Lars Velten
@larsplus.bsky.social
Group leader @crg.eu | blood, single cell, synthetic genomics | Dad | 🇩🇪🇪🇸🇹🇿 | 🚵🧗🏃
Pinned
Lars Velten
@larsplus.bsky.social
· May 8
Design principles of cell-state-specific enhancers in hematopoiesis
Screen of minimalistic enhancers in blood progenitor cells demonstrates widespread
dual activator-repressor function of transcription factors (TFs) and enables the model-guided
design of cell-state-sp...
www.cell.com
Out in Cell @cp-cell.bsky.social: Design principles of cell-state-specific enhancers in hematopoiesis
🧬🩸 screen of fully synthetic enhancers in blood progenitors
🤖 AI that creates new cell state specific enhancers
🔍 negative synergies between TFs lead to specificity!
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
🧵
🧬🩸 screen of fully synthetic enhancers in blood progenitors
🤖 AI that creates new cell state specific enhancers
🔍 negative synergies between TFs lead to specificity!
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
🧵
Where are they from? They sing in bad Swahili or a very similar language, “I’m lighting fire, I’m lighting mama fire, and I’m bringing money”. Uganda military speaks (bad) Swahili, but does Museveni send soldiers to Ukraine?
January 11, 2026 at 3:12 PM
Where are they from? They sing in bad Swahili or a very similar language, “I’m lighting fire, I’m lighting mama fire, and I’m bringing money”. Uganda military speaks (bad) Swahili, but does Museveni send soldiers to Ukraine?
Reposted by Lars Velten
Delighted to have our work on 🧬 resilience to 🩸cancer led by @g-agarwal.bsky.social & amazing collaborators, including @kharaslab.bsky.social, published in @science.org: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵
January 2, 2026 at 2:01 PM
Delighted to have our work on 🧬 resilience to 🩸cancer led by @g-agarwal.bsky.social & amazing collaborators, including @kharaslab.bsky.social, published in @science.org: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵
There is one joker: Highly skilled technicians. Our two techs are why we can do projects that are ambitious, clear first author, no 100h weeks. Requires very strong commitment to a few projects by PI (more applicable to wetlab, and a + of 🇪🇸 is that there's no industry competing for the best people).
December 18, 2025 at 10:26 AM
There is one joker: Highly skilled technicians. Our two techs are why we can do projects that are ambitious, clear first author, no 100h weeks. Requires very strong commitment to a few projects by PI (more applicable to wetlab, and a + of 🇪🇸 is that there's no industry competing for the best people).
IMHO It’s near impossible to sustainably scale an academic research team quickly to 5-10 people. My take: Keep the bar for hiring high, keep money in the bank (allows you to scale up when things start working), and keep two full days per week free of Interruptions for hands on work.
December 15, 2025 at 6:23 AM
IMHO It’s near impossible to sustainably scale an academic research team quickly to 5-10 people. My take: Keep the bar for hiring high, keep money in the bank (allows you to scale up when things start working), and keep two full days per week free of Interruptions for hands on work.
Reposted by Lars Velten
Happy to see this out now in Cell Genomics: A genome-scale single-cell CRISPRi map of trans gene regulation across human pluripotent stem cell lines: www.cell.com/cell-genomic...
A genome-scale single-cell CRISPRi map of trans gene regulation across human pluripotent stem cell lines
Feng et al. present the first genome-scale CRISPR interference perturbation map with
scRNA-seq readout across many genetic backgrounds in human pluripotent cells, pioneering
population-scale CRISPR pe...
www.cell.com
December 3, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Happy to see this out now in Cell Genomics: A genome-scale single-cell CRISPRi map of trans gene regulation across human pluripotent stem cell lines: www.cell.com/cell-genomic...
@yusufroohani.bsky.social @rberrens.bsky.social @timcoorens.bsky.social @hsiuchuanlin.bsky.social @albarmeira.bsky.social @ferrannadeu.bsky.social @alejofraticelli.bsky.social @elimereu.bsky.social @simonhaas.bsky.social @leifludwig.bsky.social @stefaniegrosswendt.bsky.social
December 5, 2025 at 10:35 AM
ISCO (Innovations in Single-Cell OMICS) will be back in beautiful Barcelona!
🗓️ 28th/29th of May 2026
📍Barcelona Biomedical Research Park @prbb.org (beachfront!)
Keynotes: @bartdeplancke.bsky.social and @bocklab.bsky.social
Submit your abstract and present your research!
www.isco-conference.eu
🗓️ 28th/29th of May 2026
📍Barcelona Biomedical Research Park @prbb.org (beachfront!)
Keynotes: @bartdeplancke.bsky.social and @bocklab.bsky.social
Submit your abstract and present your research!
www.isco-conference.eu
December 5, 2025 at 10:33 AM
ISCO (Innovations in Single-Cell OMICS) will be back in beautiful Barcelona!
🗓️ 28th/29th of May 2026
📍Barcelona Biomedical Research Park @prbb.org (beachfront!)
Keynotes: @bartdeplancke.bsky.social and @bocklab.bsky.social
Submit your abstract and present your research!
www.isco-conference.eu
🗓️ 28th/29th of May 2026
📍Barcelona Biomedical Research Park @prbb.org (beachfront!)
Keynotes: @bartdeplancke.bsky.social and @bocklab.bsky.social
Submit your abstract and present your research!
www.isco-conference.eu
We are looking for a postdoc to join our team! If you're interested in translating a cutting edge genomics technology (www.nature.com/articles/s41...) to real-life applications in hematology, this is for you. We offer a unique working environment ON THE BEACH: recruitment.crg.eu/content/jobs...
November 20, 2025 at 9:36 AM
We are looking for a postdoc to join our team! If you're interested in translating a cutting edge genomics technology (www.nature.com/articles/s41...) to real-life applications in hematology, this is for you. We offer a unique working environment ON THE BEACH: recruitment.crg.eu/content/jobs...
Reposted by Lars Velten
🗨️ Just published in Nature Biotechnology: Our CellWhisperer AI enables chat-based analysis of single-cell sequencing data. You can talk to your cells & figure out the biology without writing any computer code. Paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... Annotated walkthrough in a thread below (1/11)
November 11, 2025 at 12:52 PM
🗨️ Just published in Nature Biotechnology: Our CellWhisperer AI enables chat-based analysis of single-cell sequencing data. You can talk to your cells & figure out the biology without writing any computer code. Paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... Annotated walkthrough in a thread below (1/11)
Reposted by Lars Velten
Are you looking for a PhD? Join us in Barcelona! You'll dive into a community of >100 PhD students from 30 countries exploring the frontiers of biology. You can also join an online workshop on 6 November (15:00 CET) to learn how to find the right lab for you.
More info: www.crg.eu/en/content/t...
More info: www.crg.eu/en/content/t...
October 23, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Are you looking for a PhD? Join us in Barcelona! You'll dive into a community of >100 PhD students from 30 countries exploring the frontiers of biology. You can also join an online workshop on 6 November (15:00 CET) to learn how to find the right lab for you.
More info: www.crg.eu/en/content/t...
More info: www.crg.eu/en/content/t...
Reposted by Lars Velten
Big, beautiful trees!!
SMART-PTA for whole-genome+transcriptome on thousand of single cells from the normal human esophagus 🤯 Massively scaling up the power of scWGS to build deep phylogenies and chart somatic evolution from birth throughout life.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
SMART-PTA for whole-genome+transcriptome on thousand of single cells from the normal human esophagus 🤯 Massively scaling up the power of scWGS to build deep phylogenies and chart somatic evolution from birth throughout life.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 14, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Big, beautiful trees!!
SMART-PTA for whole-genome+transcriptome on thousand of single cells from the normal human esophagus 🤯 Massively scaling up the power of scWGS to build deep phylogenies and chart somatic evolution from birth throughout life.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
SMART-PTA for whole-genome+transcriptome on thousand of single cells from the normal human esophagus 🤯 Massively scaling up the power of scWGS to build deep phylogenies and chart somatic evolution from birth throughout life.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Lars Velten
Early-career researchers: want to run your own lab? 🌟Max Planck Research Groups offer 6+ years, up to €2.7M in funding, open-topic freedom, team support & tenure-track opportunities. Intrigued? 😃Apply by Oct 14, 2025! www.mpg.de/max-planck-r...
September 15, 2025 at 9:27 AM
Early-career researchers: want to run your own lab? 🌟Max Planck Research Groups offer 6+ years, up to €2.7M in funding, open-topic freedom, team support & tenure-track opportunities. Intrigued? 😃Apply by Oct 14, 2025! www.mpg.de/max-planck-r...
This was a lot of fun! Thanks Daylon and @arunsharmaphd.bsky.social for being great hosts!
We have a new episode out!
Dr. Lars Velten from the Centre for Genomic Regulation talks about his research on #LineageTracing and #hematopoiesis: https://bit.ly/4gsvo5X
Dr. Lars Velten from the Centre for Genomic Regulation talks about his research on #LineageTracing and #hematopoiesis: https://bit.ly/4gsvo5X
September 18, 2025 at 10:09 AM
This was a lot of fun! Thanks Daylon and @arunsharmaphd.bsky.social for being great hosts!
www.economist.com/culture/2025...
To counter this, here’s my 3 fav reads 📚 from this summer:
- The dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa
- Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Dzhamilia by Tsjyngyz Ajtmatov
To counter this, here’s my 3 fav reads 📚 from this summer:
- The dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa
- Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Dzhamilia by Tsjyngyz Ajtmatov
Is the decline of reading making politics dumber?
As people read less they think less clearly, scholars fear
www.economist.com
September 7, 2025 at 5:13 AM
www.economist.com/culture/2025...
To counter this, here’s my 3 fav reads 📚 from this summer:
- The dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa
- Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Dzhamilia by Tsjyngyz Ajtmatov
To counter this, here’s my 3 fav reads 📚 from this summer:
- The dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa
- Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Dzhamilia by Tsjyngyz Ajtmatov
New method from my former lab - combining targeted RNA-seq and DNA-seq from the same cell on the @missionbio.bsky.social platform. Congrats!
It can also be combined with targeted methylation profiling and clonal tracing.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
It can also be combined with targeted methylation profiling and clonal tracing.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Functional phenotyping of genomic variants using joint multiomic single-cell DNA–RNA sequencing - Nature Methods
This study introduces SDR-seq, a droplet-based single-cell DNA–RNA sequencing platform, enabling the study of gene expression profiles linked to both noncoding and coding variants.
www.nature.com
September 2, 2025 at 9:56 AM
New method from my former lab - combining targeted RNA-seq and DNA-seq from the same cell on the @missionbio.bsky.social platform. Congrats!
It can also be combined with targeted methylation profiling and clonal tracing.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
It can also be combined with targeted methylation profiling and clonal tracing.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A really powerful, easy and affordable method for profiling cellular interactions in the immune system. Congrats @dom60.bsky.social , @simonhaas.bsky.social and everyone involved!
Excited to share the latest publication from my PhD with @simonhaas.bsky.social at @dkfz.bsky.social, out now in Nature Methods!
A big thanks to all co-authors, especially Lea Jopp-Saile, Schayan Yousefian and @viktoriaflore.bsky.social for all their hard work.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A big thanks to all co-authors, especially Lea Jopp-Saile, Schayan Yousefian and @viktoriaflore.bsky.social for all their hard work.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Ultra-high-scale cytometry-based cellular interaction mapping - Nature Methods
Interact-omics, a high-throughput cytometry-based framework, resolves the cellular interaction landscape.
www.nature.com
August 13, 2025 at 12:11 PM
A really powerful, easy and affordable method for profiling cellular interactions in the immune system. Congrats @dom60.bsky.social , @simonhaas.bsky.social and everyone involved!
Reposted by Lars Velten
Our paper benchmarking foundation models for perturbation effect prediction is finally published 🎉🥳🎉
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We show that none of the available* models outperform simple linear baselines. Since the original preprint, we added more methods, metrics, and prettier figures!
🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We show that none of the available* models outperform simple linear baselines. Since the original preprint, we added more methods, metrics, and prettier figures!
🧵
August 4, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Our paper benchmarking foundation models for perturbation effect prediction is finally published 🎉🥳🎉
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We show that none of the available* models outperform simple linear baselines. Since the original preprint, we added more methods, metrics, and prettier figures!
🧵
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
We show that none of the available* models outperform simple linear baselines. Since the original preprint, we added more methods, metrics, and prettier figures!
🧵
Interesting piece on automated enhancer design from the Seelig lab: www.cell.com/cell-systems...
Iterative deep learning design of human enhancers exploits condensed sequence grammar to achieve cell-type specificity
Yin et al. demonstrate the use of iteratively retrained deep learning models to design
synthetic enhancers for progressively higher cell-type specificity. They show the
feasibility of model training f...
www.cell.com
July 15, 2025 at 6:19 AM
Interesting piece on automated enhancer design from the Seelig lab: www.cell.com/cell-systems...
Congrats @hoheyn.bsky.social , @lgmartelotto.bsky.social and team!
STAMP: Single-cell transcriptomics analysis and multimodal profiling through imaging @cellcellpress.bsky.social @lgmartelotto.bsky.social @hoheyn.bsky.social
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
June 23, 2025 at 7:13 AM
Congrats @hoheyn.bsky.social , @lgmartelotto.bsky.social and team!
🇬🇧: Finally, English-language coverage by Financial Times, a small London-based newspaper 😉. Thanks again @omarjam.bsky.social and Nahia (@irbbarcelona.org) for making all this possible! www.ft.com/content/a1f8...
Scientists make breakthroughs on blood ageing and limb regrowth
Two new studies could help develop better therapies for rejuvenation and regeneration
www.ft.com
May 31, 2025 at 12:44 PM
🇬🇧: Finally, English-language coverage by Financial Times, a small London-based newspaper 😉. Thanks again @omarjam.bsky.social and Nahia (@irbbarcelona.org) for making all this possible! www.ft.com/content/a1f8...
😵💫: Private TV antenna3 hectically shot an interview 1.5h before their 3pm news, got a lot wrong (no we did not rejuvenate mice by ablating old stem cells, Irv Weissman did that) BUT they made us the good news of the day and it's somehow funny www.antena3.com/noticias/cie...
Científicos españoles descubren cómo envejece la sangre: un gran hallazgo para la lucha contra la leucemia y el envejecimiento
Un estudio desarrollado en Barcelona ha dado con la clave para entender cómo envejece la sangre. El hallazgo podría facilitar la detección temprana de enfermedades como la leucemia y abrir nuevas vías...
www.antena3.com
May 31, 2025 at 12:44 PM
😵💫: Private TV antenna3 hectically shot an interview 1.5h before their 3pm news, got a lot wrong (no we did not rejuvenate mice by ablating old stem cells, Irv Weissman did that) BUT they made us the good news of the day and it's somehow funny www.antena3.com/noticias/cie...
😬: SER Catalunya, most-listened radio around here, interviewed me at 8:40 (instead of 8:50)... they reached me in the elevator, put me live on air and started asking in Catalan. Had to guess what they meant and improvise. The good thing, I was awake after this 😅 (can't upload audio to bsky - 7/n)
May 31, 2025 at 12:44 PM
😬: SER Catalunya, most-listened radio around here, interviewed me at 8:40 (instead of 8:50)... they reached me in the elevator, put me live on air and started asking in Catalan. Had to guess what they meant and improvise. The good thing, I was awake after this 😅 (can't upload audio to bsky - 7/n)
🇫🇷: @scherermich.bsky.social was brave enough to speak to @lemonde.fr in French 💪! Excellent article that definitely sticks out with the accompanying visual.
www.lemonde.fr/sciences/art... (6/n)
www.lemonde.fr/sciences/art... (6/n)
Dès l’âge de 50 ans, les cellules de notre sang s’appauvrissent
Une équipe espagnole a retracé l’évolution des lignées de cellules du sang chez 13 personnes de 35 à 70 ans. A partir de la cinquantaine, le nombre de cellules souches capables d’engendrer des cellule...
www.lemonde.fr
May 31, 2025 at 12:44 PM
🇫🇷: @scherermich.bsky.social was brave enough to speak to @lemonde.fr in French 💪! Excellent article that definitely sticks out with the accompanying visual.
www.lemonde.fr/sciences/art... (6/n)
www.lemonde.fr/sciences/art... (6/n)
🇦🇹: Austrian ORF covered both the blood ageing context and the DNA methylation discovery in two minutes on the radio after interviewing @martinabraun.bsky.social and me. Real quality science journalism. science.orf.at/stories/3230... (5/n)
„Blutbarcodes“ könnten Alterung verlangsamen
Auch das Blut altert: Ab 50 Jahren verringert sich die Vielfalt der Stammzellen, die Blut produzieren. Ein Forschungsteam hat nun ein „Barcodesystem“ entwickelt, das die verschiedenen Blutstammzellen ...
science.orf.at
May 31, 2025 at 12:44 PM
🇦🇹: Austrian ORF covered both the blood ageing context and the DNA methylation discovery in two minutes on the radio after interviewing @martinabraun.bsky.social and me. Real quality science journalism. science.orf.at/stories/3230... (5/n)