Some thoughts on where AI in genomics stands right now, building on a symposium we recently hosted at UChicago. Seven points, ranging from why scaling DNA models hasn't delivered, to why metadata is the real bottleneck, to the weird backlash against AI in academia open.substack.com/pub/blekhman...

While BioNtech & Moderna become household names because of their Covid vaccines, those emerged from different projects: finding ways to treat the most challenging cancers. They hypothesized that we could vaccinate patients against their own tumors, & evidence is mounting that they were right! 1/n 🧪

I just did an 18-part X thread that starts below, too tired to copy paste it all for BlueSky but if someone would do that I would be appreciative

If you want to know what 3′UTRs with long conserved sequence stretches do, check out our BioRxiv preprint doi.org/10.64898/202.... They form functional intermolecular 3′UTR-3′UTR interactions that enable co-folding of proteins to rapidly induce transcriptional programs.

#MLCB2026 will be November 16-17 at (once again) @nygenome.org, NYC! Paper/abstract deadline is July 1st, more deets at mlcb.org. We'll be opening in-person registration alongside paper decisions. Mailing list to stay in the loop: groups.google.com/g/mlcb. Keynotes TBA! Please RP!

Super excited to see this out! Fantastic collaboration with Luke O'Connor and trainees Amber Shen and Xinran Wang. Thread with details will come soon, but linear ARG provide a HIGHLY efficient representation of genotype data that can be treated as a linear operator www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New preprint on a controversial topic: Through which socioeconomic mechanisms do individuals with higher genetic predisposition for educational attainment end up with higher income over their working life? We study this using uniquely rich Finnish data.

Some useful public speaking tips from Freud here.

Bioconductor 3.23 is released! Thanks to the core team for all the hard work that goes into a release, and to the package reviewers. The lab has a bunch of updates in here that I'll post in 🧵 over the next few days:

New York Times article about the slow pace on NIH grant making as well as enforcement of political constraints. [Gift Link] www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/s... 1/4

Very informative post from Elizabeth Ginexi about NIH grant delays. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/the-execut...

Stunning illustration of how advances in cellular genomics can disentangle links between gene variants & clinical outcomes. Here, saturation editing revealed distinct neurodevelopmental disorders involving the same non-protein-coding gene. 🙌 @nickywhiffin.bsky.social @gregfindlay.bsky.social & co🧬🔬🧪

📣Registration and abstract submission now open for the Long‑Read Sequencing Uppsala 2026 meeting, taking place November 2–4! For abstract submission, registration, and the preliminary program, please visit the conference website: 👉 lrua.se

”Nykypäivänä onkin varsin selvää, että vihreät ja globalisaatiokriittinen vasemmisto olivat oikeassa. Vapaakauppa ilman yhteiskuntavastuuta oli juuri niin tuhoisaa rauhalle, vakaudelle, sosiaaliselle oikeudenmukaisuudelle ja ympäristölle kuin mistä varoitettiin.”

The 5y survival rate for pediatric ALL in 1970 was under 20%. Today it is over 95%. Modern cancer treatment is the result of a lot of dedicated scientists rowing together to save people they have never met, and fuck anyone who says otherwise.

@nygenome.org is hiring Genomic AI Fellows! (fancy postdoc positions) If you're interested in working at the interface of AI and genomics in a great environment please apply at: jobs.silkroad.com/NYGenome/Car...

This. A thousand times this.

One year during our Columbia PhD program recruitment day there was a total subway meltdown with half the the faculty stuck in tunnels, missing their scheduled meetings.

Happy and honored to receive the 2026 ESHG award! Many thanks to past and present lab members and collaborators; it’s our work together that is recognized here. See you at the @eshg.bsky.social meeting in Gothenburg 🇸🇪 in June!

👀 Absolute banger paper. Leveraging cattle/pig GWAS/eQTL to help explain the missing regulatory gap in humans. Consistent with previous works, selection makes identifying relevant eQTLs in humans challenging. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Sweden continues major investments in research and life science, with more KAW foundation funding for trainee positions in the Data-Driven Life Science Program, with total investment of 330 MEUR / 380 MUSD!

On Monday, Johan Rockstrom spoke at PBL in The Hague. His presentation was perfect, the science well explained. It’s bad, worse than we think (as usual), we need to take measures, it can be done, tipping points, acceleration of acceleration, food systems, move away from fossil fuels. Questions from

Junk RNA

Democratic consultants: To replicate Mamdani’s success with the young people we must appeal to their short attention spans with memes and TikTok Mamdani (actual quote): In the fifth century in what we now know as Ireland, a British warlord named Coroticus had laid waste to the countryside

I am reviewing a simply amazing paper from a relatively young US-based lab, which is in danger of shutting its doors later this year. My emotions are all over the place. The fact that this does not uniquely identify the lab I’m referring to just deepens the tragedy of this moment in US science.

Every day is a good day for sharing one of the most useful papers about research data ever written. PLEASE get your people to understand and follow this advice. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Happy St. Patrick's Day, New York.

Kuinka vaikeaa on ollut tämänkin artikkelin pointtien sisäistäminen suomalaisille taloustieteilijöille? Kerrataan: 1) Suomi on euromaa, joten rahoituskestävyydessä vertaillaan muihin euromaihin. 2) Mielekäs vertailutapa on nettovelkasuhde. 3) Suomi vertailussa euromaiden aatelia. 4) EU:n ...

Suomalainen dystopia nousi sitten seuraavalle tasolle. Ruokajono, joka perustettiin 30 vuotta sitten tilapäiseksi avuksi, lopetaan nyt, koska tarve ruoka-avulle on niin huutava, ettei siihen pystytä enää vastaamaan vaan liian moni avunhakija on pitänyt käännyttää pois. www.hs.fi/helsinki/art...

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted. What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards. Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

The difference between Finnish and EU average unemployment rate. The red line marks the time the most right wing government in Finnish history replaced Sanna Marin’s center left government.

The @scilifelab.se Ancient DNA Unit is recruiting a (permanent) Research Engineer for planning user projects and generating #aDNA 🧬 data: Application deadline: March 25th 🧪🏺 www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

Made a short video as a response. 3 questions remain for me. 1) What is the definition of a "DEl activity," and how is it being communicated to NIH staff so they can determine whether a grant qualifies? (Continued below)

In my utopian vision of the future, instead of offloading all the pointless, annoying work tasks (like reports that none one will read and needlessly opaque forms) to robots, we restructure work and society so that the pointless tasks don't happen at all.

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers. The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

I have an opening for a staff scientist or bioinformatician in my group at the Sanger Institute (closing date 24 March). Our current projects focus on disentangling rare and common variant contributions to rare neurodevelopmental conditions and to neurodevelopmental and perinatal traits. 1/2

I understand why chatbot cheating happens but every time I read about it I want to gently remind everyone that the point of schoolwork is not for the submission to exist. Teachers are not just greedy for more essays or solved equations. The point is to do the work WITH YOUR OWN BRAIN, FOR LEARNING.

Minua alkaa oikeasti pelottaa, että suomalainen eliitti ja media ei tajua sitä, kuinka todella pihalla valtavirtainen makrotaloustiede on taloudellisesta todellisuudesta. Yli 10 prosentin työttömyydessä siunataan jopa 15 mrd. euron sopeutusta tuleville vuosille odottaen suhdanteen korjaavan. #tiede

The culmination of a lot of excellent work, @marlmatos.bsky.social defending her PhD thesis today. Co-mentored by @tuuliel.bsky.social, exceptional insights into molecular quantitative trait loci in CD4+ T cells @einsteinmededu.bsky.social

pretty stunning chart

The political lesson of the last 20 years is that when putatively left-of-center parties promise voters hope and change, but then deliver more of the same, it ends up creating the backlash conditions for right-wing authoritarianism. It’s a very straightforward truism.

Upeeta kun ensin talouskurin opeilla leikataan Suomesta kaikki kasvun edellytykset ja sitten kun kasvua ei kuulu niin siihen tarjotaan lääkkeeksi samaa talouskuria. Onko suomalaiset oikeesti näin tyhmiä, vai pelkästään Hesarin pääkirjoitustoimitus?

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

This is super cool science, empowered by our infrastructure team at @scilifelab-ngi.bsky.social @scilifelab.se !

AI bot writes emo blog about not getting to play coder on GitHub… we are literally re-creating simulacrum of the most cringe ppl on the internet…

🖥️🧬🚀 I am excited to share that our #omnideconv study is finally published on Genome Biology: doi.org/10.1186/s130...

⚡️ NEW: Jeffrey Epstein Recruited NSA Codebreakers for Genome “Manhattan Project” The financier pursued cryptographers to “hack” the genetic code, & develop “new signals... Story for Drop Site by @ryangrim.bsky.social, @mazmhussain.bsky.social & Emily Jashinsky www.dropsitenews.com/p/jeffrey-ep...

Yesterday the UK Government published a data provision notice paving the way for coded GP data in England to be shared with consented cohorts like UK Biobank. Hear from Val, a UK Biobank participant on her hopes for the future.

Reminder that the abstract deadline for the Biology of Genomes meeting at CSHL is on Feb 13! We have a fantastic lineup of keynote speakers (Janet Kelso and Jonathan Pritchard) and session chairs. Submit your best science to this exciting and engaged meeting! meetings.cshl.edu/meetings.asp...

🧬 New preprint alert! After years of collaborative work across 52 datasets we are presenting eQTLGen phase 2: a genome-wide eQTL meta-analysis covering 43,301 blood samples: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6... (1/8)