Dear journal editors, what do we think about including summary figures in a cover letter? I've never done this, but a co-author wants to include one for our latest manuscript. Helpful in illustrating the case? Weird and gauche? What say ye?

A PSA on PSA from @glaucomflecken.bsky.social... www.youtube.com/shorts/_u0CW...

100% this

Finally, a huge thanks to all of our incredible students at #CSHLPDAC25. This was a standout class who leaned into the science, the questions, and... UNO! Look forward to seeing you all at meetings for many years to come!

So, I dropped the ball in my #CSHLPDAC25 posts. Huge shout out to all of the instructors I didn't get to highlight with photos, including: Ingunn Stromnes (Immunology I), David DeNardo (Immunology II), Bryson Katona (Epidemiology and Early Detection)...

Computational biologist extraordinaire Dr. Elana Fertig ‪@fertiglab.bsky.social‬ asks "what's your QUESTION?" Please be nice to your friendly neighborhood computational scientist!

In our second talk on cancer-associated fibroblasts, Dr. Mara Sherman from MSKCC digs into the functional relationships of CAFs with other cells in pancreatic cancer at #CSHLPDAC25.

Next up, course director (and fellow Hedgehog pathway afficianado) Dr. Marina Pasca de Magliano from UMich gave the first of two lectures on fibroblasts in the pancreas, preneoplasia, and PDAC.

Dr. Laura Wood gave a fascinating lecture on precursor lesions and the spectacular 3D pathology tools that she and her extended team at JHU have developed to quantify pancreatic pathology.

Kicking off the morning with end-to-end coverage of gastroenterology for #PDAC, from the inimitable Dr. Ben Stanger @benstanger01.bsky.social! #CSHLPDAC25

Radiology and Radiation Oncology - Dr. Eugene Koay from MD Anderson tells us they both are RAD!

Now a masterclass on the medical oncology of #pdac from Dr. Andrew Aguirre at DFCI, highlighting the coming wave of RAS inhibitors in PDAC. #cshlpdac25

Next up, an overview of pancreatic cancer surgery from suregon-scientist Dr. Fil Bednar ‪@filbednar.bsky.social‬ (a former student in our class!). #cshlpdac25

First up, Dr. Aatur Singhi @pancpathologist.bsky.social‬ at U. Pittsburgh with an overview of pancreatic cancer pathology

Excited to welcome a whole new class of students to the 2025 Cold Spring Harbor course on pancreatic cancer #CSHLPDAC25! This year we have twenty two course instructuors reach to share their expertise on all aspects of PDAC biology, medicine, and research. Ready for an exciting week!

Look what bloomed in my office today! Finally got this one healthy enough to bloom annually.

And now for postdoc #2 at #aacr2025, our very own Dr. Marie Hasselluhn! @columbiacancer.bsky.social

@alvarocuriel.bsky.social in situ!

Big day today at #aacr2025! @alvarocuriel.bsky.social is presenting his work on BMAL2, a master regulator of PDAC hypoxic response (poster 2570) and Dr. Marie Hasselluhn is presenting her work on role of CAF/myeloid crosstalk in PDAC immunosuppression in PDAC (poster 1501). Come check them out!

On my way to #aacr2025 in Chicago, can't wait to see my many friends and colleagues who will be there. Please check out posters from my postdocs @alvarocuriel.bsky.social and Marie Hasselluhn!

As I was on my way to the Stand Up For Science rally in NYC, I learned that the US plans to cancel $400M in grants and contracts with Columbia. Let us be clear. This is purely an effort to instill fear and bring American universities to heel. You can be certain Columbia will not be the last.

That's me in the orange at NYC Stand Up For Science. Congrats to the organizers for a fantastic turnout and event! @standupforscience.bsky.social

Standing up for Science in Washington Square Park, #NYC #standupforscience

Someone in one of the labs in my building woke up this morning and chose violence. The cardboard box is slowly crushing over time, creating the leaning tower of mini-fridge. WHY!?!?! (Lab name redacted to protect the guilty...)

Publicly announced today my new roles as assistant dean for graduate curricula at Columbia's Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S), and Associate Director of the Vagelos Institute for Biomedical Research and Education (VIBRE). Wish me luck balancing science and administration!

Yet another example of how cancelling NIH meetings is impacting research: I have an R01 application that scored right on the cusp of funding. Council meeting is in 4 weeks. The next resubmission date is in 6. If that council meeting is delayed more than 2 weeks, I will face a choice of...

Microscopy Nodes is now up on bioRxiv! 🚀 This is a Blender extension that seamlessly integrates and visualizes 3D microscopy data (TIF & @zarr.dev). High-quality volume rendering for anyone, in both EM and fluorescence, regardless of computational expertise! 🔬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The sky is so clear tonight we could see Mars passing behind the moon by eye even in Manhattan! Managed to catch it about 5 minutes before occultation.

Well, 2025 is off to a good start. Over the holidays, they replaced the light switch in my office to a motion activated system... that doesn't detect motion. So it turns the light off after 15 minutes no matter what.

Here's to all the lab scientists who volunteered to come in over the holidays this year and take care of longitudinal experiments for the lab. You rock (!) and we PIs appreciate you!!!

Tremendous resource paper from NCI-PSRC member Nina Steele on collating a single cell RNA SEQ dataset in #PancreaticCancer The dataset is now housed with the PSRC. aacrjournals.org/clincancerre...

When a member of your team is a REALLY big Mariah Carey fan...

13 impactful discoveries at Columbia in 2024... including our work on RAS inhibitors in #pancreaticcancer! news.columbia.edu/news/13-colu...

Enjoying some great talks from Pancreatic cancer Stroma Reprogramming Consortium (PSRC) scientists today for our Network-wide Progress Meeting. @nci-psrc.bsky.social

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Setup for the Macys parade continues apace. #iloveNYC

Galileo's discovery of moons around Jupiter was purely descriptive. That doesn't mean it wasn't significant!

I don't have much to say tonight, so here's a picture I took of a bison.

When you bring cookies back to lab after faculty meeting...

Women are under-represented at senior levels in #academia globally, & across all #science 🧪 disciplines, as shown by these "scissor-shaped curves" ✂️ So how can we ever achieve #gender #equality? We discuss various strategies in this #Cell Commentary #WomeninSTEM www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... 🧵 1/

Managed to get the lab out to celebrate some big milestones a while back - we all made terrariums and then went out for Korean bbq. Super fun (and tasty)!

The accuracly of this measuring tape leaves something to be desired... What even IS an inch???

Ending a long and intense week with our traditional family activity of watching Great British Baking Show. Patisserie week!

The Olive Lab is looking for a world-class postdoc to lead our ongoing efforts on RAS inhibition in pancreatic cancer. Monotherapy RAS inhibition is just the start. Come help us figure out what is the best agent to combine with RASi to finally achieve tumor ERADICATION!

Well I was SUPPOSED to be on my way home from Sweden right now but the plane turned around after an hour and diverted to Copenhagen and now I'm waiting for SAS to find a new airplane. Pretty sure it was a tail strike during takeoff. On an unrelated note, Happy World Pancreatic Cancer Day!

My student just sent me this teaser slide for our next meeting...

Finished up day 2 at the #PanCKI in Stockholm. Audience was super engaged and excited to hear about #RASinhibition in PDAC.

Amazing first day at the Pancreatic Cancer Congress at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Many thanks to the organizers for inviting me - my first trip to Sweden! news.ki.se/calendar/pan...

A big welcome to bsky for @columbiacancer.bsky.social, my fantastic academic home for the past 15 years! www.cancer.columbia.edu

The past several months I kinda withdrew from posting on that other site. Not purposefully, I just wasn't feeling it. But that meant we missed celebrating some exciting events! Time to get caught up a bit over the next few days, starting with...