Val Gartner
@vgartner.bsky.social
Postdoc at UNC - Functional genomics of inflammatory bowel diseases 🧬🖥️
Reposted by Val Gartner
This is an important and information rich article. I wondered about the effects by Institute. The table below (which is snipped here but is in the article) has that info. Broken down by # of grants and $ amounts.
December 2, 2025 at 4:25 PM
This is an important and information rich article. I wondered about the effects by Institute. The table below (which is snipped here but is in the article) has that info. Broken down by # of grants and $ amounts.
Reposted by Val Gartner
pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:55 AM
pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.
Reposted by Val Gartner
Bluetorial-Jim Watson
I met Jim Watson a few times but did not know him well. However, I was greatly influenced by his book “The Double Helix”. He was a complicated human being with some very, very bad features, but some good contributions.
What follows is my personal perspective.
1/41
I met Jim Watson a few times but did not know him well. However, I was greatly influenced by his book “The Double Helix”. He was a complicated human being with some very, very bad features, but some good contributions.
What follows is my personal perspective.
1/41
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
November 8, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Bluetorial-Jim Watson
I met Jim Watson a few times but did not know him well. However, I was greatly influenced by his book “The Double Helix”. He was a complicated human being with some very, very bad features, but some good contributions.
What follows is my personal perspective.
1/41
I met Jim Watson a few times but did not know him well. However, I was greatly influenced by his book “The Double Helix”. He was a complicated human being with some very, very bad features, but some good contributions.
What follows is my personal perspective.
1/41
Reposted by Val Gartner
🚨 This will become a curated list of awesome tools for complex trait genetics, **add yours**! it may become a review in which case those who contribute are invited as co-authors.
GitHub - MichelNivard/awesome-complex-trait-genetics: A list of awesome tools for complex trait genetics.
A list of awesome tools for complex trait genetics. - MichelNivard/awesome-complex-trait-genetics
github.com
November 28, 2024 at 9:21 AM
🚨 This will become a curated list of awesome tools for complex trait genetics, **add yours**! it may become a review in which case those who contribute are invited as co-authors.
Reposted by Val Gartner
In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.
Not a shitpost: #NoKings is feel-good performative activism for comfortable mostly upper and upper middle class white folks and that’s good, actually. Millions of people in the streets protesting a fascist regime is good. It is good for the normie baseline to be massive displays of public dissent.
October 19, 2025 at 1:44 AM
In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.
Reposted by Val Gartner
We're excited to be recruiting an NIH funded postdoc to work in the Coop lab at UC Davis. We're specifically interested in candidates who are want to work at the intersection of human genetics, GWAS, and population genetics modeling. Please RT
October 15, 2025 at 3:53 PM
We're excited to be recruiting an NIH funded postdoc to work in the Coop lab at UC Davis. We're specifically interested in candidates who are want to work at the intersection of human genetics, GWAS, and population genetics modeling. Please RT
Reposted by Val Gartner
If someone you know buys into claims about "genetic optimization" of embryos using polygenic scores of cognition, just send them our 2024 paper on Beethoven & musicality. We wrote it to help communicate limits of individual-level genetic predictions & complexity of links between DNA & behaviour. 🧪👇
Notes from Beethoven’s genome
Wesseldijk et al. compare the genomic information collected from Ludwig van Beethoven
with population-based datasets used to quantify musical achievement.
www.cell.com
August 7, 2025 at 11:10 AM
If someone you know buys into claims about "genetic optimization" of embryos using polygenic scores of cognition, just send them our 2024 paper on Beethoven & musicality. We wrote it to help communicate limits of individual-level genetic predictions & complexity of links between DNA & behaviour. 🧪👇
Reposted by Val Gartner
1. Kevin Gross and I just posted a new science-of-science preprint.
This one explores the looming peer review crisis. As many of you know, it's becoming significantly more difficult for journal editors to find scholars willing to serve as peer reviewers for submitted manuscripts.
This one explores the looming peer review crisis. As many of you know, it's becoming significantly more difficult for journal editors to find scholars willing to serve as peer reviewers for submitted manuscripts.
Will anyone review this paper? Screening, sorting, and the feedback cycles that imperil peer review
Scholarly publishing relies on peer review to identify the best science. Yet finding willing and qualified reviewers to evaluate manuscripts has become an increasingly challenging task, possibly even ...
arxiv.org
July 16, 2025 at 3:13 AM
1. Kevin Gross and I just posted a new science-of-science preprint.
This one explores the looming peer review crisis. As many of you know, it's becoming significantly more difficult for journal editors to find scholars willing to serve as peer reviewers for submitted manuscripts.
This one explores the looming peer review crisis. As many of you know, it's becoming significantly more difficult for journal editors to find scholars willing to serve as peer reviewers for submitted manuscripts.
Reposted by Val Gartner
The maddening thing is that this would have been PAINFULLY OBVIOUS if they had ANY EXPERIENCE AT ALL working with the government! In any way! Or if they had asked a single question!! 😖
“I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was,” Sahil Lavingia told NPR's Juana Summers.
Former DOGE engineer says federal waste and fraud were 'relatively nonexistent'
NPR's Juana Summers talks with Sahil Lavingia, who worked for the Department of Government Efficiency as a software engineer assigned to the Department of Veterans Affairs, about his experience.
www.npr.org
June 26, 2025 at 12:23 AM
The maddening thing is that this would have been PAINFULLY OBVIOUS if they had ANY EXPERIENCE AT ALL working with the government! In any way! Or if they had asked a single question!! 😖
Reposted by Val Gartner
We are excited to announce that tidypopgen – a new package for rapid population genetic workflows in R – is now available at evolecolgroup.github.io/tidypopgen/ 🧬💻 Read more in the preprint describing its features here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #popgen #Rpackage #genetics 1/2
Tidy Population Genetics
We provide a tidy grammar of population genetics, facilitating the manipulation and analysis of data on biallelic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). `tidypopgen` scales to very large genetic data...
evolecolgroup.github.io
June 20, 2025 at 12:19 PM
We are excited to announce that tidypopgen – a new package for rapid population genetic workflows in R – is now available at evolecolgroup.github.io/tidypopgen/ 🧬💻 Read more in the preprint describing its features here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #popgen #Rpackage #genetics 1/2
Reposted by Val Gartner
People always stop me in the street to ask: "Yoav, where are the disease-associated eQLTs? We found a lot in GTEx but we can't find anymore. Do you know where they are?"
(For the record, no one has ever asked me this, but it is a really good question!)
I think we know where they are.
(For the record, no one has ever asked me this, but it is a really good question!)
I think we know where they are.
June 10, 2025 at 2:20 PM
People always stop me in the street to ask: "Yoav, where are the disease-associated eQLTs? We found a lot in GTEx but we can't find anymore. Do you know where they are?"
(For the record, no one has ever asked me this, but it is a really good question!)
I think we know where they are.
(For the record, no one has ever asked me this, but it is a really good question!)
I think we know where they are.
Reposted by Val Gartner
There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
May 31, 2025 at 4:43 AM
There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
Reposted by Val Gartner
"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging."
Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council.
I wrote about my decision in TIME.
time.com/7285045/resi...
Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council.
I wrote about my decision in TIME.
time.com/7285045/resi...
Why I’m Resigning from the NSF and Library of Congress
I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.
time.com
May 13, 2025 at 11:19 AM
"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging."
Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council.
I wrote about my decision in TIME.
time.com/7285045/resi...
Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council.
I wrote about my decision in TIME.
time.com/7285045/resi...
Reposted by Val Gartner
Postdocs: Human Genetics at Utah will be hosting our annual Rising Stars in Genetics and Genomics Symposium in Sept. Apply here: shorturl.at/wBMg2
There will be sessions on developmental, evolutionary and disease genetics. A chance be invited to SLC to network here and with peers! Please share.
There will be sessions on developmental, evolutionary and disease genetics. A chance be invited to SLC to network here and with peers! Please share.
April 28, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Postdocs: Human Genetics at Utah will be hosting our annual Rising Stars in Genetics and Genomics Symposium in Sept. Apply here: shorturl.at/wBMg2
There will be sessions on developmental, evolutionary and disease genetics. A chance be invited to SLC to network here and with peers! Please share.
There will be sessions on developmental, evolutionary and disease genetics. A chance be invited to SLC to network here and with peers! Please share.
Reposted by Val Gartner
ACTION ITEM-----ACTION ITEM
Implementation of Schedule F
This is what a lot of us have been worried about.
This allows for many civil service positions to replaced with political appointees. This could include NIH institute directors and even POs.
BUT THERE IS A COMMENT PERIOD...
1/n
Implementation of Schedule F
This is what a lot of us have been worried about.
This allows for many civil service positions to replaced with political appointees. This could include NIH institute directors and even POs.
BUT THERE IS A COMMENT PERIOD...
1/n
the word alert is in a purple circle
ALT: the word alert is in a purple circle
media.tenor.com
April 23, 2025 at 6:03 PM
ACTION ITEM-----ACTION ITEM
Implementation of Schedule F
This is what a lot of us have been worried about.
This allows for many civil service positions to replaced with political appointees. This could include NIH institute directors and even POs.
BUT THERE IS A COMMENT PERIOD...
1/n
Implementation of Schedule F
This is what a lot of us have been worried about.
This allows for many civil service positions to replaced with political appointees. This could include NIH institute directors and even POs.
BUT THERE IS A COMMENT PERIOD...
1/n
Reposted by Val Gartner
Hi, I’m autistic and I’m the mayor of my city.
RFK Jr. wants to eradicate autistic people and also has no idea what an autistic person is
April 17, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Hi, I’m autistic and I’m the mayor of my city.
Reposted by Val Gartner
My list of interesting, new packages in Bioconductor 3.21:
bedbaser - A client for BEDbase. bedbaser provides access to the API. It also includes convenience functions to import BED files into GRanges objects and BEDsets into GRangesLists.
bioconductor.org/packages/bed...
BEDbase url:
bedbase.org
bedbaser - A client for BEDbase. bedbaser provides access to the API. It also includes convenience functions to import BED files into GRanges objects and BEDsets into GRangesLists.
bioconductor.org/packages/bed...
BEDbase url:
bedbase.org
bedbaser
A client for BEDbase. bedbaser provides access to the API at api.bedbase.org. It also includes convenience functions to import BED files into GRanges objects and BEDsets into GRangesLists.
bioconductor.org
April 17, 2025 at 1:53 PM
My list of interesting, new packages in Bioconductor 3.21:
bedbaser - A client for BEDbase. bedbaser provides access to the API. It also includes convenience functions to import BED files into GRanges objects and BEDsets into GRangesLists.
bioconductor.org/packages/bed...
BEDbase url:
bedbase.org
bedbaser - A client for BEDbase. bedbaser provides access to the API. It also includes convenience functions to import BED files into GRanges objects and BEDsets into GRangesLists.
bioconductor.org/packages/bed...
BEDbase url:
bedbase.org
Reposted by Val Gartner
Courage is contagious. But how do we catch it?
For months, @amifieldsmeyer.bsky.social and I have been asking dissidents and activists from around the world how we can topple authoritarianism.
We assembled their lessons into a field guide to courage.
www.newyorker.com/news/the-wee...
For months, @amifieldsmeyer.bsky.social and I have been asking dissidents and activists from around the world how we can topple authoritarianism.
We assembled their lessons into a field guide to courage.
www.newyorker.com/news/the-wee...
So You Want to Be a Dissident?
A practical guide to courage in Trump’s age of fear.
www.newyorker.com
April 12, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Courage is contagious. But how do we catch it?
For months, @amifieldsmeyer.bsky.social and I have been asking dissidents and activists from around the world how we can topple authoritarianism.
We assembled their lessons into a field guide to courage.
www.newyorker.com/news/the-wee...
For months, @amifieldsmeyer.bsky.social and I have been asking dissidents and activists from around the world how we can topple authoritarianism.
We assembled their lessons into a field guide to courage.
www.newyorker.com/news/the-wee...
Reposted by Val Gartner
One of many moments in Omar El Akkad’s new book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” that will stop you in your tracks.
March 29, 2025 at 8:31 PM
One of many moments in Omar El Akkad’s new book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” that will stop you in your tracks.
Reposted by Val Gartner
33% increase in Texas maternal mortality.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
Dozens more pregnant and postpartum women have died in Texas hospitals since the state banned abortion, our analysis shows.
As the maternal mortality rate dropped nationally, it rose in Texas by 33%.
As the maternal mortality rate dropped nationally, it rose in Texas by 33%.
Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared.
ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.
propub.li
March 25, 2025 at 10:08 AM
33% increase in Texas maternal mortality.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
Reposted by Val Gartner
Actuarial studies aren’t going to convince anyone who wants to defund the #NIH but in terms of ROI that seems like a pretty solid multiple, not to mention the benefits to life and health! 🧪
NIH funding delivers exponential economic returns — Harvard Gazette
Report finds all 50 states reap gains in patient health, job creation, research resources, business development.
news.harvard.edu
March 17, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Actuarial studies aren’t going to convince anyone who wants to defund the #NIH but in terms of ROI that seems like a pretty solid multiple, not to mention the benefits to life and health! 🧪
Reposted by Val Gartner
🥁We are just 3 days away from our next #FragileNucleosome seminar! We are delighted to host, 2 amazing ECR researchers @rachelhoffman.bsky.social & @jonmarkert.bsky.social this Wed!
PS1: Don't forget that US has switched to PDT
PS2: The recurring registration link:
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
PS1: Don't forget that US has switched to PDT
PS2: The recurring registration link:
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
March 10, 2025 at 1:28 PM
🥁We are just 3 days away from our next #FragileNucleosome seminar! We are delighted to host, 2 amazing ECR researchers @rachelhoffman.bsky.social & @jonmarkert.bsky.social this Wed!
PS1: Don't forget that US has switched to PDT
PS2: The recurring registration link:
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
PS1: Don't forget that US has switched to PDT
PS2: The recurring registration link:
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
Reposted by Val Gartner
We are experiencing an assault on science unparalleled by anything I’ve seen in my life. It’s not one issue or another anymore, the entire institution is under attack by the most powerful individuals in the country.
This Friday, where will you be?
standupforscience2025.org
This Friday, where will you be?
standupforscience2025.org
March 2, 2025 at 4:27 PM
We are experiencing an assault on science unparalleled by anything I’ve seen in my life. It’s not one issue or another anymore, the entire institution is under attack by the most powerful individuals in the country.
This Friday, where will you be?
standupforscience2025.org
This Friday, where will you be?
standupforscience2025.org
Reposted by Val Gartner
Francis Collins, the NIH Director for 12 years, led the Human Genome Project and other NIH efforts for 32 years, resigned today. Key words from his resignation letter
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...
March 1, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Francis Collins, the NIH Director for 12 years, led the Human Genome Project and other NIH efforts for 32 years, resigned today. Key words from his resignation letter
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...