My fifth installment of interesting research papers that I have read over the past few weeks and would like to share with my community. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Cool paper wherein Kwak et al. inject into mice nanoparticles consisting of polymer-condensed plasmid DNA or mRNA coated in PEG and then leverage ultrasound-induced blood-brain-barrier opening to deliver the nucleic acids to desired brain regions. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

A highly publicized paper providing solid evidence for the idea that lithium deficiency contributes centrally to Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis. Aron et al. also show in mice that lithium orotate supplementation might mitigate AD and brain aging. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Humans often underestimate cognitive abilities in animals. My guess is that we will find more complexity in their languages than we expect. Would be amazing if we could talk to them - lots of benefits in how it could change our society's attitudes. Link: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Highly informative paper! Various small molecules were linked to lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), improving the amounts of LNPs that crossed the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) in mice and in cell culture models of the BBB. Link: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Interesting paper where microintravascular electrodes were inserted into cortical veins of pigs to record somatosensory and visual activity and to selectively stimulate motor areas. Compared to electrocorticography, this is a less invasive approach with similar capabilities. doi.org/10.1002/aisy...

An impressive achievement: Masullo et al. combine metabolic labeling and DNA-PAINT to image individual monosaccharide sugars in cell surface glycans at a resolution of 9 Å! That’s a resolution equivalent to 9 sulfur atoms in width! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Europe now has an exascale supercomputer which runs entirely on renewable energy. Of particular interest: one of the 30 inaugural projects for the machine focuses on realistic simulations of biological neurons (see www.fz-juelich.de/en/news/effz...) www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Climate change is driving an increase of deadly fungal diseases in humans and crops, yet solutions remain underdeveloped. PSA: if you're seeking problems to solve, you should keep this one in mind. #fungi issues.org/growing-thre...

I too have suspected natural selection may play a fundamental physical role which extends beyond biology. The space-time manifold may possess some form of inevitable directional structure as a result. Extremely speculative, but interesting to think about. www.quantamagazine.org/why-everythi...

My fourth installment of interesting research papers that I have read over the past few weeks and would like to share with my community. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Liu et al. present a remarkably simple yet clever method of mitigating the effects of head-mounted microscopes on mouse behavior: they tethered a helium balloon to the microscope device to counter its weight! A fun and useful engineering solution! Link to article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Somewhat older paper demonstrating utility of squaraine-rotaxane fluorophores for two-photon microscopy in vivo. These fluorophores approach the brightness of quantum dots while having much smaller size and better compatibility with cellular environments. Very cool research doi.org/10.1371/jour...

An interesting organic chemistry investigation into how different substituent groups affect the energy barriers to rotational motion of a fancy-looking compound known as a bispidine. This research has implications for pharmaceuticals, molecular motors, and organocatalysts.

Informative paper examining how efficiently gold nanoparticles cross the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) when linked to varying numbers of transferrin proteins. Transferrin is known to cross the BBB via receptor-mediated transcytosis. www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Highly innovative study where engineered salmonella bacteria invade cells, persist within intracellular vacuoles, and then manufacture an oncolytic virus which kills the tumor cells and attracts the immune system. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A promising Alzheimer's immunotherapy: engineered asymmetric anti-amyloid-β antibody with a transferrin receptor binding domain for crossing the blood-brain-barrier and a mutation which mitigates harmful side effects seen in past versions of this type of treatment. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

My writeup describing a reward system neural circuit which may serve as a useful target for new therapies aimed at fighting treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Link to post on my website: logancollinsblog.com/2025/08/28/d...

An extremely good read detailing reasons for the slowing pace of drug development, exploring the history of the biomedical industry, and offering suggestions for systemic changes which could accelerate the emergence of the life-changing medicines we need. atelfo.github.io/2023/12/23/b...

Great paper which combines expansion microscopy and in situ genome sequencing to map chromatin structure and selected protein targets in cellular nuclei. ExIGS was then used to explore how lamin protein and genome organization within nuclei changes during aging. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

An excellent read on platform biotech companies, why they are difficult, and what to hope for in the future that may make platforms more feasible. Link to the Substack article: thehardthing.substack.com/p/the-hard-t...

One of my favorite things about when I used to live in San Diego was watching an epic sunset changing color behind a cluster of palm trees, while looking out over the Pacific Ocean. Opal Sky Original Oil Painting by Erin Hanson, 2024 36 x 48 in #palms #treeclub #sciart #dailyart @bsky.art

A useful paper examining molecular mechanisms of how cortical neurons use mechanosensitive channels to respond to ultrasound. Very informative, though it should be noted that more recent literature has shown other cell types may exhibit distinct mechanisms. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excellent paper on how current medical attitudes around death, longevity treatments, and brain preservation (e.g. “death is natural and good”) resemble past skepticism about anesthetics for surgery. A reminder of the need for patient centered medicine. www.amjmed.com/article/S000...

Wow, this is amazing! At the age of 17, Hannah Cairo solved the Mizohata-Takeuchi conjecture, a 40 year-old problem in harmonic analysis! Congratulations to her on this accomplishment! #math www.quantamagazine.org/at-17-hannah...

Cross-laminated timber - a promising material for future sustainable skyscrapers! (Yes, it's highly fire resistant). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-l...

Fascinating paper where the authors show that many bacteria can attack other ‘prey’ bacteria (using T6SS as a weapon) and feed on the nutrients released by the destroyed prey. This behavior appears widespread across environments such as soil, ocean, etc. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Bennett et al. from the Allen Institute engineer a mouse skull-shaped implant with holes for multiple Neuropixels probes, a device which can facilitate neuroscientific investigations into cooperation between multiple brain regions. www.cell.com/neuron/abstr...

Roundup of interesting research papers #2. My second installment of interesting research papers I've read over the past few weeks and would like to share with my community. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Imaging Copper Levels during Life in the Brain and beyond Using a Fluorescent Copper Sensor with Multimodal Capacity Adair et al. created a fluorescent small molecule sensor F-NpCu1 which measures bioavailable copper both in vitro and in vivo. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

A useful review on the nucleic acid contaminants found in AAVs, how to detect such contaminants, their biological implications, and how we can minimize nucleic acid contaminants in the future through new manufacturing innovations! #biotech #genetherapy www.cell.com/molecular-th...

A wonderfully futuristic paper by Sheng et al.! Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41... "Brain implantation of soft bioelectronics via embryonic development"

An informative article on the history of the centrifuge and how it has come to be used for many different applications today. #science #chemistry #instrumentation www.asimov.press/p/centrifuge

An excellent article by Michael Alexander Skuhersky on whole-brain emulation of C. elegans, how to get there, and why it matters. asteriskmag.com/issues/09/we...

Great job to all involved in setting this up! "The MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative has announced the establishment of the Fairbairn Menstruation Science Fund, supporting a bold, high-impact initiative designed to revolutionize women’s health research." news.mit.edu/2025/mit-lau...

Deep dive by Abhishaike Mahajan ("Owl Posting") into Nabla Bio's unique computational strategy for engineering soluble versions of transmembrane proteins to facilitate more efficacious antibody screening. Very interesting exploration here! www.owlposting.com/p/better-ant...

Promising strategy for accelerating translational lipid nanoparticle research by screening pooled barcoded batches in terminally ill nonhuman primates (NHPs). This minimizes the NHPs needed for experiments and avoids harming healthy NHPs with years of life ahead. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Kim et al. report a method (exTEM) which combines expansion microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and immunogold labeling to precisely determine the relative spatial locations of proteins in synapses. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Hemifusomes, a newly discovered organelle, help our cells "our cells sort, recycle and discard important cargo"! #cellbiology #molecularbiology newsroom.uvahealth.com/2025/06/25/s...

Roundup of Interesting Research Papers #1 Some interesting research papers that I have read over the past few weeks and would like to share with my community. I'm planning to post regular installments of this!

Guo et al. developed a transgenic mouse model which can be inducibly deafened for more informative studies of ultrasonic neuromodulation. Link: doi.org/10.1016/j.is...

The Virus Zoo is now available on my Substack! Link: loganthrashercollins.substack.com/p/the-virus-... #virology #biology #molecularbiology

Fascinating paper on how embryonic surface epithelial cells can phagocytose and destroy bacteria, providing a way for early embryos to defend themselves from bacterial contamination before the main immune system has developed. #biology www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

An impressive report on engineering a version of the Neuropixels device for large-scale brain recording in nonhuman primates. Its utility as a tool was demonstrated in four interesting nonhuman primate neuroscience experiments. #neurotech #neuroscience www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I invite you to sit amongst the butterflies

The universe is just things bumping into each other and sometimes sticking - much like people.

Had a great time presenting one of my PhD research projects at the International Adenovirus Meeting in Cardiff, Wales! "Covalently linked adenovirus-AAV complexes as a novel platform technology for gene therapy". (Cloth poster ended up a bit ruffled, but still turned out well).

My educational writeup "The Virus Zoo: A Primer on Molecular Virology" is now available on my Substack! #virology open.substack.com/pub/loganthr...

I think there’s something deeply romantic about space colonization - a melody of the universe that sings of trillions of amazing stories yet to be told. "Mars is Galactic gardening for beginners." asterainstitute.substack.com/p/a-night-sk...

An excellent comprehensive paper from the Allen Institute where the authors develop and characterize a library of 'enhancer AAVs' for selectively targeted gene expression in desired subpopulations of neurons within the striatum. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...