Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Eva D'haene @eedhaene.bsky.social · 2d

Congrats! 🎉

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Stefan Barakat @stefanbarakat.bsky.social · 16d

Join us today at Sept 23rd2025 from 5pm to 6.30 pm (Central European Time) for our ERN ITHACA webinar on the non-coding genome and human disease by @svergult.bsky.social , @mspielmann.bsky.social , Florence Petit and @stefanbarakat.bsky.social

ern-ithaca.eu/events-news/...

ERN-ITHACA WEBINAR: NON-CODING GENOME AND HUMAN DISEASE - ERN ITHACA

Recent developments in genomic technologies have enabled the genome-wide identification of regulatory elements and chromatin interactions, controlling the spatiotemporal gene expression. In this webin...

ern-ithaca.eu

2 2

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Rada-Iglesias Lab @radaiglesiaslab.bsky.social · Aug 11

Excited to share the latest work from the lab led by @eharo84.bsky.social, in which we have used synthetic biology to explore the mechanisms by which different types of long-range enhancers ensure robust and precise developmental gene expression

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Synthetic engineering demonstrates that synergy among enhancers involves an increase in transcriptionally productive enhancer-gene contacts

Enhancers are non-coding cis-regulatory elements that control the expression of distally located genes in a tissue- and time-specific manner. Recent studies indicate that enhancers can differ in their...

www.biorxiv.org

5 37 64

Eva D'haene @eedhaene.bsky.social · Jul 31

👇 Highly recommend applying if you want to join a great team and work on a high-profile, inter-university project! #postdocjobs

Sarah Vergult @svergult.bsky.social · Jul 31

📣Job Alert: We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher with hands-on experience in neural tissue culture, preferably neural organoids, for a collaborative project on Alzheimer's disease and MS between KULeuven, UHasselt and UGent in Belgium. Deadline August 31: www.ugent.be/en/work/scie...

Postdoctoral fellow

www.ugent.be

3 4

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Stefan Schoenfelder @stefanschoenfelder.bsky.social · Jul 22

🚨 New paper alert 🚨
I am excited to share our new work on epigenetic enhancer priming in early mammalian development
genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
Fantastic collaboration with Wolf Reik’s team, with key contributions from many others, led by the excellent Chris Todd.
Short 🧵

Epigenetic priming of mammalian embryonic enhancer elements coordinates developmental gene networks - Genome Biology

Background Embryonic development requires the accurate spatiotemporal execution of cell lineage-specific gene expression programs, which are controlled by transcriptional enhancers. Developmental enha...

genomebiology.biomedcentral.com

1 23 40

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Elfride De Baere @elfridedebaere.bsky.social · Jul 15

📣 Join us at the Genetics of Ocular Development (GoOD) Meeting in Ghent, Belgium, 8-9/09/25 🧬

Abstract submission until 16/07/25 goodsoc.org
✨ Exciting line-up ✨

Supported by GoOD @vlaamseoverheid.bsky.social @ds-ugent.bsky.social Lucid

#eyegenetics #development #models #diagnosis #therapy

1 1

Reposted by Eva D'haene

mspielmann.bsky.social @mspielmann.bsky.social · Jul 7

🚀 Thrilled to share our new review on how structural variants reshape 3D genome architecture and cause disease! 🧬🔀
Out now in Nature Reviews Genetics: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#3D-Genome #StructuralVariants #uksh

Structural variants in the 3D genome as drivers of disease - Nature Reviews Genetics

Disruption of the 3D genome caused by structural variation contributes to developmental disorders and cancer. The authors review the causes and molecular and clinical consequences of position effects ...

www.nature.com

16 37

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Evgeny Kvon @evgenykvon.bsky.social · Jul 2

Our paper describing the Range Extender element which is required and sufficient for long-range enhancer activation at the Shh locus is now available at @nature.com. Congrats to @gracebower.bsky.social who led the study. Below is a brief summary of the main findings www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/

Range extender mediates long-distance enhancer activity - Nature

The REX element is associated with long-range enhancer–promoter interactions.

www.nature.com

10 90 190

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Axel Visel @axelvisel.bsky.social · Jun 18

Textbooks: “Enhancers are just a bunch of TFBSs”

But how do they REALLY work?

New paper with many contributors here @berkeleylab.lbl.gov, @anshulkundaje.bsky.social, @anusri.bsky.social

A 🧵 (1/n)

Free access link: rdcu.be/erD22

A meme-style comic panel with three parts. Left: A stylized enhancer with a mutation, surrounded by colored blocks representing functional motifs, a neural network diagram, chromatin accessibility signal traces, and a sequence motif. Two cartoon mouse embryos below show different LacZ reporter activity patterns. Top right: A hand hovers anxiously between two red buttons labeled “Experiments” and “AI,” with the caption “HOW DO ENHANCERS REALLY WORK?” Bottom right: A sweating superhero wipes his forehead, looking stressed about the difficult choice.

2 80 170

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Daniel Ibrahim @danielibrahim.bsky.social · May 27

How to find Evolutionary Conserved Enhancers in 2025? 🐣-🐭
Check out our paper - fresh off the press!!!
We find widespread functional conservation of enhancers in absence of sequence homology
Including: a bioinformatic tool to map sequence-diverged enhancers!
rdcu.be/enVDN
github.com/tobiaszehnde...

Conservation of regulatory elements with highly diverged sequences across large evolutionary distances

Nature Genetics - Combining functional genomic data from mouse and chicken with a synteny-based strategy identifies positionally conserved cis-regulatory elements in the absence of direct sequence...

rdcu.be

7 110 250

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Sarah Vergult @svergult.bsky.social · May 27

Excellent poster talks from all Ghent PhD students at #eshg25! Well done 👏🏻👏🏻

1 1 3

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Sarah Vergult @svergult.bsky.social · May 25

Excellent talk by my colleague @elfridedebaere.bsky.social on cis regulatory elements in eye diseases at #eshg25. If you did not attend her session, I highly recommend to watch it on the virtual platform. Enhanceropathies research at Ghent University is on 🔥

2 8

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Michael B Vaughan @michael-b-vaughan.bsky.social · May 25

@lisahamerlinck.bsky.social kicking ass at #eshg2025

Sharing work on non-coding regulatory disruptions of FOXG1.

#FunGen @svergult.bsky.social @eedhaene.bsky.social

1 4

Eva D'haene @eedhaene.bsky.social · May 25

If you're interested and happen to be at #eshg2025, look up @svergult.bsky.social to chat!

1

Eva D'haene @eedhaene.bsky.social · May 25

We're looking for a new colleague! If you're excited by 2D and 3D neural models for neurodegenerative disease and want to join a fantastic lab, apply!!! 👇

Sharing would be great as well 🙏

#postdoc #jobs #neurogen #neurogenomics

Sarah Vergult @svergult.bsky.social · May 22

📣Job Alert: We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher with hands-on experience in neural tissue culture, preferably neural organoids, for a collaborative project on Alzheimer's disease and MS between KULeuven, UHasselt and UGent in Belgium. Deadline: June 23
Link: www.ugent.be/en/work/scie...

Postdoctoral fellow

www.ugent.be

1 1 3

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Nadav Ahituv @nadavahituv.bsky.social · May 24

Comparison between a neuronal massively parallel reporter assay for 50,000 sequences and 20,000 variants with mouse enhancer assays provide complimentary information. Great work by Michael Kosicki, Dianne Laboy Cintrón, Len Pennacchio, Martin Kircher lab & many others.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Massively parallel reporter assays and mouse transgenic assays provide correlated and complementary information about neuronal enhancer activity - Nature Communications

MPRAs and in vivo transgenic mouse assays are two potentially complementary ways to assay the impact of noncoding variants. Here, authors find a strong and specific correlation between the assays in n...

www.nature.com

7 31

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Sarah Vergult @svergult.bsky.social · May 24

On my way to #eshg25!
If you are interested in the work we do at the FunGen lab, check out the flash talk on Sunday and poster on Monday by @lisahamerlinck.bsky.social or come and have a coffee with team members @michael-b-vaughan.bsky.social, @eedhaene.bsky.social or me. Hope to see you there!

1 3 5

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Zornitza Stark @zornitza.bsky.social · May 23

🤗 Hugely excited to share our work on automating iterative reanalysis in #raredisease, preprint out: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... 🤖🧬

github.com/populationge...

A superb collaboration with @dgmacarthur.bsky.social @cassimons.bsky.social @heidirehm.bsky.social @ksamocha.bsky.social and many more!

Scalable automated reanalysis of genomic data in research and clinical rare disease cohorts

Reanalysis of genomic data in rare disease is highly effective in increasing diagnostic yields but remains limited by manual approaches. Automation and optimization for high specificity will be necess...

www.medrxiv.org

1 13 24

Eva D'haene @eedhaene.bsky.social · May 22

Congrats Jasper!

1

Eva D'haene @eedhaene.bsky.social · May 19

Looking forward to exciting science and to connect with colleagues in Milan at the Neurogenomics conference @humantechnopole.bsky.social Presenting our research ( @svergult.bsky.social @lisahamerlinck.bsky.social ) on noncoding variants in the FOXG1 locus during the poster session (#88) #neurogen25

2 8

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Marieke Oudelaar @mariekeoudelaar.bsky.social · May 13

Very happy to share the peer-reviewed version of our paper in which we study the formation and function of pair-wise and multi-way enhancer-promoter interactions in gene regulation (see thread below): www.nature.com/articles/s41...

3 33 100

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Arnau Sebé-Pedrós @arnausebe.bsky.social · May 7

Check out our latest work on the evolution of animal genome regulation out today in @nature.com. Nicely summarized below by @ianakim.bsky.social.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is a major output from our ERC-StG project Evocellmap @erc.europa.eu at @crg.eu

8 54 160

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Selin Jessa @selinjessa.bsky.social · May 3

Delighted to share our latest work deciphering the landscape of chromatin accessibility and modeling the DNA sequence syntax rules underlying gene regulation during human fetal development! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Read on for more: 🧵 1/16 #GeneReg 🧬🖥️

Dissecting regulatory syntax in human development with scalable multiomics and deep learning

Transcription factors (TFs) establish cell identity during development by binding regulatory DNA in a sequence-specific manner, often promoting local chromatin accessibility, and regulating gene expre...

www.biorxiv.org

2 59 130

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Nicky Whiffin @nickywhiffin.bsky.social · Apr 11

🚨I could not be more excited to share our new preprint on saturation genome editing of the small nuclear RNA (snRNA) RNU4-2:
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

A super fun collaboration with incredible duo @gregfindlay.bsky.social @joachimdejonghe.bsky.social from @crick.ac.uk
🧬🖥️🩺

🧵1/12

Saturation genome editing of RNU4-2 reveals distinct dominant and recessive neurodevelopmental disorders

Recently, de novo variants in an 18 nucleotide region in the centre of RNU4-2 were shown to cause ReNU syndrome, a syndromic neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) that is predicted to affect tens of thous...

www.medrxiv.org

4 48 98

Reposted by Eva D'haene

Denis Duboule @denisduboule.bsky.social · Mar 17

Symposium on ‘Enhancer Sequences’ at beautiful @collegedefrance.bsky.social in Paris, by April 11th. Open and free, no registration. Come to relax listening to facts #TherapeuticEffects #VillageGauloix Final programme below. Tell your friends! 🙏🤘

2 45 80