Adam Auton
@adamauton.bsky.social
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Geneticist @ 23andMe
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Adam Auton
Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra
4 days ago
Fun news!
@gcbias.bsky.social
and I are teaching a 2-week online population genetics workshop this summer to raise money for the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis. We're trying to gauge interest -- please fill this out if you might be interested! And please share broadly!
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Davis Summer Population Genomics Program
Want to learn population genetics? Please fill out this form to indicate your potential interest in a 2-week intensive online summer population genetics course taught by Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra and Graham...
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1PqXEKkW_0HXbdge1yXKGXFIf7NDjH72jTfIaEZThHhA/edit
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I haven't thought deeply about this, but ... if heritability is the proportion of the variance attributable to genetics, and I remove some variance attributable to "the environment", then should I be surprised that the heritability goes up?
@sashagusevposts.bsky.social
help!?
doi.org/10.1126/scie...
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Heritability of intrinsic human life span is about 50% when confounding factors are addressed
How heritable is human life span? If genetic heritability is high, longevity genes can reveal aging mechanisms and inform medicine and public health. However, current estimates of heritability are low...
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz1187
14 days ago
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We're hiring! We're seeking a talented statistical geneticist to join the team. Come work with the greatest genetic dataset in the world, and help shape the 23andMe Research Institute in our nonprofit era!
23andme.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/23/det...
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Principal Scientist, Statistical Genetics & AI
With the worldās largest database of more than eleven million genotyped customers, 23andMe is at the forefront of using human genetics to advance biomedical research and transform healthcare. We are l...
https://23andme.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/23/details/Principal-Scientist--Statistical-Genetics---AI_2026011
23 days ago
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. š¦
about 1 month ago
Brenna Henn Wanted to Improve Genetic Medicine. Then Her N.I.H. Grant Was Cut.
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Brenna Henn Wanted to Improve Genetic Medicine. Then Her N.I.H. Grant Was Cut.
Brenna Henn had a long-term grant to study the genetic diversity of Africans and people of African descent. Then her N.I.H. funding was cut.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/science/trump-lostscience-genetics-henn.html
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Adam Auton
Andrew Carroll
about 2 months ago
I've been thinking about the "virtual cell" concept and wanted to write up a few thoughts. Specifically on how I think the prior experience in GWAS informs the most likely way these models will be useful.
andrewcarroll.github.io/2025/12/23/t...
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The Virtual Cell Will Be More Like Gwas Than Alphafold
There has been significant discussion recently on the concept of the āvirtual cell.ā I want to summarize the key concepts regarding what the field wants from a virtual cell and the challenges we face....
https://andrewcarroll.github.io/2025/12/23/the-virtual-cell-will-be-more-like-GWAS-than-AlphaFold.html
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Adam Auton
Genetics Society UK
3 months ago
Congratulations to Richard Durbin on being awarded our Genetics Society Medal!
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Adam Auton
Jeffrey Barrett
3 months ago
Keeping fuel duty at the same level for 15 years, while phasing in a cumbersome-to-implement tax on EV owners seems insane.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
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Electric vehicle owners to face pay-per-mile tax
Drivers of electric cars will pay a road charge of 3p per mile, while plug-in hybrid drivers will pay 1.5p per mile from April 2028.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8jw9l7gx92o
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Adam Auton
AI x Bio Discovery
4 months ago
PRSformer: Disease Prediction from Million-Scale Individual Genotypes
[new] Deep learning w/ neighborhood attention predicts disease from million-scale genotype data by learning genetic interactions.
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Adam Auton
Sasha Gusev
3 months ago
I wrote a little bit about the "missing heritability" question and several recent studies that have brought it to a close. A short š§µ
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The missing heritability question is now (mostly) answered
Not with a bang but with a whimper
https://theinfinitesimal.substack.com/p/the-missing-heritability-question?r=43f9ax&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
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Adam Auton
Simon Fisher
3 months ago
The field has also gained leverage from personal genomics initiatives, as in this study of ~52k adults answering āyesā to āhave you been diagnosed with dyslexia?ā vs >1 million responding ānoā, which found 42 associated loci + high genetic overlap with directly assessed reading/language skills. 10/n
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Discovery of 42 genome-wide significant loci associated with dyslexia - Nature Genetics
Genome-wide analysis of self-reported dyslexia identifies 42 associated loci, including 27 not previously associated with cognitive traits. Dyslexia shows genetic correlation with ambidexterity but no...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-022-01192-y
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Delighted to see our method, PRSformer, at
#NeurIPS2025
! PRSformer is AI model for population-scale disease-risk prediction from individual genomes. It lays the groundwork for phenome-wide risk prediction.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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PRSformer: Disease Prediction from Million-Scale Individual Genotypes
Predicting disease risk from DNA presents an unprecedented emerging challenge as biobanks approach population scale sizes (N>106 individuals) with ultra-high-dimensional features (L>105 genotypes). Cu...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.26.684578v1
4 months ago
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Adam Auton
bioRxiv Genetics
4 months ago
PRSformer: Disease Prediction from Million-Scale Individual Genotypes
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.26.684578v1
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The brilliant Sarah Senk, together with Taiyo Inoue, has just launched a podcast that explores the implications of AI for higher education: My Robot Teacher. Please give it a listen!
#MyRobotTeacher
#HigherEd
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Ta...
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How Professors Are Responding to AI: Resistance Is Futile (and Brief) | My Robot Teacher Episode 1
YouTube video by My Robot Teacher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2TaycoMHAQ
8 months ago
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Adam Auton
Newcastle United
11 months ago
YOUR 2024/25 CARABAO CUP WINNERS š
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Adam Auton
Brandon Logeman
12 months ago
On the x-axis is every human gene, ranked by number of publications containing mention of the gene name. Lots left to discover...
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We're hiring a postdoc to help shape our autism research program; please consider applying.
www.23andme.com/careers/jobs...
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Postdoc - Autism Research ā 23andMe Careers
Read about our mission-based culture, look up open positions and check out the perks of working here.
https://www.23andme.com/careers/jobs/7658947002/
about 1 year ago
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reposted by
Adam Auton
Shoa Clarke
about 1 year ago
"the science of extreme longevity continues as an immense joke."
www.nytimes.com/2025/01/20/o...
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Opinion | The Science of Blue Zones and Extreme Longevity Is Deeply Flawed
Some of the claims behind the longest-lived people are simply improbable.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/20/opinion/extreme-longevity-flawed.html
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Adam Auton
We're looking for a talented statistical geneticist to come work with us!
www.23andme.com/careers/jobs...
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Scientist / Senior Scientist, Statistical Genetics ā 23andMe Careers
Read about our mission-based culture, look up open positions and check out the perks of working here.
https://www.23andme.com/careers/jobs/7804002002/
about 1 year ago
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We're looking for a talented statistical geneticist to come work with us!
www.23andme.com/careers/jobs...
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Scientist / Senior Scientist, Statistical Genetics ā 23andMe Careers
Read about our mission-based culture, look up open positions and check out the perks of working here.
https://www.23andme.com/careers/jobs/7804002002/
about 1 year ago
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reposted by
Adam Auton
Brent Richards
about 1 year ago
Humans tend to inherently believe that context matters. But context doesnāt seem to matter all that much in genetics. Epistasis between mutations doesnāt seem to influence their stability in this amazing saturation mutagenesis paper.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Site-saturation mutagenesis of 500 human protein domains - Nature
Large-scale experimental analysis of Human Domainome 1, a library containing more than 500,000 missense mutation variants across more than 500 human protein domains, reveals that 60% of pathogenic mis...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08370-4
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reposted by
Adam Auton
Eric Fauman (he/him)
about 1 year ago
So given that, can you spot the error right at the start of this Wikipedia article on HERC2? "HERC2 is a giant E3 ubiquitin protein ligase, implicated in DNA repair regulation, pigmentation and neurological disorders."
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reposted by
Adam Auton
Carlos M Herrera
about 1 year ago
Good news, Altmetric has now started watching BlueSky for mentions of publications. And by the way, provides an easy comparison between this and the old site for a recent preprint of mine which I posted simultaneousl at both. Numbers speak by themselves !
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Yesterday was a hard day at 23andMe, and we said goodbye to a number of tremendously talented colleagues. If people have job openings in the genetics space that they'd like me to share with the impacted folks, please do post here.
over 1 year ago
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Adam Auton
Madhu Pai, MD, PhD
over 1 year ago
Today seems like a good day to share this Scientific American story on how vaccines have saved more lives throughout history than any other intervention
www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-...
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Hello
#ASHG
2024!
over 1 year ago
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Adam Auton
Jonathan Pritchard
over 1 year ago
I want to try something new at
#ASHG24
this year: I'm going to block some time on Friday afternoon to meet with any trainees who would be interested to chat on any topic.
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reposted by
Adam Auton
Tobias Lenz
over 1 year ago
Long COVID
#GWAS
preprint identifies
#HLA
class II associations |
#23andMe
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Adam Auton
Michel Nivard
over 1 year ago
I made a starter pack full of statistical genetics (adjacent) scientists. it covers all flavours of behaviour, psychiatric, social science and population genetics people. One click follow all of em! let me know if I missed key people!
add a skeleton here at some point
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In the latest edition of "Huh, I didn't expect that to work", our latest paper shows that LLMs can outperform existing methods for identifying causal genes in genome-wide association studies.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Large language models identify causal genes in complex trait GWAS
medRxiv - The Preprint Server for Health Sciences
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.05.30.24308179v1
over 1 year ago
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Adam Auton
Randall Munroe
almost 2 years ago
I recently made a comic complaining that NASA refuses to listen to my good ideas for improving the Solar System (
xkcd.com/2750
). To my delight, NASAās Science Mission Directorate has sent me an actual expert panel evaluation of my āflatten the planetsā proposal! Sadly, they decided not to fund it.
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Adam Auton
Holden Thorp
about 2 years ago
Unfortunately, the rate at which researchers are expressing disdain for the people who do the hard work of scientific publishing, education, policy has increased. It's just validating the critique of academic science as elitist. It needs to stop. Here's my column:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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Science making progress on the important questions!
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
about 2 years ago
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Adam Auton
Tuuli Lappalainen
about 2 years ago
A real moonshot project in biomedical research would be a decisive legal, regulatory and IT effort to really make data access work for researchers across the world. It's not as sexy as AI, CRISPR, or ginormous sequencing projects, but more transformative and better bang for the buck.
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Adam Auton
Michael Love
over 2 years ago
Is there a list of evolutionary āmistakesā but for the genome, not just physiology? That is things that came to be but arenāt good for long term fitness
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Our paper, showing PRS are predictive of incident disease - not just classifiers of existing disease:
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
over 2 years ago
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Adam Auton
Randall Munroe
over 2 years ago
This is just a filter Iām holding, not a lens, so thatās the actual angular size of the sun in the photo. Iām always a little unnerved to realize how small the sun is when you take away all the glare.
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Adam Auton
Jeffrey Barrett
over 2 years ago
This is a really important study that gives at least a partial answer to a question that I've got since the earliest GWAS: do susceptibility alleles affect progression? The answer for these diseases is a pretty strong "No" for _mortality_, which may or may not be a good surrogate for progression 1/n
add a skeleton here at some point
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Adam Auton
Andrea Ganna
over 2 years ago
Is the genetics of disease susceptibility and progression shared? š¤·āāļø We look at this question within a global biobank collaboration across 10 major diseases
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reposted by
Adam Auton
Mike Inouye
over 2 years ago
Latest from Xilin Jiang, Alkes Price, Gil McVean and co š Age-dependent topic modeling of comorbidities in UK Biobank identifies disease subtypes with differential genetic risk
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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reposted by
Adam Auton
Jonathan Pritchard
over 2 years ago
I'm delighted to release the first half of my new textbook in human genetics:
web.stanford.edu/group/pritch...
"An Owner's Guide to the Human Genome: an introduction to human population genetics, variation and disease"
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An Owner's Guide to the Human Genome
An Owner's Guide to the Human Genome
https://web.stanford.edu/group/pritchardlab/HGbook.html
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Adam Auton
Kelly Zamudio
over 2 years ago
Free test ordering starts up again today.
www.covid.gov/tests
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Adam Auton
Andrea Ganna
over 2 years ago
Excited about our new paper! We developed a DL model to predict 1y mortality in the full Finnish population using A LOT of longitudinal information. This ādigital aging markerā is very accurate, but with some interesting and important caveats
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
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I went to a place
over 2 years ago
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reposted by
Adam Auton
Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra
over 2 years ago
This is absolutely gorgeous and kinda kind-blowing. A reconstruction of the great city of TenochtitlƔn.
tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl
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Fingers crossed this is the new place for Science Twitter. Nth time lucky?
over 2 years ago
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