I need to understand how Marco managed to get a camera in front of my car. (those very few of you who do not understand what this is about - enjoy every second of that unique state)

It's Saturday. With that. I am forced to watch a 35 min UC video about cybersecurity and it's a stunning phenocopy of what, IMHO, is the single best TV comedy work from the UK (other than the Python TV series and FT). Give it a shot. Its joys unfold slowly. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBaV...

How incredibly gracious and sweet they named the vehicle "Doc Ricketts." "Canary Row" is one of my favorite books of all time and this story warmed my heart. Plus the fish is totes adorbs. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/s...

Of David's countless accomplishments is the important work that Matt Porteus did in his lab on early-stage genome editing with engineered nucleases (pubmed 12730593). He and Matt both speak about this in the documentary "Human Nature." A true titan. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/s...

If only, if ONLY there was some method to change these newly discovered TF binding "motifs" at endogenous gene regulatory regions to see if ANY of this new phenomenology has ANYTHING to do with actual gene regulation... 1. PHE PHE SER. 2. SER MET HIS. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"Epigenetics: the way genes learn from experience" (Mikula BC, Genetics 140-379; 1985). Here it is, folks - an atlas of human genes learning from experience. Holy Waddington. www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7...

In Brief: A new center in San Francisco will offer tailor-made CRISPR therapies to cure children with rare diseases www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fellow editors - nota bene 10x!

PSA: if you're not a mouse person you may enjoy knowing that mouse Sca1 (the hematopoiesis marker) is not encoded by Sca1 (spinocerebellar ataxia 1) but rather Ly6a. I mean, OF COURSE it is. What else could it be? I'm an hg38 person and below is a self-portrait while I was figuring this out.

F1.1 (Taz Urnov) acquired and edited this gem for Soho Press. www.npr.org/2025/08/13/n...

A new CRISPR Cures center, fuded by $20M from @chanzuckerberg.bsky.social and led by @urnov.bsky.social, will create 8 custom therapies for patients in the next 3 years. “Our goal is to aggressively walk the walk of CRISPR platformization,” Urnov told me. @endpts.com endpoints.news/crispr-cures...

"Quaternary kissing loops"👌

Thanks to the BBC's The Inquiry program for great conversations with IGI's @jenniferdoudna.bsky.social @doudna-lab.bsky.social and @urnov.bsky.social about Baby KJ, #CRISPR on-demand, and the future of personalized medicine! Listen here: www.bbc.com/audio/play/w... Photo credit: TODAY

Paul Wade was my patient and gracious mentor in Alan Wolffe’s lab (‘97-99). He did gorgeous work back then and continues to do so.

IGI's @urnov.bsky.social today at the #FDA Roundtable on Cell & Gene Therapy. Grateful for an opportunity to share more about using #CRISPR on demand to treat rare diseases! Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qDh... 🧬

I have written a concerto for it. phys.org/news/2025-06...

Here: Baby KJ at home with his mom Nicole. This really happened, folks. Hundreds of people from 8 organizations (led by Rebecca Ahrens-nicklas and Kiran Musunuru) came together to make a bespoke gene editor for this kiddo. He was once in the 7th percentile of body weight. Look at him now! ❤️

I watch my original field - chromatin and gene control - from a distance. The literature showing that so-called higher-order chromatin organization appears to have no substantial effect on gene expression grows and grows. Which is not stalling the scholars of that organization. :-) :-) :-)

It's Sunday. With that. Soccer postulate #1: score more goals than your opponent. Postulate #2: if you are a goalie and Messi is on the opposing team, do not pass the ball to Messi. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au3H...

A clear, succinct, datapoint-by-datapoint summary of recent work on design, synthesis, nonclinical testing, regulatory review, and patient dosing on the world's first "CRISPR on-demand" clinical trial for Baby KJ of Philadelphia. 🙏 @oligogirl.bsky.social !

A clear-eyed report by @jasonmast.bsky.social on the path from N=1 (baby KJ) to N=many. www.statnews.com/2025/05/26/w...

Nobel laureate and #CRISPR pioneer @jenniferdoudna.bsky.social @innovativegenomics.bsky.social says her best insights often arrive when she is "weeding tomato plants" or "while asleep." A welcome reminder that innovation thrives in calm, reflective spaces. 🍅🌿✂️ www.ft.com/content/c42c...

Quod erat demonstrandum. www.newscientist.com/article/2481...

This conclusion had been reached in 1991 - 34 years ago - when yours truly started on his PhD in metazoan DNA replication. For Gregor’s sakes, PR folks - get your origin stories right.

I know it's just a game and I know about the world going places in a handbasket rn. But that Halliburton shot is the craziest thing I personally have seen in 4 decades' of being a basketball fan. www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8Mh...

Wendy, profs like us Baby we were born to read (This book)

(1/2)How does the scientific community ensure that advances in CRISPR and biotechnology serve humanity—not just innovation for innovation’s sake? The Global Observatory for Genome Editing International Summit asks these big questions and seeks new pathways forward. www.summit.global-observatory.org

Eric continues to be his incomparable self in lucid, accurate, accessible descriptions of major biomedical advances. (in this case I'm biased since I was on the team)

An incredible collaborative effort led by @kiranmusunuru.bsky.social @ahrensnicklas.bsky.social @urnov.bsky.social & others. Congratulations to @rachelsilverstein9.bsky.social who designed the Cas9 enzyme that went into this drug. Wishing K.J. & his family all the best 🙏

In a medical breakthrough, a team including IGI’s @urnov.bsky.social & @giannikopoulosp.bsky.social created an on-demand #CRISPR therapy for an infant with a deadly gene mutation — developed, approved, and delivered to the patient in just 6 months. Read more: ow.ly/G0Bg50VTonC #RareDisease 🧬

This Thursday at the #ASGCT in New Orleans: Sadik Kassim (Danaher), Kiran Musunuru (Penn) and yours truly will chart a fundamentally new map to #CRISPR cures. See you at 830a (Room 291) and at 10a (Hall F). Image: Mary Cassatt "The Map" (1890)

I am moved by news of the upcoming film about Rosalind Franklin. I have a Jewish great-grandmother, Marie Frenkel, who died in her late 30s of ovarian cancer. I can see her haplotypes in my DNA (see below) and often think of her and Franklin (who suffered the same fate). deadline.com/2025/05/nata...

#CRISPR isn't living up to its potential. Thousands of rare diseases that could be treated with gene editing remain untouched by drug companies. Two scientists, @urnov.bsky.social and @kiranmusunuru.bsky.social, have a plan to fix that. Read more in my story @endpts.com: endpts.com/crispr-isnt-...

A tractable, actionable path to CRISPR cures on demand is much closer than one might think. Ryan Cross of @endpts.com reports in detail on this in a piece that covers work at the IGI and also Penn Medicine by Kiran Musunuru and colleagues. We'll find a way or make one. endpts.com/crispr-isnt-...

[email protected] did you leak the NCP structure to Lucas before publication?!

PSA: if you fly into Phoenix in April and plan to hold a conference call scheduled in Pacific time - and make the assumption that Mountain time is 1 hr ahead ... you will miss your call and take a long time to remove egg from face. Arizona does not observe daylight saving time. #sapientisat #DUH

Thank you @erictopol.bsky.social and @stemcells.bsky.social for being consistent voices of data- and knowledge-based reason (which was entirely absent from the colossal vat of dire gibberish in company pronouncements and TV coverage of their "achievement").

Cue “When the Fats Come Marching In” (I will let myself out)

Along with every geneticist I am a total Mendel groupie and this new figure (www.nature.com/articles/s41...) that shows the chromosome location and underlying basis of his allelic pairs moves me to near-tears. Oh, to fly back in time and show this to him ...

It will take a while for upper-div Genetics textbooks to adapt, but adapt they must: the underlying basis for every single one of the trait differences Mendel studied is now known. Cue Janáček's Moravian dances in celebration! (see post below) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cease all doom-scrolling and engage in joy-reading. Gene regulation people! Enough reporter assays (ew)! Enough lenti (yuck)! Do what Jesse did and the data-based truth of editing endogenous loci in human cells shall set you free! (couple this with the recent Findlay-Whiffin beauty for full joy).

Following Harvard's lead on this, my University's home page now opens on our research contributions to a better world. #GoScienceBears www.berkeley.edu

Throwing it back to our inspiring Precision Genome Engineering meeting from March! 🎉 Huge congratulations to Christian D. McRoberts Amador, Yehui Sun, Rob Torrance, and Tori Yamamoto for earning the prestigious scholarship award! 🏆 #KSGenomeEng25 #keystoneconferences @urnov.bsky.social

The dire story of the non-resurrected wolf gets worse with every colossal public inanity by the scientific team. It can at least be used to teach Bio1A students what the terms "species" and "phenotype" actually mean. Source: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Close all tabs and read this. Start with the preceding Nature paper. Trust me. This is cooler than liquid helium.

But what about the Anna Pavlovian, which is all about ballet and meringue-based desserts? (I will let myself out)

“They were careless people…they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness…and let other people clean up the mess they had made…” -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (April 10, 1925).

Yours truly and my inbox. [I will let myself out]

This is so beautiful. Sincerely, Genetics professor From: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

TIL that while both pi and square root of 2 are irrational, only pi is transcendental. Math truths are so eternal - it helps in our times.