/n
Saturation genome editing of BRCA1 across cell types accurately resolves cancer risk
Germline pathogenic BRCA1 variants predispose women to breast and ovarian cancer. Despite accumulation of functional evidence for variants in BRCA1 , over half of reported single-nucleotide variants (...
www.medrxiv.org
August 18, 2025 at 7:33 AM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
nature.com
Nature research paper: Whole-genome sequencing of 490,640 UK Biobank participants

go.nature.com/46EtTyW
Whole-genome sequencing of 490,640 UK Biobank participants - Nature
A study reports whole-genome sequences for 490,640 participants from the UK Biobank and combines these data with phenotypic data to provide new insights into the relationship between human variation and sequence variation.
go.nature.com
August 6, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
caleblareau.bsky.social
Excited to share a new preprint from the lab with @ryandhindsa.bsky.social ! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Led by @sherrynyeo.bsky.social, @erinmayc.bsky.social, and friends, we continue our journey to find viral DNA in our favorite place-- the overlooked and discarded reads in existing data! 1/
the treasure trove of all sequencing datasets
July 22, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
graycamplab.bsky.social
Neuron programming! Pro-neural TFs + 480 morphogen conditions + scRNA-seq --> Diverse iN subtypes of forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain, spinal cord, and PNS. @hsiuchuanlin.bsky.social‬ @jasperjanssens.bsky.social‬ and Treutlein Lab! @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #NGN2 #ASCL1
July 11, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
danielbrock.bsky.social
Drop by poster B0008 today to learn about genetic risk factors for retinal detachment! We found that variants in VSX2 were associated with an increased risk of retinal detachment in the UK Biobank.

Shout out to my PIs Ben Frankfort and @ryandhindsa.bsky.social!

@arvoinfo.bsky.social #visionscience
May 7, 2025 at 3:13 PM
ryandhindsa.bsky.social
Congrats Patricia!
May 3, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
prnano9.bsky.social
It’s out! The first paper from my postdoc – and first from the @bhadurilab.bsky.social – is now live @natneuro.nature.com . 🧠✨

Using a new meta-atlas generation strategy, we identified functional gene networks that more fully explain how cell types are formed in the human cortex. (1/13)
May 2, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Reposted by Ryan Dhindsa
j-c-butts.bsky.social
Excited to share our MPAC preprint, a scalable ensemble of ML models for genome-wide non-coding variant effect prediction and our findings from 575M predictions across databases including @ukbiobank.bsky.social, GTEx, ClinVar, COSMIC, and @gnomad-project.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
| bioRxiv
bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.16.648420v1\
April 23, 2025 at 5:28 PM
ryandhindsa.bsky.social
🚨 We’re hiring postdocs! Join our lab in Houston to study human disease using stem cell models, functional genomics, and big genomic data. Wet & dry lab backgrounds welcome.

Please email me if you're interested (ryan.dhindsa@bcm.edu) or apply directly: jobs.bcm.edu/job/Postdoct...

📩
Postdoctoral Associate- Human Genetics
Postdoctoral Associate- Human Genetics
jobs.bcm.edu
April 9, 2025 at 2:48 PM
ryandhindsa.bsky.social
Excited to share our latest study published in @naturecomms.bsky.social! We demonstrate that broad ancestral representation dramatically improves our ability to detect disease-associated regions of the genome. Outstanding work was led by @alexander-han.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Diverse ancestral representation improves genetic intolerance metrics - Nature Communications
Here the authors show that expanding global ancestry diversity in genomic datasets improves detection of genomic regions intolerant to variation, identifying areas more likely to harbor disease-causin...
www.nature.com
March 31, 2025 at 6:58 PM