Excited to finally share what I’ve been working on during my PhD 😊 Best holiday gift EVER! We just posted a new preprint from the @dphansti.bsky.social 👇 Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵

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

This year has been brutal for science, especially early career researchers and those working with communities further marginalized by this administration. Please read the experiences of these scientists. And when you’re done reading, find a way to fight back. theconversation.com/this-year-ne...

Nice preview of our paper by Hanwen Yu and Yan Liu. Generating 3D mouse organoids for cortex development and evo-devo: Developmental Cell www.cell.com/developmenta...

another must-read from @sashagusevposts.bsky.social

NEXT TUE: DDD seminar, Dec. 16, 2025 @ 1PM Eastern US: Dr. Tommy Vierbuchen @tvierbuchen.bsky.social will share his recent work on on cell villages using outbred mice: "A pluripotent stem cell platform for in vitro systems genetics studies of mouse brain development". carlocolantuoni.org/seminar

Are you a senior grad student or new post-doc in genetics/genomics? Apply now for the 2026 Emerging Genomic Scientist Symposium hosted by the UCLA Human Genetics department. To apply: medschool.ucla.edu/about/depart... DM me if you have any questions and please spread the word

We used rabies virus 👾 to map how #psilocybin modifies long-range circuits 🧠, revealing network-specific reorganization that we didn’t expect. The full study is now online at Cell. @cp-cell.bsky.social Paper 👉 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... Thread for a synopsis 👉 bsky.app/profile/alex...

Someone get me (genetic epidemiologist) & my husband (school psychologist) on a podcast bc our rants on these people are...fiery. We spent 5y in the bay around these folks and oh boy. I'm also so sick of these puff pieces that avoid saying plainly what this actually is. Shoddy science for eugenics.

Not to brag, but Steve gives a shout out to my 3-year-old son in the intro of this book. (I lied, this is a brag) (Also, go buy this book, it is great)

Applications are open for the Postdoctoral Enrichment Program (PDEP)—supporting postdocs as they advance cutting-edge research and build thriving scientific careers. Learn more & apply: bwfund.org/pdep #bwfpdep

Soooooo cool Bart De Strooper's lab used microglia villages to show that Alzheimer’s polygenic risk translates into a stronger immune response to amyloid assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-779...

NEXT TUE: DDD seminar, Nov. 18, 2025 @ 1PM Eastern US: Continuing our focus on approaches to the study of many pluripotent stem cell lines, Dr. Michael Wells @mfwells.bsky.social will share his recent work on "cell villages". seminar info: carlocolantuoni.org/seminar [repost to spread the word]

The first (of hopefully many) reports to come from our collaboration with @hjp.bsky.social We present a new type of cell fitness assay that allows you to both quantify and explain differences across human donors in cell proliferation and sensitivity to environmental toxicants.

Super excited to get this out. This collab started a few years ago and is the first paper from it. Here, with experimental and computational approaches we: 1. establish that cell villages can be just as accurate (one might argue more accurate!) than arrayed-based designs bsky.app/profile/bior...

New #cilia preprint alert Our latest manuscript is now live on bioRxiv: "The Neuronal Primary Cilium is a Key Regulator of Homeostatic Plasticity" We hope you enjoy reading it! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

CRISPR activation restores expression of a haploinsufficient neuronal sodium channel, rescuing neuronal deficits associated with multiple neurodevelopmental disorders. #NBThighlight www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Good morning everyone! So, I wrote a book (!!) and it’s coming out November 4th in physical and audiobook form. It’s called *How to Change a Memory* www.amazon.com/How-Change-M...

ICYMI Alarming levels of Pfas in blood of those living near US air force base, study finds Toxic ‘forever chemicals’ were found at a level 10 times higher than people who did not work in contaminated zone www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Air pollution from oil and gas is linked to 91,000 premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of health issues across the United States each year—with Black, Asian, Native American and Hispanic groups consistently among the most affected. time.com/7311655/us-o...

I wrote about how genetic risk works in the context of embryo selection and how people often think about it all wrong. A short 🧵:

New Story in The Atlantic about NIH www.theatlantic.com/health/archi... 1/3

Bittersweet to be leaving @docedge.bsky.social after a wonderful postdoc, but excited to share that I'm joining @uoregon.bsky.social next month as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Data Science.

Hundreds of millions of dollars suspended for cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's research (among many, many other equally important diseases and endeavors) and for what? What is the point of all of this? Help me understand how this makes our country better, stronger, and healthier in any way.

New snake oil just dropped And proudly boosting the nazi approval, bold business strategy!

The NIH budget will INCREASE by $400 million — not slashed by 40%, as Trump proposed — according to a proposal by Senate appropriators, says Sen Murray. "Some have asked if there will even be an NIH by [2029]. The commmittee's resounding message is yes—Congress has your back", she says.

I just want you all to know that I am doing my part. I have successfully taught my 3-year-old son that cybertrucks are called "Dork wagons."

Yet another study (Danish) has found no association between aluminum in childhood vaccines & 50 different health conditions, including autism, asthma & autoimmune diseases. In this study, they tracked 1 million kids over 21 years. 🧪🔗 en.ssi.dk/news/news/20...

The Tesla diner is unfortunately in my neighborhood so I took a little peek to see boxes of milk and frozen foods out in the heat. Good luck to everyone’s stomachs.

Excited to share our latest work, Mato-Blanco et al., nature.com/articles/s41.... Thanks to the incredible collaboration with Nicola Micali, Rakic lab, Sestan lab, Vaccarino lab @yaleneuro.bsky.social @santperelab.bsky.social @carlocolantuoni.bsky.social

BREAKING: A federal judge in Massachusetts (the Reagan-appointed William Young) has declared the Trump administration's cuts to NIH grants — ostensibly over Trump's EOs on gender ideology and DEI — are "illegal" and "void." He's ordering many grants restored.

Genetic material shed by tumors can be detected in the bloodstream three years before cancer diagnosis, according to a study led by investigators at Johns Hopkins University. That study was made possible with federal funding. Now, many studies like this are canceled. hub.jhu.edu/2025/06/04/...

Come join this amazing lab!

The recording of today's DDD seminar by Magdalena Sutcliffe (lab of Dr. Madeline Lancaster @lancasterlab.bsky.social ) “Epigenetic restoration of differentiation competency via reversal of epiblast regionalisation” is now online at: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... (www.carlocolantuoni.org/seminar)

Man comes to the US from Lebanon. Starts out delivering pizzas, becomes a Nobel winning neuroscientist. Trump freezes his funding, he gets an email from China offering to move his lab “any city, any university I want" with guaranteed funding for 20 years. What are we doing?

Cutting $20 billion to NIH over 25 years may save $500 billion on paper, but it’d end up costing $8.2 trillion in lost human health. But NIH isn't the only thing being cut. The budget also slashes all NSF-funded science by 73 percent. NASA faces “the biggest single-year cut to NASA in history."

I called my senators about the NIH and NSF cuts this morning (made easy with @5calls.org)! I'll be calling every day this week and encouraging friends & family to do the same

New paper alert! How many neurodevelopment disorders would be amenable for ASO treatment? Fabulous PhD student @Kim Wijnant, did the analysis. genomemedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

"Thinking time —the time needed to concentrate without interruptions has always been central to scholarly work. It is essential to designing experiments, compiling data, assessing results, reviewing literature and, of course, writing. Yet, [it] is often undervalued." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Breaking News: A baby with a rare disorder made medical history by receiving the first custom gene-editing treatment. The technique used has the potential to help people with thousands of other uncommon genetic diseases. nyti.ms/4j49xBy

Thrilled to share our latest study out in @natureportfolio.nature.com led by the fantastically talented Jing Liu. Our study provides insight into a long standing question in biology: What molecular features make us uniquely human and how do these function? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Science elevator pitch: Rachel Fox, a graduate student in the lab of Dr. @mfwells.bsky.social at UCLA, uses stem cell-based models to study how mutations in individual genes and larger regions of DNA impact early brain development. #Neuroscience 🧠 www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYqb...

On Friday, my son stayed home from school because he had a sore throat and wasn’t feeling well. He went with my husband to his office for the morning while I handled our daughter. When he came back at lunch, he was not interested in eating, saying his throat hurt too much. 1/n

NEXT TUE: DDD seminar, May 6, 2025 @ 1PM Eastern US: Dr. Ron McKay “Origin and consequences of genetically distinct behaviors in human neural stem cells”. seminar info: carlocolantuoni.org/seminar [repost to spread the word]

The Department of Human Genetics at the University of Utah is sponsoring the Rising Stars in Genetics and Genomics symposium! - We are seeking nominations bu June 1. - September 18-19, 2025 - Please share with the star postdocs that you know. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

spent the latter half of this week at UCLA’s Emerging Genomic Scientist Symposium talking about genetics, public health, and science outreach! fav part of academia is hanging out with new and old friends in wonderful places 🏝️ thanks so much to @mfwells.bsky.social and organizers for having us!

visited UCLA this week to give a talk about my research and ongoing outreach/advocacy work. huge shoutouts to @lailasathe.bsky.social & @mfwells.bsky.social for their amazing work in organizing!

Everyone wants there to be a grand scheme behind all of this but the terrible truth is that extremely stupid people are in charge and they have a fanatical devotion to wrong, childlike concepts of society and economics cooked up by right wing radio hosts in order to sell tainted dietary supplements

BREAKING: We're suing the National Institutes of Health over their politically-motivated purge of research grants. This is an unlawful attack on scientific progress that puts lives at risk.

Just in NIH grants, It looks like beautiful Iowa City, home of the U of Iowa, will lose $71m in funding. That's almost $1k per resident. And that's before all the other cuts to SSA, FDA, etc. Anyone in Iowa City that can offer more insight? scienceimpacts.org H/T to Prathima !