Monika Piwecka
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monikapiwecka.bsky.social
Monika Piwecka
@monikapiwecka.bsky.social
200 followers 360 following 6 posts
RNA biologist
non-coding RNAs | RNA-protein interactions | gene expression regulation | brain 🧠 & neuroendocrine system
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monikapiwecka.bsky.social
Monika Piwecka @monikapiwecka.bsky.social · Jan 31
I am glad to share that our study on RNA-protein interactions in the brain affected by myelin deficiency has been published in the latest
Cell Reports issue.
😊🤠
Except for insights into RBPs, you will find there also something about circRNAs (of course!) :)
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Interrogation of RNA-bound proteome with XRNAX illuminates molecular alterations in the mouse brain affected with dysmyelination
Myelin deficiency in the central nervous system leads to severe neurological dysfunctions. Sztachera et al. probe RNA-protein interactions in the myelin-deficient mouse brain in a high-throughput mann...
www.cell.com
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social
Wow
maxkozlov.bsky.social Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 2d
About that exclusive, "closed-to-press" MAHA summit last week with RFK and JD Vance: I got in.

Here's what I saw. 🧵 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
A glorious selfie with the official MAHA lanyard seconds after I made it past Secret Service screening.
November 21, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
patrialvarezcam.bsky.social
Join our upcoming course on cutting-edge evolutionary & genomic methods for Evo-Devo studies!
We'll cover: comparative & single-cell transcriptomics,ATAC-seq, phylogenomics, comparative genomics, gene regulation, and much more
Spots still available: sites.google.com/view/evodevo...
jordisolana.bsky.social Jordi Solana @jordisolana.bsky.social · 9d
I will be participating in this EvoDevo course in Madrid, organised by @patrialvarezcam.bsky.social and other colleagues.

sites.google.com/view/evodevo...

I will be covering scRNA-seq, other topics are transcriptomics, ATAC-seq, phylogenomics

Registration closes on Nov 20!

Dates: Dec 15-18
November 14, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
profmarciniak.bsky.social
Some good news

New data published by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) shows the 2025/26 vaccine is currently 70 to 75% effective at preventing hospital attendance in children aged 2 to 17 years and 30 to 40% effective in adults.
www.gov.uk/government/n...
Flu vaccine providing important protection despite new subclade
UKHSA’s early season data shows vaccination remains best defence alongside good respiratory hygiene as flu activity rises.
www.gov.uk
November 15, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
marmole6.bsky.social
🦣🧬🦣🤯💥We are pleased to share our new paper about ancient RNA expression profiles from the Woolly Mammoth, now published in Cell @cellpress.bsky.social

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

If you want to know more, read the 🧵 below:
November 14, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
oden-gjallarhornet.bsky.social
Yuka The Woolly #Mammoth Just Gave Us The Oldest #RNA Ever Sequenced

www.sciencealert.com/yuka-the-woo...
Yuka The Woolly Mammoth Just Gave Us The Oldest RNA Ever Sequenced
A woolly mammoth that lived and died nearly 40,000 years ago has given us a spectacular scientific first, millennia later.
www.sciencealert.com
November 15, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
events.embl.org
How to tackle emerging questions in cellular organisation, adaptation, and robustness? Join #EESPhaseSeparation! 🧬🦠

Bringing together scientists from diverse fields to foster new discoveries in condensate biology.

Submit your abstract by 10 Feb: s.embl.org/ees26-08-bl

📅 19 – 22 May 2026
November 13, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
biovoxxel.de
Ever wondered if analyzing your images by using intensity Z-projections impacts your data?

Happy to announce my guest article in Microscopy & Analysis on that topic. It's a very short read but worth for everyone dealing with image analysis!

buff.ly/KJ147tI

#Microscopy #ZProjection #ImageAnalysis
November 10, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
ilegnini.bsky.social
1/6 We are hiring!!! 🐣🐣🐣
Fully funded postdoc position in my group!
humantechnopole.it/en/research-...
Legnini Group - Human Technopole
Laboratory for Molecular and Systems Biology of RNA   The Legnini Group at Human Technopole combines molecular and systems biology approaches to study gene regulation. We use synthetic biology and opt...
humantechnopole.it
November 6, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
potoyan.bsky.social
Our RNA condensate work is finally out! Using simulations, we uncover the origin of the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behaviour underlying thermo, iono-sensing functions in pure RNA condensates. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
November 4, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
jmbujnicki.bsky.social
Exciting news for the RNA research community!

The Human RNome Project has been launched: a global effort to map all human RNAs and their chemical modifications. Proud to support it and contribute to the article in Genome Biology doi.org/10.1186/s130...
#RNA #bioinformatics #RNAstructure #modomics
Unlocking the regulatory code of RNA: launching the Human RNome Project - Genome Biology
The human RNome, the complete set of RNA molecules in human cells, arises through complex processing and includes diverse molecular species. While research traditionally focuses on four canonical nucl...
genomebiology.biomedcentral.com
October 25, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
adrianwoolfson.bsky.social
An extraordinary result for ipilimumab immunotherapy given as a first line therapy for glioblastoma

share.google/485XFZxmBm26...
Dad’s aggressive brain cancer vanishes after taking new drug
The NHS is now looking for patients with glioblastoma to take part in a new drug trial
share.google
November 1, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
pawelburkhardt.bsky.social
First neurons didn’t appear overnight. We trace their roots to ancient secretory cells - showing how lifestyle & behavior shaped the evolution of first synapses.🧠🌊 #Evolution #Neuroscience

Our latest in @natrevneuro.nature.com
Link: rdcu.be/eMX3E

@jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social
The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins and their changing roles in different organisms across evolution
Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Recent studies have shed further light on the evolutionary origins of chemical synapses, In this Review, Colgren and Burkhardt explore how ancient proteins were...
rdcu.be
October 27, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
piotraz.bsky.social
⏰ Last week to apply!
Don’t miss the chance to join our lab and explore the fascinating world of meiotic recombination 🌿
👉 Deadline: Nov 1, 2025
piotraz.bsky.social Piotr Ziolkowski @piotraz.bsky.social · Sep 27
🚀 We’re hiring a Postdoc!

Join our group in Poznan, Poland to study meiotic crossover recombination in plants 🌱 Highly motivated & enthusiastic candidates are welcome!
📅 Deadline: Nov 1, 2025

🔗 ibmib.web.amu.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Postdoc_position-2025-Ziolkowskis-Lab.pdf
October 25, 2025 at 5:48 AM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
jasonsynaptic.bsky.social
For obvious reasons, I've become fascinated with retrotransposons. So we ( @alexwhiteley.bsky.social and I) wrote an article now out in Neuron @cellpress.bsky.social on how we think retrotransposons influence brain function and health! kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...
October 20, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
rnacentral.bsky.social
🎉 RNAcentral Release 26 is here! This release introduces our biggest structural change yet: gene-level entries for ncRNAs across 204 organisms.
For the first time, you can explore RNA data at the gene level, not just individual sequences.
🧵👇
October 8, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
samulireijula.net
excellent essay: The Origin of the Research University open.substack.com/pub/asterisk...
The Origin of the Research University
Universities have existed for more than a thousand years — and for almost all of that time, they weren’t centers of research. What changed in 19th century Germany?
open.substack.com
October 10, 2025 at 5:04 AM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
jorg-vogel-lab.bsky.social
Two group leader positions available in the broader areas of RNA science, RNA technologies, and RNA medicine. Attractive packages and a great environment. Come and join us at Helmholtz RNA Würzburg, Bavaria.
October 8, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
embo.org
Want to connect with researchers in #GeneRegulation, small RNAs, #StructuralBiology and more? Sign up for EMBO Workshop "RNA-guided genome protection" in Caux, Switzerland, 16–20 June 2026!

Deadline: 15 March

meetings.embo.org/event/26-gen...
#DNAsky #RNAsky #EMBORNAGenomeProtection #EMBOevents 🧪
RNA-guided genome protection
The genome carries information across generations, ensuring species survival. To preserve faithful transmission of genetic information, RNA-directed mechanisms safeguard the genome integrity in diver…
meetings.embo.org
October 6, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
mireyaplass.bsky.social
🚨New preprint from the lab! This work led by @akshayjg.bsky.social & @smfernandezmoya.bsky.social shows how the RNA binding protein STAU2 regulates the timing of neurogenesis in iPSC-derived human cells
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Staufen2 modulates the temporal dynamics of human neurogenesis in vitro
RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) play a central role in post-transcriptional regulation during brain development, yet their specific functions in coordinating human neural lineage decisions remain poorly u...
www.biorxiv.org
October 2, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
agatastarosta.bsky.social
Nauka i badania, w kraju, który jest 20-tą gospodarką świata, powinny być priorytetem ponad podziałami. Apelujemy do wszystkich, którzy rozumieją potrzebę prowadzenia badań naukowych w Polsce o zapoznanie się z treścią listu i poparcie Apelu.

www.petycjeonline.com/list_otwarty...
List otwarty do Prezydenta RP, Marszałka Sejmu RP, Marszałka Senatu RP,  Prezesa Rady Ministrów oraz Wiceprezesów Rady Ministrów w sprawie finansowania nauki, w tym zwłaszcza Narodowego Centrum Nauki
Szanowni Państwo, W niniejszej petycji prezentujemy List otwarty, który będzie wysłany do Kancelarii Prezydenta, Marszałków Sejmu i Senatu, Prezesa Rady Ministr&oacut...
www.petycjeonline.com
September 29, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
stoplab.bsky.social
Please consider signing a petition to increase the spending on science in Poland / List otwarty w sprawie finansowania nauki, w tym @ncn.gov.pl www.petycjeonline.com/list_otwarty...
List otwarty do Prezydenta RP, Marszałka Sejmu RP, Marszałka Senatu RP,  Prezesa Rady Ministrów oraz Wiceprezesów Rady Ministrów w sprawie finansowania nauki, w tym zwłaszcza Narodowego Centrum Nauki
Szanowni Państwo, W niniejszej petycji prezentujemy List otwarty, który będzie wysłany do Kancelarii Prezydenta, Marszałków Sejmu i Senatu, Prezesa Rady Ministr&oacut...
www.petycjeonline.com
September 29, 2025 at 12:11 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
carmenfalcone.bsky.social
Submit an abstract for our 2nd @italianglianetwork.bsky.social
Symposium by Oct 10.
We want to see your cool #glial research!!!

The 2nd #IGN Symposium will be online on November 26 at 2 pm CET, and everybody can attend 😍 We will post the link to connect here: tinyurl.com/ye232mx9
September 29, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
markushafnerrna.bsky.social
The specific motif built up by these two RBPs cannot be identified by studying each of them in isolation, so one important question we would like to raise is: How many RBPs form heteromultimeric complexes with specificity other than the sum of the individual RBPs?
markushafnerrna.bsky.social Markus Hafner @markushafnerrna.bsky.social · Sep 27
This work was spearheaded by Masataka Suzawa in my (NIAMS) and Chen Qiu in Traci Hall’s lab (NIEHS IRP) and initiated together with Masashi Yamaji’s group at Cincinnati Children’s. Wonderful collaboration with @eugenevalkov.bsky.social and Vittorio Sartorelli.
markushafnerrna.bsky.social Markus Hafner @markushafnerrna.bsky.social · Sep 27
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Delighted to share the story of two germline RBPs - one with little (DND1) and one with no (NANOS3) intrinsic sequence-specificity - that together build a continuous RNA binding surface recognizing a 7-mer (AUGAAUU) in target mRNA 3’UTRs, leading to deadenylation.
September 27, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Monika Piwecka
lcochella.bsky.social
Our work on the function of miR-51/miR-100 is out! miR-100 is widely conserved across eumetazoans but its function has been mysterious. Emilio Santillán found in worms it regulates signaling and extracellular matrix genes, some of which seem to be conserved targets! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
An ancient and essential miRNA family controls cellular interaction pathways in C. elegans
A microRNA that arose at the origin of eumetazoans regulates cell adhesion and signaling in C. elegans through conserved targets.
www.science.org
September 3, 2025 at 6:16 PM