Daniel E. Weeks
@statgendan.bsky.social
540 followers 1.1K following 57 posts
Statistical geneticist. Professor of Human Genetics and Biostatistics at the University of Pittsburgh. Assiduously meticulous.
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Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
paysmaths.bsky.social
"My whole life, my ambition as a mathematician, or rather my joy and my passion, have always been to discover the obvious things." – Alexandre Grothendieck (1928-2014)
#quote #mathematics #math #maths
Photographic portrait of Alexandre Grothendieck, and a quote : "My whole life, my ambition as a mathematician, or rather my joy and my passion, have always been to discover the obvious things."
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
paulpharoah.bsky.social
The Bayesian Priors: a group of monks singing Gregorian chants.

Dichotomania: a punk rock band relying on their ability to play no more than two notes.

Factor Analysis: A progressive rock band
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
andganna.bsky.social
💥 New preprint & our first RCT! 💥

Does an extremely high or low BMI polygenic score influence weight loss after a diet intervention?

GENEROOS is a 6-month randomized diet vs. control trial testing if genetic predisposition to higher BMI affects weight loss in overweight adults
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
pragskore.bsky.social
📃 We’re excited to share our latest work, now published in Nature Communications — a major update to the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD) that improves allele frequency resolution for two gnomAD-defined genetic ancestry groups using local ancestry inference (LAI).
Improved allele frequencies in gnomAD through local ancestry inference - Nature Communications
This study incorporates local ancestry into the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD) to improve allele frequency estimates for admixed populations, enhancing variant interpretation and enabling more accurate and equitable genomic research and clinical care.
www.nature.com
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
molgen.mpg.de
🚨 Please share! We are seeking motivated PhD students who wish to work at the intersection of molecular life sciences and computational sciences.
#IMPRS #IMPRSBAC @freieuniversitaet.bsky.social @maxplanck.de
Check out our projects and apply by Jan 7th, 2026!
www.molgen.mpg.de/IMPRSPhDproj...
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
bennystrobes.bsky.social
Exciting updates!!
(1) I just opened my lab at Boston Children’s Hospital (Harvard-affiliated)
(2) I’m hiring a postdoc focused on integrating GWAS and functional genomic data. Reach out if you’re interested or connect at ASHG next week!
(3) Learn more at stroberlab.com
Strober Lab
The Strober lab is a computational group at Boston Children's Hospital (a Harvard Medical School affiliated hospital) focused on developing statistical and machine learning tools applied to human gene...
stroberlab.com
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
biorxivpreprint.bsky.social
Long-read sequencing reveals telomere inheritance patterns from human trios https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.07.680721v1
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
datavisfriendly.bsky.social
A nice, simple analogy and explanation
ilovescience.bsky.social
The importance of uncertainty in measurement #statistics #reality #truth
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
andrew.heiss.phd
If you've ever wanted to learn how to make beautiful websites with #QuartoPub and #rstats , check out this workshop I'm giving in a couple weeks! It'll be a blast (and we're covering Quarto's brand new _brand dot yaml system!)
stathorizons.bsky.social
Learn to create and publish a professional, data-focused website in “Create an Online Presence with Quarto Websites” on October 16-17, with @andrew.heiss.phd‬! Discover how to use #Quarto to build a variety of websites like personal portfolios, research compendiums, and interactive dashboards.
Quarto Websites | Online Seminar | Code Horizons
This online course taught by Andrew Heiss, Ph.D., teaches you how to use Quarto to build a variety of data-focused websites.
codehorizons.com
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
holtjma.bsky.social
I'm excited to share our pre-print about a new variant benchmarking tool we've been working on for the past few months!

Aardvark: Sifting through differences in a mound of variants
GitHub: github.com/PacificBiosc...

Some highlights in this thread:
1/N
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
jkpritch.bsky.social
I want to try something again at #ASHG25 this year: I'll block some time on Thursday and Friday afternoons to meet with trainees who would be interested to chat on any topic.

I did this last year and it was great to meet a whole bunch of new people, at all career stages!
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
drelsje.bsky.social
🧩Learning to talk & read isn’t just about effort or teaching—it’s shaped by biology, experience & context

🧠Our new review links genetics, neuroscience, psychology & education to show why some children find language or reading easier.

📖 doi.org/10.31234/osf...

🖼️genes→brain→cognition→behaviour 🧵👇
Figure 2 in the review: Levels of analysis from genes and brain systems to cognition and behaviour.
The child both influences and is influenced by parents through genetically shaped interactions, and by the wider school and social environment.
Figure design by Neil Usher.
Figure from this review paper: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/w23yz_v1
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
aidaandres.bsky.social
Jasmin Rees PhD chapter as a paper just out at the AJHG @ajhgnews.bsky.social, with Sergi Castellano, who first envisioned the study. Jas investigated signatures of human local genetic adaptation in hundreds of micronutrient-associated genes.
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
andganna.bsky.social
🧬💥 Do the genetics that make you develop a disease also help you survive it? Not much.

Our new study in Nature Genetics including 9 disease and 7 biobanks shows:

• Susceptibility variants ≠ survival
• PRSs for onset weak at predicting progression
• Lifespan PRS predicts survival better
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
Reposted by Daniel E. Weeks
profsimonfisher.bsky.social
Twenty-four years ago today, our paper “A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder” was published: www.nature.com/articles/350....
A personal thread about the ups & downs of the journey we took to get to that point....1/n
🗣️🧬🧪
Image shows the first two printed pages of the paper “A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder” by Cecilia Lai and colleagues, published in Nature in 2001 (volume 413, pages 519-523). The abstract reads as follows:
Individuals affected with developmental disorders of speech and language have substantial difficulty acquiring expressive and/or receptive language in the absence of any profound sensory or neurological impairment and despite adequate intelligence and opportunity. Although studies of twins consistently indicate that a significant genetic component is involved, most families segregating speech and language deficits show complex patterns of inheritance, and a gene that predisposes individuals to such disorders has not been identified. We have studied a unique three-generation pedigree, KE, in which a severe speech and language disorder is transmitted as an autosomal-dominant monogenic trait. Our previous work mapped the locus responsible, SPCH1, to a 5.6-cM interval of region 7q31 on chromosome 7. We also identified an unrelated individual, CS, in whom speech and language impairment is associated with a chromosomal translocation involving the SPCH1 interval. Here we show that the gene FOXP2, which encodes a putative transcription factor containing a polyglutamine tract and a forkhead DNA-binding domain, is directly disrupted by the translocation breakpoint in CS. In addition, we identify a point mutation in affected members of the KE family that alters an invariant amino-acid residue in the forkhead domain. Our findings suggest that FOXP2 is involved in the developmental process that culminates in speech and language.
statgendan.bsky.social
I’m afraid the only solution is to keep birding … more! 😄
My eBird counts in Pennsylvania over the last ten years.


Pennsylvania
Your Species by Year

Year
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015

Count as of 3 Oct
124
113
121
125
119
135
145
139
121
136
146


Count as of 31 Dec

116
126
135
120
147
147
142
123
146
149
…