A fun collaboration with wonderful colleagues in Evanston IL linking DNAme and placental vascular pathology. #teamplacenta www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

While very relieved that my CIHR grant on placenta and fetal heart defects is funded (on the 3rd try), I am very concerned for the research community generally that the funding rate keeps dropping --13.1% in my committee😟.

Congrats to Nikita--the latest PhD defended from our labs (Robinson and Lam cosupervised)!

Note for UBC, "Expressions of Interest" need to be submitted by Jan 15th here: research.ubc.ca/federal-rese...

Solid advice.👇 There. Is. No. Magic. Move. Eat real food. Sleep. Don't smoke. Drink less (or not at all). Prevention (yep, vaccines). Community!! ♥️ Trying to improve your health and wellness in 2026? Keep it simple apnews.com/article/well...

While I still wordle daily, am now obsessed with TimeGuessr! So much more interesting, challenging, and educational...a little daily dose of history... #934 40,116/50,000 🌎🟩🟩🟨 📅🟩🟩⬛ 🌎⬛️⬛️⬛️ 📅🟩🟩⬛ 🌎🟩🟩🟨 📅🟩🟨⬛ 🌎🟩🟩🟨 📅🟩🟨⬛ 🌎🟩🟩🟨 📅🟩⬛⬛ timeguessr.com

UBC and BC Cancer are recruiting a cancer stem cell faculty member at the Associate Professor or Professor rank for the new Connie Eaves Chair in Cancer Stem Cell Research. A great position recognizing a giant in the field. Please share. #Vancouver ubc.wd10.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/ubcfac...

This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

Things we can do about this situation: 1. Read & sign the open letter (the letter keeps crashing but names are still being collected): docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... #AcademicSky #CanPoli Thread, 1/n

Jane Goodall's work insisting, with evidence from her brilliant and tenacious fieldwork, that we were not so separate from animals, and they were much more like us than the Eurocentric theorists asserted, was so important.

📢 #WCRI2026 update! 📅 May 3–6, 2026 | Vancouver ✨ Call for Abstracts – deadline Oct 15, 2025 🗓️Preliminary schedule is online, along with details on commissions, hosting opportunities, and sponsorship. 👉All links are in the replies below #ResearchIntegrity #WCRI2026

A new set of #physiology illustrations that are diverse, easy to use, and free are now available thanks to the efforts of a @westernu.ca prof and grad:

The goal of a PhD is not to learn some facts or read a few papers or learn a bunch of techniques. The goal of a PhD is to learn independence, problem solving, how to finish things you start, resilience, & gain the ability to adapt & think creatively. Learning these things is hard.

STEM isn’t a pipeline—it’s a braided river. Verónica Segarra offers a new model to support inclusion and rethink how we view scientific careers. www.molbiolcell.org/doi/10.1091/... #ASCB #CellBiology

This is a great guide from @dorassessment.bsky.social on improving research assessment in your organization. I wish it had been around when we started DORA implementation a few years ago! zenodo.org/records/1500...

Career Advice Reminder | 5 Ways to Instill More Joy in Higher Ed Workplaces Kristin McCann, Taylor Alexander, Lauren Isaacman Darga, Daniel Truesdale and Taylor Wallace suggest how to cultivate healthy environments where people thrive. #HigherEd #EDUSky #AcademicSky #CareerAdvice bit.ly/3I83f7o

We are all somatic mutation mosaics. "There are trillions of cells in a human body and so the total number of somatic mutations acquired in a single individual may well exceed quadrillions, millions of times the size of the human genome." @nature.com nature.com/articles/s41...

Any adventure runners out there looking for a high altitude challenge?? I had the pleasure of participating (as volunteer) in the 1st Singela Area "Marathon" last year in beautiful Ladakh. So amazing and fun!! I am now helping to support this growing trail race! www.singelaareamarathon.com

Congrats to Iciar and Ella on their newly minted degrees! And great to have previous grad @amy-inkster.bsky.social back for support! What a team!

📢 New #THRiVElab Research! After 6 years (!) of work led by Dr. Sarah Turner, the paper is out in Frontiers in Public Health Early life predictors of child development at kindergarten 📖 doi.org/10.3389/fpub... What did we find? What was the impact? How did we go from this to THIS? #SkyTorial 🧵🧪

We’re excited to share a new review article from the Robinson lab: lessons learned from genomic and epigenomic studies of the placenta. Key highlights below! doi.org/10.1016/j.pl...

Canada : on sort les coudes.

On this International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, we plug our “Debiasing Committee Composition and Deliberative Processes”, a 1-pager w/strategies for diversifying perspectives & reducing biases for hiring, promotion, tenure, and funding decisions. sfdora.org/resource/ret...

Come work with us in Vancouver! UBC’s Department of Medical Genetics, in collaboration with The Life Sciences Institute, seeks an Assistant Professor working in chromatin regulation or genetic regulatory mechanisms. ubc.wd10.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/ubcfac...

🔬 Does your research explore placental ageing, senescence, prolonged pregnancy, or term complications like pre-eclampsia? Join leading experts at our Annual Meeting! Registration open, don’t miss your chance to be part of the discussion. www.trophoblast.cam.ac.uk/ctrconferenc...

A great piece in The Scientist by @hannahthomasy.bsky.social on the stunning diversity of sex determination across species. A fun read on why sex determination is anything but simple. www.the-scientist.com/sex-determin...

Great to see this out! Congrats @amy-inkster.bsky.social on such thoughtful insightful work!

My alma mater, the University of British Columbia, Dept of Medical Genetics, is hiring for a tenure track junior faculty position specializing in chromatin regulation / gene regulatory mechanisms. Beautiful city and vibrant epigenetics research. Please share! medgen.med.ubc.ca/assistant-pr...

You can freely access all PubMed records at Europepmc.org - I just checked and it's up and running.

Bioinformatics Post-Doc Opportunity Vancouver Canada Come grow your genome analysis and processing skills. The Silent Genomes Project has created an Indigenous Background Variation Library for improved rare disease diagnosis. Help us make it even better. tinyurl.com/bdh7d6bu Please repost

I have funding through at least 2031 for postdoctoral researchers with expertise in islet biology or cell-based therapies for, or modelling of, diabetes. Bring your expertise to a country that values it. 🇨🇦 Contact info on my website.

Hey Canada 🇨🇦 here are some products either Made in Canada or are Products of Canada 🇨🇦. Attached are the definition of each, pics of each group (labeled) and a pic of product imported from countries other than the US. Not bad at all. We can do this! #buyCanadian

An unprovoked economic attack, intent on crushing US’s historically closest ally. If you can, please buy 🇨🇦 and 🇲🇽 products. & keep up the calls to your senators and reprentatives in 🇺🇸! www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

It takes curiosity to learn. It takes courage to unlearn. Learning requires the humility to admit what you don't know today. Unlearning requires the integrity to admit that you were wrong yesterday. Learning is how you evolve. Unlearning is how you keep up as the world evolves.

How exercise during pregnancy can improve metabolic health of offspring: a key mediator (Serpina3c) from mother's white adipose tissue gets into fetal circulation, suppresses inflammation, as demonstrated in the mouse model www.nature.com/articles/s42... www.nature.com/articles/s42...

"LNG expansion must not proceed — until we know whether or not expansion will threaten world climate and British Columbians’ health. Good public health policy demands nothing less." My latest op-ed @theprovince.bsky.social with Calvin Sandborn. @cape-acme.bsky.social theprovince.com/opinion/op-e...

When 2 males have a baby that reaches adulthood (mice with extensive genome editng)) www.cell.com/cell-stem-ce...

Everyone criticizes the “publish or perish” culture. But I have yet to hear someone praise a researcher with few pubs or not accept that more pubs = better. If we hate that aspect of the culture that much, let’s change it! Like us. Like next time you see job applicants being discussed

I realize now that I have a “trade deficit” with the store across the street. I walked over and bought a jug of milk. The store is abusing me and I’m tired of subsidizing it by buying something at a fair price that I want. I’m going to apply a tariff that will raise the future price of milk for me.

This is not hyperbole. This is an unmitigated disaster for biomedical science and reflect how central to American life and productivity NIH funding is. This funding drives the economy and contributes to the health and wellbeing of the entire country.

Thoughtful and engaging talk by @wprobins.bsky.social on the importance of considering researcher bias and confounders in analyzing #omics data (bit of a wonky picture as seminar room was packed) #researchintegrity

Cool work adding to our understanding of the unique DNAmethylation landscape in human trophoblast cells

Instead of listing my publications, as the year draws to an end, I want to shine the spotlight on the commonplace assumption that productivity must always increase. Good research is disruptive and thinking time is central to high quality scholarship and necessary for disruptive research.

Got a great idea for a symposium? Want to go to Puerto Rico in March 2026? Combine them and respond to this call from SRI

Very proud of my grad students for putting together this comprehensive review on cell-free placental DNA. We found that reviews on the topic focus on clinical utility. Here we focus on basic science of cell-free placental DNA, what we know and current knowledge gaps journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

We've created a Starter Pack of Canadian-based investigators in the field of epigenetics and epigenomics. Please contact us if you want to be added or if you want to suggest someone! go.bsky.app/Pi7wjbh

Chromosome segregation errors are common in the early stages of human embryonic development. Read here our open access commentary on three recent studies of spindle architecture and positioning features that could provide insights into why early embryos are predisposed to aneuploidy. rdcu.be/d1TgG

Vancouver Folks! Make our city a climate leader again - Send a message to the mayor and council (takes 2 secs): www.dogwoodbc.ca/petitions/de...

A big day of output for the Human Cell Atlas, a global collaborative project with 100 countries to understand our ~37 trillion cells A Wikipedia of our cells, a "remarkable achievement" nature.com/articles/d41... nature.com/immersive/d4...