Anne-Ruxandra Carvunis
@carvunis.bsky.social
Associate Prof. University of Pittsburgh. Computational and Systems Biology. Mechanisms of Evolutionary Innovation. Yeast. www.carvunis.com.
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It is Friday. Time for a new edition of #Autism: the #evidence. After spending some time talking about the consensus on what is behind the increase in #prevalence, and what does NOT cause autism, this week I am going to talk about what does, starting with #genetics
Today I am starting a weekly post titled "Autism: The Evidence". I hope it helps someone fight the colossal wave of misinformation that is drowning us. Part 1: I heard Autism prevalence has gone up. Is that true? If so why?
After testing virtually all reasonable permutations of sample prep, spectra acquisition, database selection, data processing... This team (convincingly, I think) demonstrates that ~85% of the small, *annotated* bacterial proteins are undetectable by mass spec—much less non-annotated ones. (1/4) 🧵
The findings at the recent trial and today's Columbia chaos is pushing me to the edge. I just sent the following email...
I heard this morning that my informatics colleague Dr. Atul Butte passed after a battle with cancer. He was a giant in the field & inspired many of us over his distinguished career. He was a passionate champion of the power of big data & his impact on our field is immeasurable. RIP Atul & thanks.
Very smart, high ROI initiative from the Spencer Foundation. Providing bridge funding for canceled NSF grants: 1) directs funds to projects already screened by a top-noch review process. 2) avoids imposing proposal prep costs on researchers. 3) ameliorates the disruption from GOP sabotage.
Rapid Response Bridge Funding Program
In the face of recent abrupt shifts in federal funding for education research, including large-scale terminations of National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant awards, we have developed a rap...
spencer.org
Interview with a Harvard graduate student from Harvard about some of the consequences of the administration's current policies.
Senator Durbin noted that some (I believe Republican Senators) had indicated the US had been doing more than its share of biomedical research and it was time for other countries take a turn. I felt I had to interrupt to respond...
I appreciate the offers from other scientists to help Harvard (students, labs, etc) through this attack, but what would be most helpful is for you to use your position to contact your elected representatives and make it clear this fight isn't just Harvard, it will affect you, and their districts too
I'm so excited to share a new preprint on exploring sequence, structure, and function relationships and how we can use evolutionary information to help us design new proteins that work in the native context of a cell www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Deep homology and design of proteasome chaperone proteins in Candida auris
A central tenet of biology is that protein structure mediates the sequence-function relationship. Recently, there has been excitement about the promise of advances in protein structure modeling to gen...
biorxiv.org
An NSF PO on its upcoming 75th anniversary: "In nature, systems evolve towards minimum of energy, following the laws of physics. In the US today things evolve to a location of maximum pain, violating the laws of the land." www.linkedin.com/posts/tomasz...
As a follow-up to the Kaiser interview, here is my exchange with Dr. Bhattacharya starting Sunday evening... 1/n
I wrote about how we must stand and fight against the threat of eugenics. Fueled by white nationalism and scientific racism, these beliefs are factually wrong and ethically abhorrent. This fight includes supporting efforts to diversify our workforce & science. To stop now would be a deep betrayal.
Eugenics is on the rise again: human geneticists must take a stand
Scientists must push back against the threat of rising white nationalism and the dangerous and pseudoscientific ideas of eugenics.
nature.com
Join our lab to study transcriptional regulation in mouse germ cells and embryonic stem cells at @haskoliislands.bsky.social in beautiful Reykjavík! Apply here: tinyurl.com/34y6jcrd #epigenetics #TranscriptionFactors #transcriptomics #stemCells #pluripotency
ATTENTION I am hearing from several sources that "NIH" sent out termination notices for most or all "diversity" awards yesterday to coincide with the new Notice. If you were affected by this and are willing to share, please DM me or reach me on Signal (jeremymberg.78) 1/2
a person is holding a red object in their hand .
ALT: a person is holding a red object in their hand .
media.tenor.com
April is #Autism Awareness Month. This is a month to accept, understand and love those in the Autism Spectrum. Above all accepting that someone is different and respecting their differences is the most important thing we can do. Here are some facts to help understand (a thread):
Another moment of WTF... The evolution of the www.covid.gov site... Warning: May be jarring! 1/4
a man with curly hair and glasses is making a funny face and saying huh .
ALT: a man with curly hair and glasses is making a funny face and saying huh .
media.tenor.com
After 21 years at my dream job, I’m very sad to announce my early retirement from the National Institutes of Health. My life’s work has been to scientifically study how our food environment affects what we eat, and how what we eat affects our physiology.
All snails have tentacles. Some have 1 pair, other 2 pair. In some (but not all) snails, the eyes are placed at the end of one of these pairs of tentacles, called an 'ommatophore' or eyestalk. And, as you can see, they can fully RETRACT (evert) them at will.
💐 To NIH and NSF program officers, and anyone else trying to keep those institutions alive: Thank you for trying to do an impossible job in an impossible time. I’m sorry for all of us that this is the world we’re living in. 1/n
Jeremy Berg@jeremymberg.bsky.social · last yr.Just before bedtime last night I got a message from inside NIH which read: “It’s so, so bad and no one cares (who has any influence)” I asked “What, in particular?” My friend responded “Everything”
New story about grant terminations in Pittsburgh www.post-gazette.com/business/hea... 1/2
Three more Pitt researchers lose NIH funding
‘I don’t understand the politics.’
post-gazette.com
🧵 From Medscape (widely read by health professionals): "What Not to Say to People With Complex Chronic Illness" www.medscape.com/viewarticle/... (may require free registration) #MEcfs #LongCovid 1/
I know that the mRNA is larger than the protein it codes for but I don't believe it
If you are wondering why universities and academic medical centers seem so stressed, one major reason is these imposed cash flow challenges. These funds were expected in good faith (and based on past practices), but have not been forthcoming. 12/n
Why wouldn't you want to understand vaccine hesitancy?(Gift link) wapo.st/3Dw7WG0
NIH to terminate or limit grants related to vaccine hesitancy and uptake
The order covers more than 40 awards to researchers around the country seeking to understand why vaccine acceptance has declined.
wapo.st
Bluetorial: Women, courage, and leadership What follows will include some generalizations based on population averages of what I have experienced over the course of my career. There are, of course, exceptions in every group who are substantially more to one extreme or the other.
a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
ALT: a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
media.tenor.com
New post with the WTAE Pittsburgh news story www.wtae.com/article/pitt...
Pittsburgh biomedical research funding hit hard by Trump policies, warns former NIH director
Berg explained that President Donald Trump's first tactic to halt biomedical research came with a general federal funding freeze, which a judge later reversed. His second tactic: Not updating the Fede...
wtae.com
#Microproteins may be the next frontier in #proteomics. But figuring out the publications can be tough. If you are looking for some advice about microprotein evidence, check out the latest from our consortium. Lead by @carvunis.bsky.social and Aaron Wacholder! 🧬 💻 #genomics #RNASky bit.ly/4bgJSDm
Detection of human unannotated microproteins by mass spectrometry-based proteomics: a community assessment
Thousands of short open reading frames (sORFs) are translated outside of annotated coding sequences. Recent studies have pioneered searching for sORF-encoded microproteins in mass spectrometry (MS)-ba...
bit.ly
