fanjumeng.bsky.social
@fanjumeng.bsky.social
Asst. Prof. at University of North Texas Department of Biological Sciences | Studying epigenetics and embryogenesis #Chromatin #Zebrafish. Lab: https://fanjumeng.github.io/
Pinned
Reposted
Folks, it is finally out! Our paper on T2T assemblies of the zebrafish genome is on BioRxiv:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
November 17, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Reposted
Are you an early-stage graduate student (2nd or 3rd year) or early-stage postdoc based in the US or Canada, working primarily in Drosophila? Would you like to help improve the experience of all trainees working in Drosophila research? If so, read on.

(Please repost to reach a broad audience.)
November 12, 2025 at 4:49 AM
New study online today! We present a method to identify insertion sites of Tol2 transgenes in zebrafish #zebrafish #Tol2 #Transgene www.cell.com/cell-reports...
TransTag enables simple and efficient transgene mapping in zebrafish via tagmentation
Meng et al. develop a method called TransTag for simple and efficient mapping of Tol2-based transgenes in zebrafish. TransTag robustly identifies transgene insertion sites and offers an alignment-free...
www.cell.com
July 8, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Reposted
TransTag enables simple and efficient transgene mapping in zebrafish via tagmentation: Cell Reports Methods www.cell.com/cell-reports...
TransTag enables simple and efficient transgene mapping in zebrafish via tagmentation
Meng et al. develop a method called TransTag for simple and efficient mapping of Tol2-based transgenes in zebrafish. TransTag robustly identifies transgene insertion sites and offers an alignment-free...
www.cell.com
July 8, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Reposted
(Longish thread. Apologies)

I have met many inspiring colleagues over the past few months, many of whom are in academic institutions targeted by the current administration, and many others who are about to be (the analogy to the ‘eye of Sauron’ has been invoked many times; gallows humor). 1/
June 8, 2025 at 6:53 PM
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💥🥳 At long last, our latest paper is out!

Gag proteins of endogenous retroviruses are required for zebrafish development

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Led heroically by Sylvia Chang & @jonowells.bsky.social

A study which has changed the way I think of #transposons! No less! 🧵 1/n
Gag proteins encoded by endogenous retroviruses are required for zebrafish development | PNAS
Transposable elements (TEs) make up the bulk of eukaryotic genomes and examples abound of TE-derived sequences repurposed for organismal function. ...
www.pnas.org
April 30, 2025 at 10:45 AM
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Some #zebrafish news. After consulting with the Genome Reference Consortium (GRC) we will annotate one of our Tübingen T2T assemblies as a reference genome. This is an excellent assembly that we can get into the hands of the zebrafish research community right now. We are continuing our efforts
March 20, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Reposted
Paper out !!🥳big thanks to all authors @marliesoomen.bsky.social @diego-rt.bsky.social @kaessmannlab.bsky.social @jonathangoeke.bsky.social @lorenzamottes.bsky.social & 'bluesky-less'

Lots of interesting new TE (& genes) biology

Data fully browsable💻 👉 embryo.helmholtz-munich.de/shiny_embryo/
February 21, 2025 at 3:50 PM
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Our values and resolve are only strengthened by recent events.
February 11, 2025 at 10:51 PM
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The National Institutes of Health plans to severely cut the percentage of its grant money that can be used for overhead costs rather than research.
NIH slashes overhead payments for research, sparking outrage
Move to cut indirect cost rate to 15% could cost universities billions of dollars
scim.ag
February 8, 2025 at 2:50 AM
Reposted
A Primer on Indirect Cost Rates
a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
ALT: a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
media.tenor.com
February 8, 2025 at 12:51 AM
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Trump hits NIH with ‘devastating’ freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
Trump hits NIH with ‘devastating’ freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring
Researchers facing
www.science.org
January 23, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Reposted
The life of each of us began when a sperm and an egg came together. But what happens at a molecular level?

Our latest work in Cell led by @vdeneke.bsky.social & Andreas Blaha reveals a conserved fertilization complex that bridges sperm and egg in vertebrates! (1/11)

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
December 13, 2024 at 7:43 PM
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I participated in a faculty panel a few weeks ago in which senior (ahem) faculty gave advice on careers in academia by pretending luck had very little to do with our success. One piece of advice riled me up, in which it was argued that a reason for their success was their ability to say no. 1/
December 9, 2024 at 3:16 AM
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Very cool paper showing that Sox and Oct family transcription factors predate metazoans. Choanoflagellate Sox can replace mouse Sox2 in generating iPSCs!! 🤯

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The emergence of Sox and POU transcription factors predates the origins of animal stem cells - Nature Communications
The pluripotency program is maintained by transcription factors from the Sox and POU families. Here they identify SOX and POU factors from unicellular relatives of animals and show that unicellular SO...
www.nature.com
November 26, 2024 at 3:08 PM
Our Department of Biological Sciences at University of North Texas has two more tenure-track positions! One is Plant Biology careers.untsystem.edu/jobs/assista..., the other one is Computational Biochemistry careers.untsystem.edu/jobs/assista...
Assistant Professor in Plant Biology (tenure-track) - Denton, Texas, United States
Title: Assistant Professor in Plant Biology (tenure-track) Employee Classification: Asst Professor Campus: University of North Texas Division: UNT-Provost SubDivision-Department: UNT-College of Scienc...
careers.untsystem.edu
November 20, 2024 at 3:52 PM
Reposted
Hi all, just to say thanks for all the enthusiasm about the #epigenetics, Chromatin and Gene Regulation starter pack. The interface is a bit unreliable so a few people I added got missed off 😬. If you notice this applies to you, just message me and I'll try again. go.bsky.app/TKp9YAn
November 12, 2024 at 3:56 PM
Our department at the University of North Texas is recruiting! Tenure-track faculty position at the Assistant Professor level in the area of Cancer Biology. Come to join us! careers.untsystem.edu/jobs/assista...
Assistant Professor of Biology - Denton, Texas, United States
Title: Assistant Professor of Biology Employee Classification: Asst Professor Campus: University of North Texas Division: UNT-Provost SubDivision-Department: UNT-College of Science Department: UNT-Bio...
careers.untsystem.edu
November 19, 2024 at 10:40 PM