Amazing weather in the Bay Area the past week. Here’s some wildlife spotted in San Francisco over the past few days. The coyote playing with stuffed animals is a highlight.

Most potential pet owners consider things like breeding, size, coat, intelligence, trainability, and temperament. Often overlooked is the crucially important element of aerodynamics, which can greatly affect your gas mileage, raising the overall cost of ownership significantly.

Personal good news alert: I’ve been promoted to associate professor and it’s time to update the ol’ bio! Launching my lab at UCSF has been a privilege + I’m so grateful to my team and community here. More exciting science ahead! 🚀

Fastest half - but still very slow…

The thing about professor stuff is that you’re never done and you’re always behind

The UCSF Breast Oncology Program is happy to partner with One More City and founder Christine O’Connell to support metastatic breast cancer research. This will be the 4th year that together with Rapha they have sponsored a century ride. @ucsfcancer.bsky.social @ctbatucsf.bsky.social

Why does the naked mole rat have the longest lifespan of any rodent, nearly 40 years? A 30-year long mystery unraveled @ScienceMagazine today! Its cGAS enzyme in cells has 4 missense mutations that upends its function, promoting DNA repair and suppressing inflammation www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#Emerging #leader awards to developing faculty in #Cancerresearch are critical, especially in the current era of decreasing funding: 2024.themarkfoundation.org/an-emerging-...

We have a new #NCI Director who was just sworn in: www.nih.gov/news-events/...

Influencers are selling homeopathy as Tylenol “alternatives” — it’s NOT. ⚠️Homeopathy is a scam created in 1796 by a German guy with NO plausibility or evidence. Premise: 1️⃣ what causes a symptom will cure an illness w/the symptom 2️⃣ it’s more potent the more it’s diluted 1/

Karin Shamardani, DDS/PhD candidate, is working with Jeff Bush @jeffbush.bsky.social to study how Efnb1 and the understudied actin-regulator gene Shrm4 interact to control palatal outgrowth and mesenchymal organization during craniofacial development.

Kyle Jacobs, a Biomedical Sciences PhD candidate in the Kutys Lab, is studying mechanisms of blood vessel inflammation and how this inflammation is dysregulated in diseases like atherosclerosis.

Ting, a postdoc in the L’Etoile lab @girlsinscience.bsky.social, was recently awarded the BARI Postdoctoral Fellowship to study how nights of poor sleep contribute to age-related memory decline in tiny roundworms, which—like humans—also experience sleep loss and memory deterioration as they age.

Wrapping up National Postdoc Appreciation Week with a big thank you to our outstanding postdocs! #ucsfNPAW #UCSFpostdocs

Happy National Postdoc Appreciation Week! We are celebrating all the incredible postdocs in the CTB Department! Thank you for your dedication and the vital role you play in advancing research! We will be introducing some of the postdocs who have joined in 2025. #ucsfNPAW #UCSFpostdocs

From @shaynarubin and also well done Poseys and Giants!! Buster Posey, Giants raise $1.3M for pediatric cancer research at Oracle Park gala www.sfchronicle.com/sports/giant... via @sfchronicle

giants win while mets, padres, and cardinals all lose great day!

A mega-merger for #cancer #research:

Was my pleasure to moderate the panel today at the inaugural Female Fellows symposium “Balancing Acts”. An insightful, open and frank discussion on juggling a scientific career with caring, part time work and leave, and a real sense of solidarity.

Enjoyed the Physics of Life Symposium today @UCSF

New preprint! How are developmental cycles coordinated across cell types? It turns out that, like Geppetto's cuckoo clocks in the GIF below, individual cell types are each performing their own little crazy routine, but all in sync with each other.

We are thrilled that Hydronovo www.hydronovo.com has been awarded an NIH SBIR grant to develop Ceviginate, a new therapeutic for regenerating salivary gland function in debilitating xerostomia. The discoveries for this breakthrough come from the lab of Sarah Knox in CTB!

Beautiful day for the Head for the Cure 5k to raise funds, awareness and hope for the Kansas brain cancer community. What a turnout! Looks like there may have been nearly 2,800 participants towards a goal of raising $700,000. @kucancercenter.bsky.social

It’s my opinion that humanitarian and musical genius Dolly Parton (as well as Chef José Andrés) deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. tucson.com/life-enterta...

New work from stellar scientists Jeremy Williams and Roman Camarda. Many contributors including the amazing Zena Werb and Atul Butte Work explores how breast cancer cells interact directly with adipocytes via gap junctions, leading to lipid release. @ctbatucsf.bsky.social @ucsfcancer.bsky.social

The Department of Cell and Tissue Biology has outstanding graduate students from several different programs at UCSF. We are grateful! Over the next several weeks, we will highlight some of these students and share their research focus.

Alanine Catabolism as a Targetable Vulnerability for MYC-Driven Liver Cancer https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.29.667471v1

Our latest on cancer metabolism by star student Tonatiuh Montoya @ctbatucsf.bsky.social @ucsfcancer.bsky.social Liver cancers driven by the MYC oncogene are reliant on alanine metabolism. Alanine is the second most abundant amino acid and can partially substitute for glucose and glutamine. 🧪

It's really weird to demand accountability from a NYC mayoral candidate for a deadly NYC shooting rather than the current NYC mayor, an ex-cop who campaigned on a "tough on crime" platform and promptly got indicted for crimes

Good grief, the US National Cancer Institute projects it will fund only one in 25 RO1 grant applications in 2026. This is massively defunding cancer research. Despicable vandalism. www.cancer.gov/grants-train...

NIH will only accept six applications per PI per calendar year. drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2025/07/17/n...

This is my first post here. The past few months have been challenging for science, but I enjoy learning about others' work here and wanted to share our latest study. Congrats to postdoc Shayna Thomas-Jardin on her outstanding work published in Cancer Research @theaacr.bsky.social

Bill Rutter passed away at age 97 yesterday. He chaired our Department through the 1970s and was instrumental in the development of UCSF basic science. He hired Christine Guthrie, Keith Yamamoto, Bruce Alberts, Marc Kirschner, Pat O’Farrell, Peter Walter, Ira Herskowitz among others.

In our latest preprint on bioRxiv, we present the in situ structure of the human gap junction at 14 Å resolution using cryo-ET. The structure provides a blueprint for investigating how connexin regulation shapes intercellular communication in health and disease.

Indiana Jones and the Concur Travel Reimbursement System

A win! Thank you to everyone who spoke out! After facing bipartisan resistance, the Senate Parliamentarian, ruled that Sen. Mike Lee’s proposal to sell off millions of acres of federal land cannot be included under reconciliation rules.

Tools "Evidence suggests that acetyl-CoA metabolism is highly compartmentalized in mammalian cells. Yet methods to measure acetyl-CoA in living cells are lacking. Herein, we engineered an acetyl-CoA biosensor from the bacterial protein PanZ and circularly permuted green fluorescent protein (cpGFP)."

Help Save the NIH www.congressweb.com/UCSF/9?frame...

For those of you who may not have known him, Dr. Atul Butte, a pioneer in informatics, was the winner of the 2024 Morris F. Collen award, a pinnacle achievement in our field, as part of his storied career. His passing is a major loss to us all. RIP Dr. Butte #MedSky

We are happy to have @semilc.bsky.social and the Choksi Lab join the CTB community!

Complex I Drives Glutamine-Dependent TCA Cycle to Support Viability of MYChigh Breast Cancer Cells https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.27.656356v1

Main character energy is OUT, this summer we’re bringing NPC energy. We’re posted up at the bar dropping lore and suggesting side quests. We’re leaning casually near a locked door and saying “I don’t think you have the key for that” when someone tries the handle. We’re staring at a tree.

CoQ imbalance drives reverse electron transport to disrupt liver metabolism www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Needed some “me time” but figured I should go out and be social, so I took my R01 on a date to the theater #selfcare

Important stuff Microbes that weather chemo may help cancer patients do the same Turnbaugh Lab (UCSF) find preTA+ bacteria detoxify 5-FU, reduce side effects Probiotic supplements to protect patients during cancer therapy? Works in mouse colorectal cancer model www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Rita Mukhtar and down staging of the axilla in lobular vs. ductal on I SPY at ASBrS 2025

If people of means are interested in establishing a 2025 “Institute for Advanced Study” for displaced/defunded biomedical scientists, I know many people who will help, including myself. @mcuban.bsky.social @arcadiascience.com @arcinstitute.org

YAP, a protein known to help #cancer cells survive treatment, behaves very differently in cell culture models depending on how they are grown in the lab, highlighting the importance of mimicking tumour architecture to guide better drug strategies. buff.ly/KQ9bkLg

Recalling this awesome talk by Mary-Claire King for The Moth Back story for discovery of BRCA1 and hereditary breast cancer Funny story that highlights challenges of work-life and the importance of mentors (and baseball). youtu.be/tOP5pUIYhv4