Challenges and future directions for Mendelian randomization www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In their recent @ajhgnews.bsky.social Review, @vkarhune.bsky.social, @stevesphd.bsky.social, & co discuss the key considerations and provide advice to produce a higher standard in planning, conducting, reviewing, and interpreting cis-Mendelian randomization studies: https://bit.ly/48DEz0H #ASHG

AI can accelerate scientific discovery, but only if we maintain rigor through open data, simplicity, and human understanding. Don't delegate ethics. Read this article in full via @ox.ac.uk  https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/ #AI #science #research #physics #astrophysics

Could molecular profiling of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) improve clinical management of #ProstateCancer? Progress on this topic is reviewed by a team including Prostate Cancer UK funded Professor Yong-Jie Lu @qmbci.bsky.social in @natrevurol.nature.com. Grab a ☕ and read: bit.ly/46ti2CJ

Research suggests that more consultation about cycle lanes would bring more support for them.

Urology departments in England and Wales have seen an increase in users admitted for bladder inflammation caused by ketamine use.

Ever applied to UK Core Surgical Training? I'd love to discuss it with you for my PhD. I've analysed all applications ever(!) & now it's time to speak to real people! All help gratefully received. Please RT! Register interest here: forms.cloud.microsoft/e/yj89m1HBJz

Explore the KPMP Kidney Tissue Atlas today 🔍 Search markers 🧬Download raw gene data 🗺️Explore spatial data Openly accessible and designed to support discovery 🔗 atlas.kpmp.org #KPMP #KidneyResearch #OpenScience #KidneyTissueAtlas

Are you a 3rd or 4th yr medical student interested in pursuing a DPhil in the fields of musculoskeletal disease, inflammation and immunology? Join the OxKen Open Day on Tue 28 Oct to learn about the @NDORMS OxKen programme. Read about programme ➡️

The trendy Taiwanese drink has become a high-street staple, but recent findings on lead levels and choking risks suggest it warrants closer scrutiny.

Removing genetic effects from plasma proteins is an effective strategy to increase power for biomarker discovery and clinical trial design, consistent with the largely non-causal role of most plasma proteins in disease risk. 👏 Lead by Daniela Fusco and Zhiyu Yang

Glasgow crowned the friendliest city in the UK: 2025 Readers’ Choice Awards gla.ac/3WaOyUQ

#KidneyStones in the news! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... ❓What are they? 💎 Stones that form in kidneys & can fall into the ureter (drainpipe from kidneys to bladder) ❓So what? 😖 They’re linked to pain, infections, lower quality of life, & can need surgery. ❓What causes them? 🤔 Good question!

At #ST3bootcamp for urology in Leeds this week. First-class teaching, simulation, and interactions across all new ST3s. Stones, non technical skills, functional, uroradiology done so far, bladder cancer and recon today.

Not every hospital serves the same demographic.

Really enjoying a late-summer/early autumn read, courtesy of @rcsed.bsky.social. Brilliantly curated and edited @otolaryngolofox.bsky.social

"Six times more people are killed on the roads in the UK each year than through knife crime. If this was any other area of our lives, we would never tolerate this level of harm." Rebecca Morris’ impassioned speech calls for more immediate action for safer streets. #CyclingScotlandConf

Four PhD projects advertised for October 2026 @ndorms.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk Find info and apply here: www.ndorms.ox.ac.uk/study/botnar...

👏 Congrats to Katherine Cory & Phil Noble - joint Cycling Champions of the Year in Scotland 2025! True champions of cycling for all 💙

More and more patients on GLP1RAs so, as surgeons, it’s important to consider the perioperative effects as well as disease/comorbidity- specific effects. Data to suggest no change in surgical complications, which is reassuring.

Behind every door is a discovery... 📅 On 13 Sept, we’re opening ours at the Old Road Campus Research Building for #OxfordOpenDoors. @cmd.ox.ac.uk, @idrm.ox.ac.uk, @ludwigcancer.bsky.social, @oncology.ox.ac.uk and more will be there, will you? Find out more 👉 buff.ly/WV8TAXt

Looking for a PhD/Md-PhD candidate for a fully funded project at University Hospital Bern Switzerland to work at the intersection of kidney and bone biology. Please share, DM or comment. #NephSky #AskRenal

Even this late in the summer, the ornamental flower beds in Victoria Park in Glasgow are still looking very colourful. #glasgow #victoriapark #flowers #glasgowparks

@jengreitz.bsky.social l & my lab want to co-hire a computational biologist/biostatistician with project management expertise to help map the regulatory code of the human genome and discover genetic mechanisms of disease. Details below careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/computa... Plz RT

'If we want more people to cycle, we need to build for the bikes - and riders - we have now and want in the future.' @tsuoxford.bsky.social's Dr Zakiyya Adam outlines recommendations for the implementation of cycling-promoting initiatives in mid-sized European cities 🚲 #CycleToWorkDay

Our latest with editorial. Genetic susceptibility to kidney stone disease: unveiling pathogenesis and potential therapeutic targets @jclinicalinvest @drsarahhowles jci.org/articles/view/… jci.org/articles/view/��� @celovegrove.bsky.social @ndsurgicalsci.bsky.social

No stone goes unturned in the search for risk-associated variants in kidney stone disease— @celovegrove.bsky.social @sarahhowles.bsky.social & team identify three biologic pathways that underlie ~11-19% of common causes of stone formation: buff.ly/INjAjLy

Scientific fraud is an issue that needs to be tackled for stakeholders’ (including medical patients’) benefit. “Unless publishers, funders, and people in charge of hiring and promotion pay attention and penalize this behaviour…it will continue. It’s growing fast.” www.science.org/content/arti...

📣 We are recruiting! Please share!! Are you a bioinformatician / computational scientist who wants to apply your skills to understanding regulatory biology and improving rare disease diagnosis and treatment? 🧠 💻 🧬 🩺 We have two roles available 👇 🧵 1/4

Review by Michelle A. Baum, Mallory Mandel, and Michael J.G. Somers: Understanding Rare Kidney Stone Diseases: A Review bit.ly/Baum25REV (FREE)

"The great irony of vaccines is that populations become complacent about a disease and the need for immunisation largely because a successful vaccine made it feel as though the threat was consigned to the past" excellent stuff by Francis Ryan on the rise of measles across the globe

💎Kidney stones affect quality of life beyond the acute admission. 😰Acute symptoms & anxiety about recurrent episodes contribute to a desire for improved holistic care that includes: 1. ℹMore information 2. 👋🏼Better support 3. 💊Better preventive therapies publishing.rcseng.ac.uk/doi/10.1308/...

Feedback to PI @dominicfurniss.bsky.social from group member: “…incredibly grateful to have experienced the environment of your research group. It’s welcoming, collaborative & nurturing...Being exposed to that culture has been incredibly uplifting & motivating” Proud to be a member of this group 💪🏼

The NSF siege tower to the TDF’s paywall… Sounds great, I’m in

The advice to “eat less, move more” isn’t just outdated, it’s harmful. Obesity is a chronic condition shaped by biology, environment and inequality.

www.kidneyresearchuk.org/2025/07/01/r... “By identifying 3 changes in 🧬 that ⬆️ the risk of kidney stones, it may be possible to use this info, alongside other risk factors, to provide personalised treatments for patients. ” @kidneyresearchuk.org @sarahhowles.bsky.social @ndsurgicalsci.bsky.social

Because a single behavior poses so many risks, cutting smoking rates has been one of the most powerful tools to save lives and improve public health. (This Data Insight was written by @scientificdiscovery.dev.)

Dr Clare McNaught has been elected as the new President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Dr McNaught will become the College's first ever female President in the College's 520-year history, and will succeed Professor Rowan Parks. Read more: https://bit.ly/44kf55F

Testing causal links between all imaginable phenotypes with MR in UKB is easy! But inferring causality still requires that the MR assumptions are valid (notably: genetic instruments must act on outcome only via exposure) See also from @mendelrandom.bsky.social pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

"It's firmly nestled in surgical lexicon&will continue to be. Frustrations are best channelled into improving understanding of resilience so discussion becomes productive...shift focus from terminological inexactitude to supporting trainees to thrive" doi.org/10.1111/bju.... @bjuijournal.bsky.social

#BAUS25 catching up with the stone geeks @celovegrove.bsky.social#goteamendo

The WHO recently released new data on trends in body mass index, updating all countries to 2022. The previous data only went up to 2016. The share of adults with a BMI of 25 or more — considered overweight or obese — varies widely among high-income countries, from 24% in Japan to 79% in Chile.

The difficult part of the work is not performing the analysis, but rather finding and justifying that the genetic variants inform us in a specific way about the effects of ketone metabolism.

Associations of Topiramate and Zonisamide Use With Kidney Stones: A Retrospective Cohort Study bit.ly/SalkaOI25 #VisualAbstract

Essentially, given current data, this paper from 2008 was right.... and we should probably wait for something to change before throwing more postdoc and (especially!) PhD student time at it... journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

Glasgow Science Festival begins today 🥳 Running from the 5th - 15th June, with most events being FREE - you don't want to miss this! 🔬🧪 The UofG Tower and Main Building were lit #GlaSciFest blue yesterday to mark the occasion. 🤩 Full programme ➡️ www.gla.ac.uk/events/scien...

🚀 Exciting announcement! ⭐️ Join us at #BAUS25 for our special session on Monday, 16 June! 🕓 16:30 - 16:45 📍 Charter 3 📢 We are thrilled to welcome our keynote speaker, Freddie Hamdy, who will discuss, "The Challenge of Misinformation"! #BURSTatBAUS #UroSoMe @bausurology.bsky.social

Congratulations to all worthy recipients of this accolade! It's noteworthy that there isn't a single woman on that list @royalsociety.org @ox.ac.uk

"The value...is not to quantify magnitude of effect... Instead, it provides a evidence to increase/decrease confidence in causal hypothesis, which can be triangulated with evidence from other sources"👏 Should Mendelian randomization investigations provide estimates? academic.oup.com/ajeadvances/...

There is certainly a time and a place where we want a quantitative estimate of a well-defined parameter (e.g. in Phase 3). But there are also times and places where we are more interested in aetiology and the precise intervention has not even been decided (e.g. in Phase 2).