Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
@canxuki.bsky.social
Astrocyte lover. Assistant professor at UMBC Biology. Excited about sex differences, TBI & BBB. Scientist in the US. Woman in Science. Spanish. She/her
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
@aatishb.bsky.social got me on the record. “My colleagues did an outstanding job to work their butts off to approve things.” I swear it's true. It's still true at #NIH.
The U.S. Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine (Gift Article)
A quiet policy change means the government is making fewer bets on long-term science.
www.nytimes.com
December 2, 2025 at 1:25 PM
@aatishb.bsky.social got me on the record. “My colleagues did an outstanding job to work their butts off to approve things.” I swear it's true. It's still true at #NIH.
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
First paper from the lab is now online
@natneuro.nature.com !
We mapped injury induced enhancers in the mouse CNS and decoded their sequence architecture. Little 🧵 rdcu.be/eSQi1
@natneuro.nature.com !
We mapped injury induced enhancers in the mouse CNS and decoded their sequence architecture. Little 🧵 rdcu.be/eSQi1
December 2, 2025 at 9:21 PM
First paper from the lab is now online
@natneuro.nature.com !
We mapped injury induced enhancers in the mouse CNS and decoded their sequence architecture. Little 🧵 rdcu.be/eSQi1
@natneuro.nature.com !
We mapped injury induced enhancers in the mouse CNS and decoded their sequence architecture. Little 🧵 rdcu.be/eSQi1
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
We’re recruiting!
Tenure-track faculty position in traumatic brain injury (TBI) or spinal cord injury (SCI) research. Expertise in metabolism and mechanistic or translational aspects of neurotrauma are encouraged to apply.
Link to apply: ukjobs.uky.edu/postings/609...
Tenure-track faculty position in traumatic brain injury (TBI) or spinal cord injury (SCI) research. Expertise in metabolism and mechanistic or translational aspects of neurotrauma are encouraged to apply.
Link to apply: ukjobs.uky.edu/postings/609...
December 1, 2025 at 8:18 PM
We’re recruiting!
Tenure-track faculty position in traumatic brain injury (TBI) or spinal cord injury (SCI) research. Expertise in metabolism and mechanistic or translational aspects of neurotrauma are encouraged to apply.
Link to apply: ukjobs.uky.edu/postings/609...
Tenure-track faculty position in traumatic brain injury (TBI) or spinal cord injury (SCI) research. Expertise in metabolism and mechanistic or translational aspects of neurotrauma are encouraged to apply.
Link to apply: ukjobs.uky.edu/postings/609...
Today the Muñoz-Ballester lab had a great day at the local chapter of the Society for Neuroscience in Baltimore #GBSfN2025.
We have presented our first posters in the lab!
We have presented our first posters in the lab!
December 1, 2025 at 11:38 PM
Today the Muñoz-Ballester lab had a great day at the local chapter of the Society for Neuroscience in Baltimore #GBSfN2025.
We have presented our first posters in the lab!
We have presented our first posters in the lab!
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
#ThisWeekInNPP
This 🔥 Hot Topic 🔥 emphasizes that ovarian hormone fluctuations - across the menstrual cycle, postpartum, & menopause - are key drivers of psychiatric risk in ♀️, yet remain understudied / @kundakoviclab.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This 🔥 Hot Topic 🔥 emphasizes that ovarian hormone fluctuations - across the menstrual cycle, postpartum, & menopause - are key drivers of psychiatric risk in ♀️, yet remain understudied / @kundakoviclab.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Leveraging high-resolution brain imaging and (epi)genomic approaches to improve women’s mental health - Neuropsychopharmacology
Neuropsychopharmacology - Leveraging high-resolution brain imaging and (epi)genomic approaches to improve women’s mental health
www.nature.com
September 2, 2025 at 4:44 PM
#ThisWeekInNPP
This 🔥 Hot Topic 🔥 emphasizes that ovarian hormone fluctuations - across the menstrual cycle, postpartum, & menopause - are key drivers of psychiatric risk in ♀️, yet remain understudied / @kundakoviclab.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This 🔥 Hot Topic 🔥 emphasizes that ovarian hormone fluctuations - across the menstrual cycle, postpartum, & menopause - are key drivers of psychiatric risk in ♀️, yet remain understudied / @kundakoviclab.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Cover for 1922 first edition of Don Quijote in Mandarin by Liu Bangyi. Translated initially from English rather than Spanish as the "Adventures of a Crazy Hero".
September 3, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Cover for 1922 first edition of Don Quijote in Mandarin by Liu Bangyi. Translated initially from English rather than Spanish as the "Adventures of a Crazy Hero".
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
“‘It’s very easy to assume that science is going to change organically towards equality — and what this study shows is that that’s not happening…It is an ‘important reminder for us that we need to stay vigilant in working towards equality in science’” @crsugimoto.bsky.social 🧪
#AcademicSky 👩🏽🔬
#AcademicSky 👩🏽🔬
Who’s quitting academia? Data reveal gender gaps in surprising fields
Even in scientific areas in which women are well represented, they are up to 40% more likely than men to leave research within 20 years.
www.nature.com
January 12, 2025 at 3:54 PM
“‘It’s very easy to assume that science is going to change organically towards equality — and what this study shows is that that’s not happening…It is an ‘important reminder for us that we need to stay vigilant in working towards equality in science’” @crsugimoto.bsky.social 🧪
#AcademicSky 👩🏽🔬
#AcademicSky 👩🏽🔬
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Authors use an elegant transgenic model to demonstrate that acute oral administration of metformin targets mitochondrial complex I to lower blood glucose.
A crucial contribution to the debate about the mechanisms of action of #metformin.
#metabolism #glucose
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
A crucial contribution to the debate about the mechanisms of action of #metformin.
#metabolism #glucose
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Metformin targets mitochondrial complex I to lower blood glucose levels
Acute oral metformin administration lowers blood glucose levels by targeting mitochondrial complex I.
doi.org
January 5, 2025 at 2:27 AM
Authors use an elegant transgenic model to demonstrate that acute oral administration of metformin targets mitochondrial complex I to lower blood glucose.
A crucial contribution to the debate about the mechanisms of action of #metformin.
#metabolism #glucose
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
A crucial contribution to the debate about the mechanisms of action of #metformin.
#metabolism #glucose
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
p-hacking is primarily an academic publication phenomenon due to the incentives involved -- researchers find no evidence of p-hacking in e-commerce A/B testing because it's counterproductive to try and fool yourself
alexmiller.phd/research/p-h...
alexmiller.phd/research/p-h...
January 2, 2025 at 7:21 AM
p-hacking is primarily an academic publication phenomenon due to the incentives involved -- researchers find no evidence of p-hacking in e-commerce A/B testing because it's counterproductive to try and fool yourself
alexmiller.phd/research/p-h...
alexmiller.phd/research/p-h...
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Me opening my to do list today, featuring all the work I didn't do in December
a woman with a ring on her finger is making a funny face
Alt: Ellaria Sand from Game of Thrones screams in horror
media.tenor.com
January 2, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Me opening my to do list today, featuring all the work I didn't do in December
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Our new paper is out! Even with helmet protection, high-energy blunt trauma can lead to fatal respiratory failure. Our study maps specific brainstem injury patterns, revealing critical implications for #TBI & protection. Patterns of #vascularinjury ≠ #axonalinjury www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/...
Diffuse Axonal and Vascular Pathology in the Gyrencephalic Brain after High-Energy Blunt Injury: Clinicopathological Correlations Involving the Brainstem | Journal of Neurotrauma
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) after high-energy, behind helmet blunt trauma (BHBT) is an important but poorly understood clinical entity often associated with apnea and death in humans. In this study, ...
www.liebertpub.com
December 31, 2024 at 7:37 PM
Our new paper is out! Even with helmet protection, high-energy blunt trauma can lead to fatal respiratory failure. Our study maps specific brainstem injury patterns, revealing critical implications for #TBI & protection. Patterns of #vascularinjury ≠ #axonalinjury www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/...
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Astroglial Hmgb1 in postnatal #Astrocyte morphogenesis & #NeuroGlioVascularUnit maturation
#SciArt
Aldh1l1-CreERT2:Hmgb1 f/f🐭➡️
⏬Astroglial endfeet coverage over vessels
⏬Single-cell #BranchingMorphogenesis
@blacoste.bsky.social @naturecomms.bsky.social 2023
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#SciArt
Aldh1l1-CreERT2:Hmgb1 f/f🐭➡️
⏬Astroglial endfeet coverage over vessels
⏬Single-cell #BranchingMorphogenesis
@blacoste.bsky.social @naturecomms.bsky.social 2023
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
December 31, 2024 at 1:42 PM
Astroglial Hmgb1 in postnatal #Astrocyte morphogenesis & #NeuroGlioVascularUnit maturation
#SciArt
Aldh1l1-CreERT2:Hmgb1 f/f🐭➡️
⏬Astroglial endfeet coverage over vessels
⏬Single-cell #BranchingMorphogenesis
@blacoste.bsky.social @naturecomms.bsky.social 2023
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#SciArt
Aldh1l1-CreERT2:Hmgb1 f/f🐭➡️
⏬Astroglial endfeet coverage over vessels
⏬Single-cell #BranchingMorphogenesis
@blacoste.bsky.social @naturecomms.bsky.social 2023
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
I am usually not fan of atlases… but this one is actually useful, as it demonstrates the value of protein-level measurements to identify functional cell states. #Brain #Development www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A single-cell mass cytometry-based atlas of the developing mouse brain - Nature Neuroscience
In recent years, valuable mRNA-based developmental atlases of the mouse brain have been made available. Here, the authors use single-cell mass cytometry to build a protein-based single-cell profiling ...
www.nature.com
December 31, 2024 at 2:09 PM
I am usually not fan of atlases… but this one is actually useful, as it demonstrates the value of protein-level measurements to identify functional cell states. #Brain #Development www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
The National Academy of Sciences issues recommendation that NIH devote an institute focused on women’s health.
Much needed but hard to imagine it will happen in this political environment.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Much needed but hard to imagine it will happen in this political environment.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Report: NIH Needs a Women’s Health Institute
This Medical News article discusses a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on persistent gaps in women’s health research and key recommendations that would req...
jamanetwork.com
December 27, 2024 at 8:48 PM
The National Academy of Sciences issues recommendation that NIH devote an institute focused on women’s health.
Much needed but hard to imagine it will happen in this political environment.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Much needed but hard to imagine it will happen in this political environment.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Aging may not increase permeability of the #BloodBrainBarrier, but rather its vulnerability to insults, interesting concept! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Aging disrupts blood–brain and blood-spinal cord barrier homeostasis, but does not increase paracellular permeability - GeroScience
Blood-CNS barriers protect the CNS from circulating immune cells and damaging molecules. It is thought barrier integrity becomes disrupted with aging, contributing to impaired CNS function. Using geno...
link.springer.com
December 26, 2024 at 4:36 AM
Aging may not increase permeability of the #BloodBrainBarrier, but rather its vulnerability to insults, interesting concept! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Delighted to share an update to our preprint, reviewed at @elife.bsky.social, and now sent back for re-review.
Colossal work by the team and driven home by @mathiasgua.bsky.social
Quick 🧵 of what's new -
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Colossal work by the team and driven home by @mathiasgua.bsky.social
Quick 🧵 of what's new -
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Early-life stress induces persistent astrocyte dysfunction associated with fear generalisation
Early-life stress can have lifelong consequences, enhancing stress susceptibility and resulting in behavioural and cognitive deficits. While the effects of early-life stress on neuronal function have ...
www.biorxiv.org
December 9, 2024 at 11:19 PM
Delighted to share an update to our preprint, reviewed at @elife.bsky.social, and now sent back for re-review.
Colossal work by the team and driven home by @mathiasgua.bsky.social
Quick 🧵 of what's new -
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Colossal work by the team and driven home by @mathiasgua.bsky.social
Quick 🧵 of what's new -
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Who knew #microglia could be like starfish (extruding stomached to digest stuff outside their bodies)? Check out Microglial lysosomal synapses in murine #Alzheimers disease model. #neuroinflammation #neurodegeneration #neurosky
New publication on Cell Reports! We describe a mechanism by which #microglia degrade amyloid-beta deposits that they can't phagocytose.
Collaboration between the Tremblay lab and Rudy Jacquet, Santiago Solé-Domènech and Frederick Maxfield at Weill Cornell.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Collaboration between the Tremblay lab and Rudy Jacquet, Santiago Solé-Domènech and Frederick Maxfield at Weill Cornell.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Microglia degrade Alzheimer’s amyloid-beta deposits extracellularly via digestive exophagy
How microglia digest Alzheimer’s fibrillar amyloid-beta (Aβ) plaques that are too large to be phagocytosed is not well understood. Here, we show that …
www.sciencedirect.com
December 9, 2024 at 9:16 PM
Who knew #microglia could be like starfish (extruding stomached to digest stuff outside their bodies)? Check out Microglial lysosomal synapses in murine #Alzheimers disease model. #neuroinflammation #neurodegeneration #neurosky
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Working on our colonies breeding numbers and study numbers for this IACUC renewal.
a young boy is crying while holding a cell phone .
Alt: a young boy frustrated numbers are not adding up in calculator
media.tenor.com
December 6, 2024 at 2:18 PM
Working on our colonies breeding numbers and study numbers for this IACUC renewal.
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Really nice paper looking at differential roles of astrocytes in stress physiology and behaviour !
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Astrocytic inhibition of lateral septal neurons promotes diverse stress responses - Nature Communications
The lateral septum contains neurons that mediate stress responses, but the role of astrocytes remained unclear. Here, the authors show that lateral septum astrocytes modulate nearby neurons and enhanc...
www.nature.com
December 5, 2024 at 7:29 PM
Really nice paper looking at differential roles of astrocytes in stress physiology and behaviour !
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
Not checking nuclear markers like MALAT1 or intronic reads in your scRNA-seq data?🚨
We show their power to flag low-quality cells—even in top public datasets. It’s time to prioritize better QC for cleaner, more reliable genomics research!
Read more: bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
1/8
High content of nuclei-free low-quality cells in reference single-cell atlases: a call for more stringent quality control using nuclear fraction - BMC Genomics
The advent of droplet-based single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) has dramatically increased data throughput, enabling the release of a diverse array of tissue cell atlases to the public. However, we...
bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com
December 3, 2024 at 8:38 AM
Not checking nuclear markers like MALAT1 or intronic reads in your scRNA-seq data?🚨
We show their power to flag low-quality cells—even in top public datasets. It’s time to prioritize better QC for cleaner, more reliable genomics research!
Read more: bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
1/8
Reposted by Carmen Muñoz-Ballester PhD
😳😳😳
scRNA-seq has revolutionized biology, but it’s not without challenges. We uncovered significant quality issues in widely used reference cell atlases like the Human Cell Atlas and Tabula Sapiens. Up to 85% of cells in some datasets are low-quality or misidentified!
2/8
2/8
December 4, 2024 at 11:19 AM
😳😳😳
Me ready to show how the NIH reporter works to a scientist friend
#NewPI #GoodTools #GrantWritingTime
#NewPI #GoodTools #GrantWritingTime
a poster with a woman and the words this is gonna be shamazing on it
Alt: a poster with a woman and the words this is gonna be shamazing on it
media.tenor.com
December 2, 2024 at 7:33 PM
Me ready to show how the NIH reporter works to a scientist friend
#NewPI #GoodTools #GrantWritingTime
#NewPI #GoodTools #GrantWritingTime