Not that long ago, in vivo mouse enhancer design was a dream. Today, it's a reality! Using transfer deep learning to design de novo synthetic embryonic enhancers active in the heart, limb, and CNS. Great collab with @alex-stark.bsky.social lab! @ucibiosci.bsky.social @impvienna.bsky.social

Happy to share another story by Annesha Ghosh. Here, we show that inhibition of the mRNA cap methyltransferase CMTR-1 activates a protective immune response via the GATA transcription factor ELT-2. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Glad to see @davidmcquarrie.bsky.social paper #genetics showing that core promoters of Drosophila "prostata" genes evolve fast which can leading to allelic dominance.

Good to be true?

Selective vulnerability of certain cell types to loss of dosage compensation. Post-embryonically, most tissues can do without it - except for a subset of adult progenitors. Congrats Océane, Bruno and Lucie!

A high-resolution atlas of the brain predicts lineage and birth order underlying neuronal identity: Cell Genomics www.cell.com/cell-genomic... Follow-up paper on sex, online in the New year

Doing CRISPR - check out our PlatinumCRISPr upgrade thanks to @roliarnold.bsky.social and @ihaussmann.bsky.social platinum-crispr.bham.ac.uk

Rapid promoter evolution of male accessory gland genes is accompanied by divergent expression in closely related Drosophila species #Drosophila

Vaults. They are cell biology's greatest puzzle! This preprint from Martin Beck's lab shows them docked on ER membranes with a ribosome inside. What on earth is going on there?? #CellBiology #WTFology www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🎉Our new paper out: the 6th update of MODOMICS, marking 20 years of our RNA 🧬modification database. Largest update so far, including >48,000 human RNAs with modification sites, collaboration with Sci-ModoM & Human RNome Project. NAR 2025 doi: 10.1093/nar/gkaf1284 #RNA #Epitranscriptomics #Databases

Genetic evaluation of CRISPR-Cas9 off-target effects from deleterious mutations on Drosophila male single X chromosome #Drosophila

Elegant way to test for CRISPR-Cas9 off targets thanks to @weibian.bsky.social @davidmcquarrie.bsky.social @roliarnold.bsky.social @ihaussmann.bsky.social but there seems very little. At least to say CRISPR-Cas9 is safe for flies rdcu.be/eUyma

Complementary expression rather than specialised function for ribosomal paralogs - very interesting finding!

Getting close to a two third majority.

Super cool story - viruses keep translation up by preventing mRNA circularisation! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A great historical account of one of the most fascinating and important clusters of genes in animal evolution. The Master Regulators: The Hox. Despite knowing so much about them since the McGinnis 1984 Cell paper, they retain a core mystery that is difficult to explain. Namely: why clustering?

Artificial intelligence promises rapid and polite feedback on papers — but we must first review the reviewer. This stand first says it all… A timely World View Colin in our pages by Giorgio Gilestro 🧪 #academicSky @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41...

We have been receiving excellent protocol papers for this collection. Submission still open!

Queuosine - nostalgic first encounter with RNA and modifications, and my later PhD supervisor Eric Kubli. www.nature.com/articles/294...

From January 1st 2026, the CNRS will cut access to one of the largest commercial bibliometric databases, Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science, along with the Core Collection and Journal Citation Reports.

Our greetings were from a woodchuck - all flowers cut on top, like if some had used a scissor just below the flower. Didn't make it for review either.

Thrilled to share our new paper! With @tomtom-auer.bsky.social team, we asked how #evolution reshapes what animals #eat to match their ecological niches. Using pan-neuronal Ca2+ imaging, we show that the changes are in how the brain processes #taste. Link @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bold by stress!

Six postdoc positions in two brand new team science projects on mechanistic biology in the overlap area of ageing and sex differences @mrc-lms.bsky.social in London - apply now!

Cool tool! Though it didn't find our interactions. Maybe needs to play in RNA.

Out today, our take on 6-methyladenine #6mA evolution in Eukaryotes @natgenet.nature.com. We asked a simple question, is really DNA 6mA common across the eukaryotes? The answer is "yes" if you're a unicellular eukaryote 🦠, not so if you're multicellular 🐝🌱🍄. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/9

We have a funded NERC PhD studentship! Selfish X chromosomes are these bizarre things where males carrying the selfish X suffer from imploding testes. Lots to do in this space, especially in evolutionary, stress, and infection biology. Please share! #PhDchat #AcademicSky @uniexecec.bsky.social

This work is now officially published @natsmb.nature.com with some fun new analyses included in the revised version. Congratulations to all the authors! @connyyu.bsky.social @rappsilber.bsky.social @lrsinn.bsky.social @fjoreilly.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In memory every summer!

Preprint: Bacteria sense virus-induced genome degradation via methylated mononucleotides tinyurl.com/ch3damp We show how molecular byproducts released during virus-induced cell exploitation are used as signals to trigger host immunity Revealed by the amazing Ilya Osterman. See his thread below👇

🦖 Something HUGE just hatched. Plasmidsaurus now offers RNA sequencing for gene expression analysis: • As fast as 3 day turnaround • $50/sample for academia, $80 for industry • Up to ~10M unique transcript 3’ end reads per sample • Interactive results Explore Plasmidsaurus RNA-Seq today.

Cold-inducible RNA-binding protein CIRBP: A whales secret to long life? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Well represented #EMBO epitranscriptomics 2025

We have a new academic post opening for a Lecture/Senior-Lecturer in Structural Biology @mcf-uom.bsky.social @fbmh-uom.bsky.social @manchester.ac.uk The University of Manchester is ranked among the top Universities worldwide. QS world rankings: 34th (2025) www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Exciting news for the RNA research community! The Human RNome Project has been launched: a global effort to map all human RNAs and their chemical modifications. Proud to support it and contribute to the article in Genome Biology doi.org/10.1186/s130... #RNA #bioinformatics #RNAstructure #modomics

Why? Water companies are paid to deal with waste water, like coffee. Unbelievable how deteriorated this has become. On the cost of tax payers.

Excited to share our paper, led by Naoki Okamoto in our group, just out in Nature! Neuroendocrine control of calcium mobilization in the fruit fly www.nature.com/articles/s41... We “re”-discovered the calcium storage site in “boneless” Drosophila and revealed how calcium mobilization is regulated.

We’ve not given up trying to work out what is killing the bees, with @matthiassoller.bsky.social @annalassota.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... Assessing species-specific neonicotinoid toxicity using cross-species chimeric nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in a Drosophila model

This is a super interesting paper by @conradlab.bsky.social lab on METTL16. They separate METTL16 function on U6 and MAT2A allowing more accurate analysis. Their results cast serious doubt on hundreds of papers claiming METTL16 methylates vast number of mRNAs. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Our paper describing enhanced hybridization-proximity labeling technology is finally out! Enhanced HyPro can identify proteins associated with small RNA compartments and even some individual transcripts, such as pathological C9orf72 transcripts: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Future thinking.

Last of the trilogy about core promoter evolution thanks to @davidmcquarrie.bsky.social academic.oup.com/genetics/adv...

Rapid promoter evolution of male accessory gland genes is accompanied by divergent expression in closely related Drosophila species #Drosophila

Interested in what happens when a fly gets a bee receptor? 🐝➡️🪰 Check out our new paper! Many thanks to @matthiassoller.bsky.social and @docfly.bsky.social

Making beta to alpha - see our latest work here pinning honey bee nicotinic acetylcholine receptor alpha8 gene into flies to test neonicotinoid sensitivity thanks to @annalassota.bsky.social and @docfly.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Great day in Lancaster, thanks to @agatsiou.bsky.social for the invitation.

Still time to apply for this post!!!

New BBSRC funded PhD opportunity in my group with Inspiralis Ltd and @conradn.bsky.social. If you are interested in RNA - protein interactions and RNA modifications check the details below for how to apply. @nrpdtp.bsky.social @biouea.bsky.social @earlhaminst.bsky.social tinyurl.com/bdzvn4dr

21 fully funded PhD projects are available in our division! www.findaphd.com/phds/divisio...

Some fly neurons are “dimorphic”, existing in both males and females but connecting to different neighboring neurons. Neighbors may be “isomorphic”, the same in both male and female; or sex specific; or dimorphic themselves. Here's an example, the type AOTU012, present in left and right instances.