Pedro Beltrao
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pedrobeltrao.bsky.social
Pedro Beltrao
@pedrobeltrao.bsky.social
2.7K followers 610 following 210 posts
Associate professor at ETH Zurich, studying the cellular consequences of genetic variation. Affiliated with the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and a part of the LOOP Zurich.
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pedrobeltrao.bsky.social
Pedro Beltrao @pedrobeltrao.bsky.social · Oct 9
new preprint: Ubiquitin is a protein modification linked with degradation but known to regulate other functions. Over 100k ubiquitination sites have been discovered and here we (@julianvangerwen.bsky.social + others) try to prioritize those most critical to the cell www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
The functional landscape of the human ubiquitinome
Protein ubiquitination regulates cell biology through diverse avenues, from quality control-linked protein degradation to signaling functions such as modulating protein-protein interactions and enzyme...
www.biorxiv.org
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
jonnyfrazer.bsky.social
popEVE is out in Nature Genetics! 🎉
We built a proteome-wide model that combines cross-species and human population variation to rank missense variants by disease severity and help diagnose rare genetic disorders.
rdcu.be/eRu7K
Proteome-wide model for human disease genetics
Nature Genetics - popEVE is a proteome-wide deep generative model to identify and predict pathogenicity of missense mutations causing genetic disorders.
rdcu.be
November 24, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
nevesjf.bsky.social
We are recruiting - deadline approaching!!! Postdoc position available in my lab to develop an exciting project with @alexfsantos2401.bsky.social to advance our understanding of food allergy and oral tolerance in early life.
#ILC #organoids #intestine #FoodAllergy

www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/128585-...
November 24, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
sashagusevposts.bsky.social
I wrote a little bit about the "missing heritability" question and several recent studies that have brought it to a close. A short 🧵
The missing heritability question is now (mostly) answered
Not with a bang but with a whimper
theinfinitesimal.substack.com
November 21, 2025 at 10:34 PM
pedrobeltrao.bsky.social
I tried an even harder example on Gemini Pro image generation and this is quite scary/amazing. I asked for a microscopy image of around 20 HeLa cells, GFP tagged 20% nuclear, 10% membrane, +1 nuclear staining, + overlap. Image below and prompt in the following post.
November 21, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
humantechnopole.bsky.social
💫 Thank you to all participants and speakers who joined us at the 2nd @eurocancerdepmap.bsky.social Symposium!

Together, we’re advancing #cancer functional genomics across Europe.

youtu.be/Qt_ozbzM5js
2nd European Cancer Dependency Map Symposium - 20 Nov 2025
YouTube video by Human Technopole
youtu.be
November 21, 2025 at 2:15 PM
pedrobeltrao.bsky.social
I tried the updated Gemini image generator on scientific related image prompts that have failed in the past and I am really impressed by the quality of the outputs. The first is drawing a diagram for a pocket prediction algorithm using Voronoi diagram, Delaunay triangulation and alpha shapes
November 21, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
ukbiobank.bsky.social
The update includes metabolomic, genetic, and imaging data, plus much more, all alongside our existing comprehensive dataset

Explore what's new: www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/news/metabol...
Metabolomic, genetic, imaging data and more: new and updated UK Biobank data now available
The latest update to UK Biobank’s comprehensive dataset is available to approved researchers around the world via the Research Analysis Platform (UKB-RAP).
www.ukbiobank.ac.uk
November 20, 2025 at 9:09 AM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
ioriolab.bsky.social
The 2nd @eurocancerdepmap.bsky.social meeting is starting with introduction from @francescoiorio.bsky.social ! Full day of exciting talks ahead. Stay with us for live updates @humantechnopole.bsky.social
November 20, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
miketilapia.bsky.social
We are looking for a postdoctoral fellow to work on induced proximity 🤜🤛 and functional genomics! Join our team in Toronto 🇨🇦 to tackle major challenges in oncology and neurodegeneration. www.nature.com/naturecareer...
POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW - Toronto (City), Ontario (CA) job with Taipale Lab, Donnelly Centre, University of Toronto | 12849004
The Taipale lab in the Donnelly CCBR and University of Toronto is looking for a highly motivated Postdoctoral Fellow
www.nature.com
November 19, 2025 at 5:51 PM
pedrobeltrao.bsky.social
This looks like a fantastic resource to study human kinase signalling. So much MS instrument time.
biorxivpreprint.bsky.social bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 5d
Chemical proteomics decrypts the kinases that shape the dynamic human phosphoproteome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.18.689017v1
November 19, 2025 at 6:18 AM
pedrobeltrao.bsky.social
New blog post - AI "peer" review - the impact on scientific publishing. Some thoughts on AI manuscript assessments and potential impacts on scientific publishing www.evocellnet.com/2025/11/ai-p...
AI "peer" review - the impact on scientific publishing
It is the first time, in the second half of this year, that I am not trying to urgently deal with something. So, instead of working on some ...
www.evocellnet.com
November 18, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
miketilapia.bsky.social
Our new preprint is online! Viruses, bacteria and parasites use effector proteins to evade immunity and rewire host cell pathways. Together with @AlexanderStark8, we wondered if we could systematically map what these effectors, regardless of their origin, do in human cells. 1/8
www.biorxiv.org
November 18, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
alex-stark.bsky.social
Major new direction in the lab: hacking human cell biology with pathogen effectors (eORFs) - amazing collaboration with @miketilapia.bsky.social lab. Huge congrats to first authors Tomas & He & all co-authors! Check out the pre-print on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
November 18, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
spyroslytras.bsky.social
Guess the news is officially out! Extremely excited to announce that I will be starting my own laboratory at Institut Pasteur @pasteur.fr this coming spring!

Slight change to my office window view from Tokyo Tower🗼 to the Tour Eiffel. 🇫🇷
November 15, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
zaminiqbal.bsky.social
Honoured and quite blown-over to receive this award. I have been, and continue to be, very lucky - first with great mentors, and then really prodigious students, postdocs and collaborators. Working with them has been a joy.
gensocuk.bsky.social Genetics Society UK @gensocuk.bsky.social · 10d
Congratulations to @zaminiqbal.bsky.social from @milnerevolution.bsky.social on being awarded the 2026 Mary Lyon Medal!
November 14, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
pmc-modularity.bsky.social
Catch our last seminar for the year on Dec 8 at 3pm CET! With Dr. Martin Rennie (@martinrennie.bsky.social), Jamal Fahoum (@hebrewuniversity.bsky.social), and Dr. Boglárka Zámbó (@zbobo2.bsky.social)

Register to attend: tinyurl.com/PMCseminar2

Previous seminars: www.youtube.com/@PMCModularity
November 14, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
biorxiv-biophys.bsky.social
Global Analysis of Aggregation Determinants in Small Protein Domains https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.11.687847v1
November 13, 2025 at 1:47 AM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
ernstschmid.bsky.social
Thrilled to share that the final piece of my PhD work is now on bioRxiv! biorxiv.org/content/10.1... With support from @nvidia and the @NSF, we used AlphaFold to screen 1.6M+ protein pairs, revealing thousands of potential novel PPIs. All data can be viewed at predictomes.org/hp
Proteome-wide in silico screening for human protein-protein interactions
Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) drive virtually all biological processes, yet most PPIs have not been identified and even more remain structurally unresolved. We developed a two-step computational...
biorxiv.org
November 12, 2025 at 9:26 PM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
edhuttlin.bsky.social
If you’re at #HUPO2025, be sure to stop by my poster and learn about the latest developments in the BioPlex project!
November 12, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
aylwyn-scally.bsky.social
Come and join us here in Cambridge! Applications open for a new faculty position, for a researcher in computational and/or theoretical biology, based jointly in Genetics and Mathematics. Happy to answer questions about research, teaching and working here.

www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/faculty...
Faculty Position in Computational Biology
Applications are invited for an Assistant/ Associate Professorship in Computational Biology to commence on 1 April 2026 or shortly thereafter. This is a joint post between the Department of Applied
www.cam.ac.uk
November 11, 2025 at 9:05 PM
pedrobeltrao.bsky.social
957 proposals were submitted in the latest round of ERC Synergy applications. They expect to fund 50 which means around 5% success rate. This is really not sustainable and a lot of people are likely avoiding doing this knowing how poor the chances are.
erc.europa.eu/news-events/...
Applications for ERC Synergy Grants 2026: Facts and figures
The ERC Synergy Grants 2026 call closed for applications on 5 November 2025. These are the preliminary data on the submitted proposals:
erc.europa.eu
November 11, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Pedro Beltrao
bocklab.bsky.social
🗨️ 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
pedrobeltrao.bsky.social
It has been disappointing to see the general lack of interest and investment into population genetics and genomic medicine in Switzerland. While we can resort to other national cohorts for research the country can only benefit if the know-how can be applied locally
www.sfa-phrt.ch/success-stor...
Didier Trono Interview “Switzerlands Genetic Diversity is Unique” - PHRT – Personalized Health & Related Technologies
Success Story Didier Trono While other countries are pressing ahead with the Genome of Europe, Switzerland is still hesitating. A huge mistake, says Didier Trono from the Genome Center in Geneva “I do...
www.sfa-phrt.ch
November 11, 2025 at 8:42 AM