"The United Kingdom’s researchers are an under-used asset “that we need to sweat” to boost economic growth" UKRI is "under-exploited" The UKRI CEO in his own words.

CEO Ian Chapman ‘very sorry’ for UKRI not engaging on funding changes www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

Celebrating bizarrely high HDL with some charcuterie

Throughout the 1940-70s lead exposure was a public health catastrophe... and then people got serious about environmental intervention "Lead in archived hair documents a decline in lead exposure to humans since the establishment of the US Environmental Protection Agency" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Wish it was easier to calculate PGS in trusted research environments (TRE) like DNAnexus or the All of Us workbench? Us to! We've been hard at work on a new version of pgsc_calc to make it more scalable in those TREs! Introducing pgsc_calc v3.0.0-alpha.1: pgsc-calc.readthedocs.io/en/v3-alpha.1/

Sir Paul Nurse PRS writes in today's Times on cuts to UKRI funding: "If [discovery-driven science] is not properly supported, we lose the seed-corn of discovery research, harming subsequent science translation, societal improvement and economic growth." Read more(£): www.thetimes.com/comment/lett...

Sunday morning fantasy

Very much enjoyed the Festival of Genomics and BioData yesterday in London eventhough I could only be there a few hours! Highlight has to be meeting Prof Marta Cascante, a pioneer of metabolomics and using metabolic flux analysis to identify new metabolic drug targets! web.ub.edu/en/web/actua...

Genes influence human lifespan far more than thought, new study suggests www.statnews.com/2026/01/29/h... via @statnews.com

The STRIDES Trial: Largest ever trial (N~1,300,000) of interventions for blood donor vasovagal reactions (feeling faint and fainting) shows no benefit from four additional interventions www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... Simplifies the service, saves £££ and focuses time/effort elsewhere 👏👏👏

The US withdrawal from #WHO became official today, leaving the world less prepared for dangerous disease outbreaks. “When that will bite us in the ass, it’s impossible to predict. But there is a 100% certainty that it will bite us in the ass,” one expert told me. www.statnews.com/2026/01/22/u...

Pregnancy loss is common in humans, and chromosomal abnormalities are the leading cause. Using genetic data from ~140,000 IVF embryos, we show that maternal variation in meiosis genes influences recombination and aneuploidy risk. First authors: @saracarioscia.bsky.social & @aabiddanda.github.io

This was posted on bsky a few days ago, cant recall where. But it’s really quite good. www.volts.wtf/p/the-cure-f... How are peoples’ minds really changed? It’s rarely rational or evidence based, it’s down to their (social) identity.

This is such hard news to process. Such an amazing scientist and inspiration for so many of us. www.embl.org/news/embl-an...

#Measles cases continues to climb. The 2025 tally has now hit 2242 & there've already been more confirmed cases in 2026 — 171 — than were logged in most years from the late 1990s to 2023! Interesting to see the age distribution of cases. Lots of susceptible adults, seems. www.cdc.gov/measles/data...

ICYMI in the mad rush before the winter holidays, we published a paper looking at integrated risk prediction of cardiovascular disease and modelling both targeted and population-wide intervention in the UK. I was honestly surprised at the potential benefits 👇

FYI the NIH is proposing revisions to the NIH Genome Data Sharing Policy: grants.nih.gov/grants/guide... This needs careful consideration. Responses are requested by mid-March and it goes without saying that many submissions from the global genomics community are strongly encouraged.

ICYMI in the mad rush before the winter holidays, we published a paper looking at integrated risk prediction of cardiovascular disease and modelling both targeted and population-wide intervention in the UK. I was honestly surprised at the potential benefits 👇

Individuals whose phenotype deviates from genetic expectation defined by common variation are enriched for rare damaging variants in genes that cause rare disease www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

In this @bmj.com opinion piece, we propose that infrastructural support, mundane process improvements, and better use of available capacity could deliver more value than some of the headline-grabbing "solutions." We propose a learning system model to help. www.bmj.com/content/392/...

Timeline cleanse www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"Illumina Appoints Former NHGRI Director Eric Green as Chief Medical Officer" www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/i...

“Integrating perturbational screens, eQTL, and GWAS data identifies mediating genes for complex traits” Very nice @medrxivpreprint.bsky.social study by @zeyunlu.bsky.social @sashagusevposts.bsky.social & colleagues 🧪🧬 www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Federal health officials slash recommended childhood vaccinations under Trump’s directive www.statnews.com/2026/01/05/c... via @statnews.com

Researchers from the Quadram Institute have come together to develop a new open access book filled with cutting-edge methods and protocols to ensure best practice in microbiome research.

Thoroughly enjoying this sub, especially 'Western Scandinavia' www.reddit.com/r/AskTheWorl...

People age 70+ should not be taking aspirin at any dose for prevention. Results of randomized trials show higher risk of all-cause mortality, major bleeding events and deaths from cancer. p 153, SUPER AGERS book

New @science.org today Discovery of a genomic variant that protects against blood cancer by reducing risk of CHIP (blood stem cell mutation clones, common with aging) @bloodgenes.bsky.social @kharaslab.bsky.social science.org/doi/10.1126/...

So yea, opened up my work laptop to a macOS recovery screen and uni IT doesnt open again until Jan 2… if anyone’s expecting anything from me in the near future, it’s gonna take a while (longer than usual) 🤷🏻‍♂️

…and we don’t have this matrix at good completeness & precision, despite many efforts (including our own 👇). Hopefully we will in not too distant future, but given the difficulty of this task, I’m not holding my breath regarding virtual cells. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41173850/

The senior university is a wonderful idea and widely implementable. Can't help but agree that such institutions are democratically important. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Congrats @jeffgroh.bsky.social et al. Some avocado trees open female-phase flowers in the morning & then male in afternoon. Others show complementary pattern (m->f), to synchronize pollination of two types. Jeff show this to be a >45Mya polymorphism at a transcription factor across 100s of species.

This story is absolutely wild. Did you know that avocados change sex over the course of a day? And that it's controlled by a single ancient balanced polymorphism? This is flat our crazy

Every british parent now beyond exhaustion, furiously stuffing stockings, shoving pressies under trees, scarfing cookies that have been meticulously laid out, and chucking 'reindeer food' in the outside bin... 🎅🏼🥃

Japan is joining Horizon Europe, the EU’s flagship research and innovation programme. Openness and international cooperation can shape a bright future for science and technology. Through science, we can build bridges, strengthen competitiveness, and accelerate the green and digital transitions.

"Most top achievers (Nobel laureates and world-class musicians, athletes, chess players) demonstrated lower performance than many peers during their early years. Across the highest adult performance, peak performance is negatively correlated with early performance" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We did a deep dive into aortic stenosis genetics, and took first steps to understand the genetics behind normal human variation in flow across the aortic valve.

This headline is wrong and misleading, and the brief text below it is not much better. Whatever might constitute a full explanation of the differences between sapiens and other hominins, we remain confident that 'genes' will be central to it. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

New story in STAT with data about Early Stage Investigators www.statnews.com/2025/12/18/n... 1/4

"The only kind of thinking that matters in science is structured thinking. The only way to give structure and substance to your thoughts is to write them down. Writing. Is. Thinking." Thinking about this in the context of AI tools....

And it's a whopper of an issue!

New paper: "Alcohol consumption and risk of cancer: a Mendelian randomization analysis of four biobanks and consortium data" out at BMC Medicine: link.springer.com/article/10.1.... Lots of interesting findings! Brief thread:

🚨Wanted…emerging clinical academic leader in cardiology to join @vpd-hlri.bsky.social and @royalpapworth.bsky.social. Get in touch if you’d like to discuss the role. We’d love to hear from you! www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...

Are you an emerging clinical academic leader in respiratory medicine? Come and join @vpd-hlri.bsky.social and @royalpapworth.bsky.social and build your career! Get in touch if you’d like to discuss. www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...

Hurrah! Should never have left though. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Researchers are devising creative ways to get together as Trump’s policies curb travel to US gatherings go.nature.com/4adSEUq

Less than 48 hours after the deadly attack at Sydney's Bondi Beach that left more than a dozen dead, Australian authorities announced proposals for sweeping new gun laws. n.pr/48UTa7g

It burns. It burns. My eyes.

New paper alert! @sritchie73.bsky.social @mikeinouye.bsky.social & team found integrating genetic & metabolic blood tests with existing clinical data could enhance how doctors identify people at high risk of heart disease, leading to earlier prevention strategies Read more tinyurl.com/bp5tjck2

Just published @ Eur Heart J: Combined clinical, metabolomic, and polygenic scores for cardiovascular risk prediction academic.oup.com/eurheartj/ad... tl;dr these next-gen risk factors could boost the number of CVD events prevented by +80% while keeping treatment efficiency (NNT) the same.