Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Quinn Sievers

Nuria Lopez-Bigas @nlbigas.bsky.social · 13h

🚨 New paper alert!

Sex and smoking bias in the selection of somatic mutations in human bladder

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

by @raquelbmi.bsky.social, @ferriol.bsky.social et al (in collaboration with Rosana Risques lab in @uwmedicine.bsky.social)

Sex and smoking bias in the selection of somatic mutations in human bladder - Nature

Sex bias and association with smoking history identified in the landscape of driver mutations and clonal expansions in normal human bladder tissue may explain the higher bladder cancer risk in men and smokers.

www.nature.com

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Inigo Martincorena @imartincorena.bsky.social · 13h

Our latest work is out in Nature today. In this paper, we introduce an improved version of NanoSeq, a duplex sequencing protocol with <5 errors per billion bp in single DNA molecules, and use it to study the somatic mutation landscape of oral epithelium in >1000 people www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Somatic mutation and selection at population scale - Nature

A new version of nanorate DNA sequencing, with an error rate lower than five errors per billion base pairs and compatible with whole-exome and targeted capture, enables epidemiological-scale studies of somatic mutation and selection and the generation of high-resolution selection maps across coding and non-coding sites for many genes.

www.nature.com

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Quinn Sievers @quinnsievers.bsky.social · 2d

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/04/h...

How Private Equity Oversees the Ethics of Drug Research

www.nytimes.com

Quinn Sievers @quinnsievers.bsky.social · 2d

Attention-grabbing title but otherwise really interesting article about faculty report on education at Harvard

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/u...

Harvard Students Skip Class and Still Get High Grades, Faculty Say

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Quinn Sievers

Michael Gilman @gilman.bsky.social · 2d

Love this story about one of today's Nobel winners, Mary Brunkow.

(She and colleague Fred Ramsdell, working at Celltech (RIP), uncovered the role of Foxp3 in the development of Tregs.)

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Addgene @addgene.bsky.social · 2d

New CRISPR libraries from the @johndoench.bsky.social and Root labs — Jacquere (human) and Julianna (mouse).
A perfect pairing for your next screen. 🍷🧀
https://twp.ai/9PX2kT
https://twp.ai/4irnYP

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Quinn Sievers @quinnsievers.bsky.social · 6d

Wait. This happens in the US too! The cookie thing!

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Nature Biotechnology @natbiotech.nature.com · 7d

Improved effectors for CRISPRi/CRISPRa are developed following high-throughput screening of transcriptional domains go.nature.com/3NMu00N
rdcu.be/eI28L

Development of compact transcriptional effectors using high-throughput measurements in diverse contexts - Nature Biotechnology

Improved effectors for CRISPRi/CRISPRa are developed following high-throughput screening of transcriptional domains.

go.nature.com

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Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 7d

Another record month for bioRxiv - and further evidence the pandemic spike+dip was just that and growth continues. Thanks to all involved and that includes 🫵

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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 7d

Jane Goodall, Eminent Primatologist Who Chronicled the Lives of Chimps, Dies at 91. Gift link: nyti.ms/48FOuUn

nyti.ms

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John Tuthill @tuthill.bsky.social · 9d

last week i spoke with the NPR show @onthemedia.bsky.social about what it feels like serving on an NIH grant review panel as the Trump administration works to defund and destroy US universities and biomedical research

www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

Trump v. Tylenol. Plus, How Charlie Kirk Became a Martyr for the Christian Right. | On the Media | WNYC Studios

President Trump has declared that Tylenol should not be used during pregnancy. On this week’s On the Media, how funding cuts and disputed claims linking the drug to autism have sent s...

www.wnycstudios.org

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plasmidsaurus @plasmidsaurus.bsky.social · 9d

Say ahhh... this dino’s dentist appointment might take a while. 🦖🦷

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Nathan Lo @nathanlo.bsky.social · 9d

What is the impact of the HHS decision to no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy? In our new research letter in @jamapediatrics.com, we provide estimates on the number of infant hospitalizations under different vaccine scenarios here. @mathewkiang.com, @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social

Modeling the Health Impact of Discontinuing COVID-19 Vaccination During Pregnancy in the US

This decision analytical model study estimates the number of avertable COVID-19 hospitalizations in US infants younger than 6 months and pregnant persons with vaccinations during pregnancy.

jamanetwork.com

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Johan Duchêne @johanduchene.bsky.social · 9d

⚠️ Half of commercial antibodies miss their target!
So how do you pick the right one for your experiment?

Here’s the solution 👉
Antibody characterization data (all tested in KO cells) are now available at:
🔗 onlygoodantibodies.co.uk

Tested by @ycharos.bsky.social & @oga-community.bsky.social

OGA - Only Good Antibodies Community

onlygoodantibodies.co.uk

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Quinn Sievers @quinnsievers.bsky.social · 9d

Thank you! I’m hopeful that with time it will become available.

Quinn Sievers @quinnsievers.bsky.social · 9d

Oh it may be because the website is new, it says “Category: newly-registered-domain”

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Quinn Sievers @quinnsievers.bsky.social · 9d

This sounds amazing! For some reason my browser is saying the link is unsafe and even when I bypass the browser my institution is blocking access to the website?

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NEJM.org @nejm.org · 10d

FLAIR phase 3 trial: Long-term therapy for chronic lymphocytic leukemia can lead to resistance and toxic effects. Research findings on measurable residual disease–guided treatment with ibrutinib–venetoclax are summarized in a new Quick Take video. nej.md/46RcQt4

#MedSky #Hematology

An illustration of ibrutinib plus venetoclax for treating patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia

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Quinn Sievers @quinnsievers.bsky.social · 11d

A good article about the issues arising from the new NIH policy of awarding the entirety of a grant’s funds upfront.

www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

NIH pulled off a ‘near miracle.’ Scientists say there’s still a problem.

The National Institutes of Health is on track to give away all of its grant money to labs, but research on cancer, aging and diabetes is still being left behind.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Reposted by Quinn Sievers

Erica D. Pratt @pratted.bsky.social · 12d

Announcing such a major change to NSF GRFP this late in the cycle is incredibly cruel. 2nd yr students (mine included) have been working so hard on their proposals despite ongoing uncertainty. They are driven and passionate about being outstanding scientists and helping those coming up behind them.

This means individuals in the following statuses at the time of application are eligible:

Undergraduate in the final (senior) year of a bachelor’s degree program
Bachelor’s degree-holder with NO enrollment in a graduate degree program (non-degree graduate coursework allowed)
Individual enrolled in a joint bachelor’s-master’s degree program with at least three undergraduate years completed
First-year graduate student in their first graduate degree program with less than one academic year completed in the degree program (according to institution’s academic calendar)
Individuals enrolled in joint bachelor’s-master’s degree programs are considered graduate students. For GRFP, joint bachelor’s-master’s degrees are defined as degrees concurrently pursued and awarded.
Not be a current NSF employee.

Applications that do not meet eligibility requirements will be returned without review as being ineligible for a fellowship.

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Quinn Sievers @quinnsievers.bsky.social · 12d

Perhaps the success of B cell depleting therapies in autoimmune disorders suggests that these diseases were simply driven by autoreactive antibodies

Quinn Sievers @quinnsievers.bsky.social · 12d

Oh wow, for some reason I had not thought of this application but UC is an autoimmune disorder so it makes sense!

What is interesting is the extent to which these B cell targeting therapies yield durable remissions in autoimmune disorders that were thought to be complex/multifactorial.

NEJM.org @nejm.org · 12d

In a patient with treatment-resistant ulcerative colitis, CD19 CAR T-cell therapy led to drug-free remission and mucosal healing, suggesting that B-cell targeting may offer a novel therapeutic pathway. Read the full report: nej.md/48gcBZV

#MedSky #GastroSky

A graph showing the circulating B-cell counts before and after treatment with blinatumomab and with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells targeting CD19.

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Reposted by Quinn Sievers

DeBerardinis Lab at UT Southwestern Medical Center @rjdlab.bsky.social · 13d

Remarkable new human proteome-wide effort to predict protein-protein interactions using coevolutionary signals and deep learning. From Qian Cong in the Eugene McDermott Center at UT Southwestern.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Predicting protein-protein interactions in the human proteome

Protein-protein interactions (PPI) are essential for biological function. Coevolutionary analysis and deep learning (DL) based protein structure prediction have enabled comprehensive PPI identificatio...

www.science.org

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Quinn Sievers @quinnsievers.bsky.social · 13d

We need human kleptoplasty. So we can be like sea slugs.

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Quinn Sievers @quinnsievers.bsky.social · 13d

Yes!!!!

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