The era of genome writing in human stem cells is here!
bsky.app/profile/davi...

This work was supported by
@niaidnews.bsky.social
@nyutandon.bsky.social
@newyorkuniversity.bsky.social
@nyulangone.bsky.social

Critically, the final engineered cells are fully functional: they evade NK killing & establish T-cell tolerance.
This work provides a platform for programming complex human cells, from immune design to epigenetic rules.

This team effort was led by Serena Generoso &
Sarah Levovitz and many others!

This allowed us to ask: what controls this epigenetic ghost? By comparing a "genes-only" locus to one with native intergenic DNA, we found the answer.

This non-coding DNA contains the "software" that actively promotes silencing and resolves the 👻. 🧵

We built REWRITE to tackle a huge problem in cell therapy: HLA mismatch. We deleted massive regions and wrote in 100 kb synthetic haplotypes.
➡️iterative writing is possible

But this led to a surprise: the engineering left a heritable "epigenetic ghost" of active expression. 🧵

🚨 Preprint Alert!
The era of human genome writing begins…
We developed REWRITE for human iPSCs, enabling 100–209 kb rewriting of all 3 HLA genes - or anywhere.
➡️ On-demand HLA hiPSCs
➡️ Off-the-shelf cells
➡️ Extensible cell engineering
🧵⬇️
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The Truong lab @nyuniversity (Programmable Regenerative Immunity) has an opening for a Postdoctoral Fellow to work in Mammalian Synthetic Biology in human iPSCs:

apply.interfolio.com/172424

This project uses large-scale human genome "rewriting" to build a Synthetic Thymus.

This a really killer resource.

Abstract deadline (April 28) coming up for for the best mammalian synthetic biology conference!
Join us at #mSBW2025

www.aiche.org/sbe/conferen...

Need a site-specific, dox-inducible system for human cells?
Low leakage, silencing-resistant, and modular?
It’s here in the first paper from my lab, led by Tomoki Yanagi MD, PhD.
Bonus: forward programming of TEC-like cells from hiPSCs.

tinyurl.com/trunod01

Got any good ideas of what, other than lawsuits and protests? You're a leader in the community after all. I'm at a loss for what to do, especially from liberal NYC.

Many of us in academic science will default to “business as usual” as our response. We will feel that our power should be used to maintain a semblance of normalcy. To live to fight another day.

Termination sequence between an inducible promoter and ubiquitous chromatin opening element (UCOE) reduces gene expression leakage and silencing https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.18.629244v1

Snapdragons are my favorite flower to grow. They do however produce seed pods that look like the screaming skulls of the damned.

We are looking for two new colleagues (open rank tenure-track) in neuro-engineering for the Dept of Biomedical Engineering @nyutandon.bsky.social! Priority applications due Dec 8th, rolling till January.
Neuro-Cell/Tissue
apply.interfolio.com/159312
Neuro-Devices
apply.interfolio.com/159320

Hey folks! I got a tattoo of my beloved PIEZO ion channel on my arm! Now I can show how they activate (flatten) under pressure by flexing—Will add a bit of performance art to my science talks 🧪🧠.

Bluesky, new beginnings. Let's hope this place is about positive science developments and not rage bait!