For decades, molecular biology and human genetics have been built around measurements of average gene expression. That was partly conceptual, but also technological: for a long time, the mean was the quantity we could measure most reliably. Our new preprint argues that this framework is incomplete.

Beyond the mean: genetic control of gene expression fidelity and dispersion www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

@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...

"Beyond the baseline: mapping the context-specific regulatory landscape of disease" by Yoav Gilad and Alexis Battle authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

New review on context-specificity and disease genetics from @ygilad.bsky.social and me: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

UAB is recruiting neuroscience faculty at two different levels - come join our vibrant neuroscience community!

Finally, today's offering! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... This began life as a very different project which failed because we couldn't agree on defining eqtl sharing across cohorts. So two young members of the lab dug deeply into this - first @ijbeasley.bsky.social, then @patrickgibbs.bsky.social

Pre-print on cardiomyocyte response to novel anti-cancer drug CX-5461 now published! Includes new gene expression response data at higher CX doses. Response to micromolar CX doses starts to mimic DOX responses, suggesting that off-target effects on the heart should be considered for this drug.

I can hardly find science posts here. I don't know how to change that. Yes, I know a lot is going on (obviously), but I get all the other things everywhere... this was where I used to get the science 😞

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My daughter Maya, who had to wear a scoliosis brace for 2 years, wants to connect with other teens who live with invisible diseases. www.under-the-iceberg.com/about

This action could not be completed, please try again later. What a joke

We're hiring for multiple open rank positions in the broad areas of biochemistry, molecular biology, and computational biology. With the recruitment of a new chair our Departmental strengths now include nuclear architecture, genomics and ancient DNA. jobs.sciencecareers.org/job/676677/b...

Faculty position at the department of medicine, University of Chicago. Please share.

I’ve been wondering more and more if TADs are about limiting recombination search and less about gene expression?

My lab is recruiting postdocs in AI/ML for genetics & genomics through the Malone Postdoctoral Fellows program. Apply by Jan 30! Lots of other great labs across the Malone Center as well.

The 400th copy of my book was sold yesterday. Thank you to everyone who ordered a copy! Some of you shared with me comments and suggestions, and I invite more readers to do so. www.barnesandnoble.com/w/an-intuiti...

So what was the point of all this...? Why am I utterly not surprised

My book, An Intuitive Primer on Effective Functional Genomics Study Design, is published! I’d really appreciate it if you could help spread the word, and I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback. I hope people will find it useful. It’s available on Amazon: tinyurl.com/mx2hewen

And to make this more concrete, here is a re-review we just got. The editor overruled this negative reviewer, who here is *lecturing us on the ethos of the journal*. I've never met anyone in real life who holds this position with whom I can have an actual discussion. Always anonymous peer review.

You can explain to me the complexity and rules related to endowment all you want, but there is just no way Harvard can't afford to keep their graduate programs intact. It's a choice.

Happy to be at ASHG! 2 students in the lab will present posters on gene regulatory evolution in primates on Thurs: Emma focuses on responses to stimuli: 9109T John focuses on transposable elements: 6036T Please stop by if interested #ASHG25

Thank you for taking the time to review my book!

Your immune system remembers skin inflammation long after it resolves because of #interferon alpha! Check out our new paper describing these findings just published at @jimmunol.bsky.social 👇👇👇 It was amazing working on this with my role model @drshrutinaik.bsky.social

I think the R01 is basically a non-starter at NIGMS now. Data from NIH Reporter for new and competing awards, comparing number of R01s issued relative to R35s (MIRA). This has major ramifications for basic science and basic science investigators that are not yet in the MIRA pool

C. elegans is a real animal and we set out to understand how it comes to have its distinctive biogeography. Its ancestral center of diversity is in the higher elevation forests of Hawaii. Its closest relatives are spread across east Asia. Did they travel from Asia? [Preprint 🧵]

More foundations should do this: "Funding is exclusively available to applicants who have already received federal funding (e.g., from the NIH, CDC, NSF) for their health equity research, but have since had their funding rescinded due to federal administrative actions" www.rwjf.org/en/grants/ac...

Some personal news: I was recently promoted to Full Professor at the University of Chicago. This milestone is deeply meaningful, and also feels quite surreal. When I started as a graduate student at UChicago in 2005 I never imagined my journey would lead me here 20 years later as a professor.

Check out our new review about addressing missing context in regulatory variation across primate evolution 🧬🐒 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I heard in the elevator a graduate student joking about destroying their lab and starting over, and I was just thinking that the lab I did my PhD. in was actually completely destroyed this week.

Happy to share our work led by Renee: ‘Anthracyclines induce global changes in cardiomyocyte chromatin accessibility that overlap with cardiovascular disease loci.’ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

People always stop me in the street to ask: "Yoav, where are the disease-associated eQLTs? We found a lot in GTEx but we can't find anymore. Do you know where they are?" (For the record, no one has ever asked me this, but it is a really good question!) I think we know where they are.

People always stop me in the street to ask: "Yoav, where are the disease-associated eQLTs? We found a lot in GTEx but we can't find anymore. Do you know where they are?" (For the record, no one has ever asked me this, but it is a really good question!) I think we know where they are.

Our paper: ""Oxygen-induced stress reveals context-specific gene regulatory effects in human brain organoids" genome.cshlp.org/content/earl...

Why do so many disease risk variants show no regulatory effects in GTEx and/or other standard eQTL studies? What do we mean when we say a regulatory effect is "context-specific" and how do we define the context? We explored these questions using brain organoids and oxygen stress.

Context in another thread. Just the preprint here: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

I’ve been studying gene regulation in primates for over 20 years, and using RNA-seq since 2008 to compare expression across species. We thought we were being careful. We used curated orthologous exons to minimize alignment bias and focused on biologically meaningful comparisons. We were wrong.

Absolutely thrilled to see Dr. Brandon Gaut receive the inaugural @genetics-gsa.bsky.social Mentorship Award! 🏆🎉 Brandon brings humanity back to science, supports inclusive training, and pushes back on the publish-or-perish culture. So well deserved—congrats! 👏🙌 genestogenomes.org/distinguishe...

It was fun to write this piece with such a great team of colleagues in the field! Also grateful for discussions and feedback from @anshulkundaje.bsky.social @avsecz.bsky.social

🎉 This paper has been a long time and a labour of love (and hardship) for multiple group members, but, finally: we MPRA'ed 25k introgressed variants (Denisovan and Neanderthal) segregating at allele frequencies > 0.15 in humans today to evaluate their potential to regulate gene expression.

Nice! Environmentally responsive eQTLs are enriched for being more distal and for constrained genes relative to conventional QTLs.

This is such an exciting project! Huge thanks to Wenhe Lin, @jmpopp.bsky.social, @radster95.bsky.social, Olivia Allen, Jonathan Burnett, and to @alexisbattle.bsky.social, @ygilad.bsky.social, and Matthew Stephens for their mentorships! Check out our preprint for more! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congratulations to my colleague, collaborator, and friend @jkpritch.bsky.social for his so well deserved election to the national academy of science! Only thing is... NAS: what took you so long..?!

It's his favorite movie. He recognizes the music and he'll come to watch. Flow

New interview in the University TImes at Pitt based on my interview. utimes.pitt.edu/news/jeremy-...