What if an embryo made immune cells before it finished building the tissue they usually come from? In our new preprint, we show that annual killifish embryos specify neutrophils before germ layers are fully resolved. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Huge thanks to my PI, @ohnolog.bsky.social ! 🧵

Early immune cell development precedes gastrulation in annual killifish

During embryogenesis, cell types arise in a predictable order because developmental regulators act sequentially. But how evolutionary changes in morphogenesis reshape the signaling environments that a...

biorxiv.org

3. Create & fund a California scientific research institute to ensure we fund science research even if the federal government continues to pull back (SB 895) 4. Ensure California’s ICE mask ban, which I passed last year, is fully enforceable (SB 1004)

Excited to share Sampleworks led by @karsonchrispens.bsky.social with @diffuseproject.bsky.social. It's a modular framework connecting structure predictors to experimental data and guidance methods. Swap predictors or guidance methods. All open and made to be built upon. t.co/fvNHH3gfVu

That's right. Worse than Pointless www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...

Maybe science organizations don’t want to play outside game. FINE. 1. Apologize to your people for not responding well & 2. Support some activists who are doing the dirty work you can’t be bothered to do. Not a SINGLE science org or society has donated to @standupforscience.bsky.social

If I were a blue state governor, I’d be looking into adding a bunch of tenure lines at my state schools. I know that seems like “kick ‘em when they’re down,” but it’s more like “let academics who can escape to where they can do real work.” Builds up your own schools AND protect US academic output.

Dan Gillmor@dangillmor.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The governor of Texas is rapidly turning world-class universities into minor regional ones. Example:

Get in, dorks. We're ready for round two. RALLY TO TAKE BACK SCIENCE! 🔬🧪✊ March 7th, 2026 in Washington, DC Learn more at www.standupforscience.net/ma... (link in our bio.)

Our paper is (finally) out in Cell today! CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons reveal principles of tau proteostasis www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... Great collaborative effort - read more from first author @asamelson.bsky.social below:

CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons reveal principles of tau proteostasis

CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons reveal that the E3 ubiquitin ligase CRL5SOCS4 ubiquitinates tau, that CUL5 expression is correlated with resilience in human Alzheimer’s disease, and that electr...

cell.com

asamelson@asamelson.bsky.social · 6mo ago

After a long review process, I'm excited that our paper is finally in print: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... TL;DR: We use CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons to find a new tau E3 ligase and a relationship between oxidative stress, the proteasome, and tau proteolytic fragments. More below 👇

After a long review process, I'm excited that our paper is finally in print: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... TL;DR: We use CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons to find a new tau E3 ligase and a relationship between oxidative stress, the proteasome, and tau proteolytic fragments. More below 👇

CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons reveal principles of tau proteostasis

CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons reveal that the E3 ubiquitin ligase CRL5SOCS4 ubiquitinates tau, that CUL5 expression is correlated with resilience in human Alzheimer’s disease, and that electr...

cell.com

Lab tours. Live demos. Real talk with scientists. Students from South Gate High School got an inside look at UCLA's breakthrough research in medicine and disease treatment. Their curiosity and questions brought so much energy to our labs! 🔬🧬🧫

LISTEN UP, DORKS! @standupforscience.bsky.social is getting (even more!) political. People often say "well what can one person do??" 🥊 If all our followers joined Science Fight Club and gave $5 a month, we could save science! 🥊Join here: www.standupforscience.net/join-science... SHARE WIDELY!

Thank you Alzforum for featuring our new preprint identifying regulators of disease states of #microglia. Project led by Amanda McQuade, computation by Reet Mishra, collaboration with the Nunez and De Jager labs. Alzforum www.alzforum.org/news/researc... Preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

On Sept 17th, 2025, @aaas.org and @researchamerica.bsky.social hosted Jay Bhattacharya—NIH Director—as the keynote for the National Health Research Forum. Less than two weeks later, he spoke at the MAHA Action hour alongside Oz, Russel Brand, Tony Lyons, and Callie Means. I have a call to action:

🎀 New from the lab 🎀 We used the SPARK design for kinase biosensors to develop a PINK1 biosensor, PINK1-SPARK. We used PINK1-SPARK to measure PINK1 activity in multiple cell types & when using HaloTag, for multiplexing! Plasmids coming soon, check out the preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Visualizing PINK1 Activity Dynamics in Single Cells with a Phase Separation-Based Kinase Activity Reporter

Phosphatase and tensin homologue-induced kinase 1 (PINK1) is a serine/threonine kinase that plays roles in mitophagy, cell death, and regulation of cellular bioenergetics. Current approaches for study...

biorxiv.org

Researchers at UCLA built mini models of human lungs, hearts and brains to study hantaviruses and identify potential therapies. With no current treatments, these deadly rodent-borne viruses pose a serious threat to public health. #ResearchPowersProgress stemcell.ucla.edu/news/ucla-sc...

UCLA scientists use mini organ models to uncover secrets of deadly hantaviruses and point to new treatments

UCLA researchers have created miniature stem cell-based organoid models of human lungs, hearts and brains to study how hantaviruses — rare but often deadly viruses spread by rodents — infect the body....

stemcell.ucla.edu

Los Angeles rents are high, especially compared to the average pay - but it wasn't always that way. In this video, LA Councilmember Nithya Raman goes over the history of why LA stopped building enough housing relative to the number of new jobs, and how the city can reverse that trend. 🏠🏠🏠

Councilmember Nithya Raman@cd4losangeles.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Why is the rent so damn high in LA? Simple economics: the demand for housing is extremely high and our housing supply is extremely low.

Excited that the paper presenting our mouse brain in vivo CRISPR screening platform is out today in @natneuro.nature.com! Great team effort, led by Biswa Ramani and @ivlrose.bsky.social in the Kampmann lab. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

CRISPR screening by AAV episome-sequencing (CrAAVe-seq): a scalable cell-type-specific in vivo platform uncovers neuronal essential genes - Nature Neuroscience

The authors developed an adeno-associated virus-based high-throughput in vivo CRISPR screening platform for endogenous mouse brain cell types. Using this platform, they define genes and pathways essen...

nature.com

2 bits of data from new Economist/YouGov poll..... 13% support for cutting research funding to universities. 24% among Republicans. Polling on this continues to be catastrophic for the Rs, suggests Dems should be learning far harder into standing up for science and our universities. 1/

“Los Angeles leaders are once again demonstrating their cowardice and failing their own constituents who desperately need more housing—and they’re doing it at the behest of LA’s wealthiest, most entitled voters, who have consistently blocked progress on housing affordability.” - @hanlon.bsky.social

California YIMBY Statement on LA City Council Vote on SB 79

Los Angeles, CA — Today the Los Angeles City Council voted to oppose SB 79, a state bill designed to expand affordable housing near major transit stops. In doing so, councilmembers repeated discredite...

cayimby.org

In a first-of-its-kind clinical trial, UCLA scientists have shown it’s possible to reprogram a patient’s own stem cells to create a continuous supply of functional T cells, the immune system’s most powerful cancer-killing agents. bit.ly/4fhvMnv #CancerResearch #StemCellResearch

UCLA scientists reprogram stem cells to create renewable cancer-fighting T cells

In a first-of-its-kind clinical trial, UCLA scientists have shown it’s possible to reprogram a patient’s blood-forming stem cells to generate a continuous supply of functional T cells, the immune syst...

bit.ly

I'm thrilled to announce my next career step-- I’m joining Genentech as a Principal Scientist & Lab Head in Discovery Oncology! I’ll be hunting new ways to target cancers using my background in disordered nuclear proteins.

the republican party is a modern day Slave Power and the only way forward for this country is to sweep it into the ash heap of history

UCLA-led team has received a $3.5 million grant from the NIH to study and develop treatments for the infectious disease #mpox. Their discoveries could help prevent the next global outbreak. ➡️ bit.ly/3TW38hI

UCLA-led team receives $3.5 million NIH grant to develop treatment for mpox: What to know about the viral illness

Researchers from the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have received a $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study and develop ...

bit.ly

Logging off for the weekend, but shouting it one more time before I do: they don't believe in America. actioncookbook.substack.com/p/america-be...

Once again, this is a massive public jobs program for fascists. This bill was never just about tax cuts and gutting social services. It's about investing our collective resources in violence and using state power to spread fear and destroy solidarity. We need to resist this with all we've got.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez@aoc.bsky.social · last yr.

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE. This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined. It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

I am grieving the barbarism that is going to unfurl from all this. People are going to die. Livelihoods gone. All to feed a corrupt kleptocracy. I see every day up close how different it is from the first time around. There are no guardrails. A disaster. I’m sorry we have to live through this.

Legitimately feel sick. We are hours away from the largest cuts to low-income people in history. People’s lives will be ruined. It is so unfair. It’s unfair to be born into a system that allows this level of poverty in the first place and it’s evil to rip away aid from the needy. Hard to watch this.

genuinely, kicking 17 MILLION people off of their health insurance and stripping TWO MILLON people off of food assistance is so grotesque and depressing it’s hard to think of anything else

GOP reconciliation bill's effects: —Poorest 1/5 of earners: *declining* after-tax incomes —Those making >$3 m/year gain $118,000 —12 m people become uninsured —3.2 m people lose food stamps —US stops its efforts to combat climate change —$122 billion spent on deportation & concentration camps

tony romm@tonyromm.bsky.social · last yr.

NEW: The just-passed Senate Republican package is much better for the rich than the poor. Any gains from lower taxes may be wiped out from the loss of Medicaid, food stamps and more. Some Republicans looked to exempt their own states from the cuts. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/b...