The strongest predictor of autism is genetics. Data: • If one identical twin has ASD, the other has a 90–99% chance. • Compare that to 31–67% chance for fraternal twins. • Non-twin siblings have ~20% likelihood of ASD, 7-fold higher than general population. 1/

Wow...what? Apple does protein folding now? As the name implies, it is a "simple" and general-purpose transformer-based method, which relies on a non-domain-specific flow-matching objective rather than domain knowledge.

Such an amazing method and such a good study! Have to read it more carefully, but shows huge potential. Combining evolutionary and population genomics + language model is a great idea.

I'm a science journalist for @statnews.com looking to talk with folks who applied to biomedical Ph.D. programs and had offers rescinded earlier this year. What have you been up to since then? You can reach me at [email protected] or via Signal (username jwosen.27). #journorequest

Our paper benchmarking foundation models for perturbation effect prediction is finally published 🎉🥳🎉 www.nature.com/articles/s41... We show that none of the available* models outperform simple linear baselines. Since the original preprint, we added more methods, metrics, and prettier figures! 🧵

This is a pretty stark reminder that every methods paper needs proper baselines: "We compared five foundation and two deep learning models against deliberately simple baselines for predicting transcriptome changes after single or double perturbations. None outperformed the baselines."

RNA for the win! The once-overlooked black sheep of the macromolecules is slowly yet surely claiming its rightful place and prominence.

🧬 Happy RNA Day! 🎉 A tiny molecule with a massive impact #RNA! From translating genetic code to fighting diseases through mRNA vaccines, RNA is currently at the heart of innovation in science and medicine.

Didn't know Ben Blencowe has a part-time appointment at Crick! Should be a productive collaboration!

Predicting the translation efficiency of messenger RNA in mammalian cells go.nature.com/4mgXR0C

@atulbutte.bsky.social's last paper. He will be dearly missed.

How did the pandemic start? I have avoided publicly commenting on this for 5 years. Here's my take as someone who has no stake at all in the game. gidmk.substack.com/p/pandemic-r...

Summary Table of the massive defunding of biomedical research in the United States www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Amgen’s MariTide (GLP‑1 agonist + GIP antagonist), a once‑monthly injection, is demonstrating strong efficacy. The mean percentage change in body weight from baseline to week 52 ranged from −12.3% to −16.2%. Impressive results! www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

‘Huge advances in cancer and rare diseases’: 25 years of the human genome 🧬 Our Director, Matt Hurles, spoke to the Guardian @scienceweekly.bsky.social podcast about the Human Genome Project, and what could be in store over the next 25 years 🎧 www.theguardian.com/science/audi...

Great article on cancer vaccines by @mackenziejem.bsky.social www.mackenziemorehead.com/the-failures...

The first draft of the human genome turns 25 today! 🎂 On 26 June 2000, the UK & US announced the first full map of the 3 billion DNA base pairs that make us human. 🌍 A milestone for humanity, powered by global collaboration. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnWA... #HumanGenome #ScienceHistory 🖥️🧬

Allowing Netanyahu to drag us into another endless war in the Middle East would be a catastrophic error by President Trump and Republicans in Congress. Every lawmaker needs to ring the alarm against U.S. military action in Iran. Only Congress has the authority to declare war.

I wrote a review of a recent paper on false discovery and multiple testing correction. liorpachter.wordpress.com/2025/06/16/r...

Less than 200 years ago, one in three Dutch children died before the age of five

In case you needed a smile this Tuesday: 10-month-old baby KJ, who received a bespoke gene-editing therapy after a six month scientific sprint - "graduated" from the hospital @childrensphila.bsky.social today and went HOME! YAY SCIENCE! Here's his story: wapo.st/451ZQjT

Wow! What a way to surrender your scientific advantage just so that #MAHA can keep needles away from children. #NIH #NASA #NSF

We're thrilled to introduce PromoterAI — a tool for accurately identifying promoter variants that impact gene expression. 🧵 (1/)

Industry friends, now is the time for MUCH more speaking out on behalf of academic colleagues under duress. Here are core open source methods that many of your products doubtlessly depend on either directly or indirectly (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMMER) being abruptly defunded. Make noise.

My father worked in a tire factory in Appalachia. Friends and family in the military. Used to vote Republican. Got into college on a diversity program for the underprivileged. Ended up a Harvard professor. And now my funding is terminated because we're trying to stick it to the elites.

NIH funding supporting the HMMER and Infernal software projects has been terminated. NIH states that our work, as well as all other federally funded research at Harvard, is of no benefit to the US.

Such a wonderful little tool! A Jupyter Lab run entirely on your browser!

GSK paid $600M to access just the GWAS summary statistics a few years ago. In contrast, Regeneron paid only $256M for everything: summary stats, individual-level genotypes and phenotypes (over 10 million people), therapeutic programs, and leads. Unbelievable. www.biospace.com/business/reg...

Another mind-blowing milestone! What we do in biotech in academia and industry matters; science matters.

Really excited to see this published! From observations we made in our lab… to a blood test that works in real life scenarios… all thanks to the many scientists, ML researchers and engineers at @exai.bio who have worked on bringing this to the clinic. Kudos @babak-a.bsky.social and the team!

💥New Publication Alert in Clinical Cancer Research💥 We are thrilled to announce our latest publication on our novel RNA and generative AI liquid biopsy platform for early colorectal cancer detection. #EarlyDetection #LiquidBiopsy #RNA Read the full publication here: aacrjournals.org/clincancerre...

This is truly a monumental day for me and the @exai.bio team! We are presenting a cell-free RNA-based colorectal cancer test, validated on an independent cohort, with 80% Stage I sensitivity at 90% specificity. A long-term project led by @amir-r.bsky.social aacrjournals.org/clincancerre...

Exai Bio presented new data demonstrating the power of its RNA and AI based liquid biopsy platform to detect colorectal cancer. Stage I sensitivity in an independent cohort was 80%, exceeding other blood based approaches. Thanks to Amir Momen-Roknabadi for representing Exai Bio at #AACR25!

I would take "relapse" or "regression" and "blunder" over "error" any day!

1/ It has been a privilege to have the opportunity of contributing to Exai-1. Shout out to my co-first author, Aiden Sabadbi, and my amazing colleagues @exai.bio, particularly @fhormozd.bsky.social, @babak-a.bsky.social, and @genophoria.bsky.social who led the effort.

Super excited to share that our paper on a multi-modal cell-free RNA foundation model is out! A fantastic collaboration with @genophoria.bsky.social, @fhormozd.bsky.social and the @exai.bio team!

Joining forces with the legendary @babak-a.bsky.social, @fhormozd.bsky.social, and @mkarimzadeh.bsky.social to bring you Exai-1; a multi-modal cell-free RNA foundation model for blood surveillance and liquid biopsy applications. Kudos to the broader @exai.bio team! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

US women deserve better

Utah banned fluoridated water: water with 0.7 grams of fluoride for every 1,000,000 grams of water. The claim? It’s harmful. The reality? It isn’t ⬇️ An adult would need to consume 357 LITERS of that water A DAY to have a possible risk of adverse effects from fluoride. 1/

#Thisweeksfiddler from @xaqwg.bsky.social asked: if you're randomly situated on a semicircular island, what is your expected distance from the coast? After a lot of geometry, calculus and algebra (plus a bit of help from WolframAlpha) I got a surprisingly simple answer. tinyurl.com/fiddler140325

I bought a Tesla because it was fast like a rocket ship. But now every time I drive it, I feel like a rolling billboard for a man dismantling our government and hurting people. So Tesla, you’re fired! New ride coming soon.

So proud to see our work on machine learning + enzyme design just published! www.cell.com/cell-systems... Fun collaboration between Google X, DeepMind, and Triplebar that we hope can be a template for integrating ML and high throughput screening in protein engineering

Avoid physical gift cards—they're often compromised, and funds can be stolen instantly after loading. In one case, 20% of a child's birthday gift cards were already drained. If necessary, opt for electronic gift cards. Check out the story below. www.nbcbayarea.com/investigatio...

Awesome summary of the field. An important point is to separate the design method from the oracle model being used. Sometimes, people say they're proposing a new design method but mean a cool new oracle model. Modelling and design of transcriptional enhancers www.nature.com/articles/s44...

"I was relieved that it was just the flu and felt that she would be okay." A father learns the devastating truth about influenza. www.voicesforvaccines.org/trust-me-you...

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...

Finally, someone who gets RNA. xkcd.com/3056/

This is what science does. It is truly an accumulation of decades of basic and translational research, funded both publicly and privately.

Attention Attention Attention If anyone knows clinicians or patients who have knowledge of pediatric patients with the very rare cancer interdigitating dendritic cell sarcoma (IDCS) or other (non-LCH) dendritic or histiocytoc sarcomas please contact Sri

Please help Sri if you can, and share and spread the word.