Exciting new paper on Foxl1 positive telocytes in the intestine just published in CMGH: www.cmghjournal.org/article/S235...

Single-cell transcriptome profiles of Foxl1-lineage cells along the intestinal crypt-villus axis

Intestinal epithelial cells rely on a complex array of stromal signals to determine their fate and function along the crypt-villus axis, but the precise cellular sources and combinations of signals at...

cmghjournal.org

Finally a roadmap for well-controlled studies with intestinal organoids! See these guidelines in CMGH: www.cmghjournal.org/action/showP...

The new paper by the HPAP team on DNA methylation in human endocrine and exocrine cells with aging and in T2D is finally out. rdcu.be/ffbgE

Epigenetic adaptation of beta cells across lifespan and disease

Nature Metabolism - Mapping of genome-wide DNA methylation patterns in human islet alpha and beta cells highlights age and type 2 diabetes dependent adaptations and compensatory responses to...

rdcu.be

I am so very grateful to my colleagues who nominated me for this year’s Albert Renold Prize of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes. It is lovely to have the work of my lab thus recognized. Thanks to all the young scientists who worked with me over the years. Best, Klaus

ft. M. Abedi, P. Rai, Y. Zhou, C. Liu, I. Johnson, A. Chandra, M. Fasolino, S. Rostami, W. Wang, Z. Min, Y. Li, M. Yu, @atishayjay.bsky.social, V. Lian, M. Silverman, @kkaestner.bsky.social, A. Naji, B. Faryabi & @vahedilab.bsky.social @penngenetics.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

See below - makes sense

Trends in Genetics@cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social · 4mo ago

"Data biases in genomics" by Lusine Nazaretyan & Martin Kircher "With the rapid advancement of machine learning, and particularly large language models, biases from nongenetic or nonmedical data are becoming increasingly relevant..." Read more here: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

It took a long time, but finally our paper on the role of the winged helix transcription factor FOXL1 in the vilification of the intestine is published! Congratulations to Guoli and the team! pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

house mouse maintains constant telomere length throughout life url: academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

The house mouse maintains constant telomere length throughout life

Abstract. Telomeres protect the chromosome ends from deleterious DNA damage response and repair activities. In humans, telomerase maintains telomere length

academic.oup.com

Happy to announce that HPAP now has some 180 human pancreatic analyzed by highly multiplexed CODEX analysis. Thanks to Dr. Powers and the whole HPAP team! Here is the link to the experiment data download page: hpap.pmacs.upenn.edu/explore/down... 🧪

Very proud indeed to have been together on a stage celebrating NIDDK's 75th anniversary at the recent ADA meeting in Chicago with Drs Rogers, Cefalu, Gubitosi-Klug and Kirscher. Always grateful for NIDDK's support of our research! 🧪

@aoxing2.bsky.social

Very happy to share the results of a multi-national scientific collaboration on the factors that control telomere length. Hope you like it! Best, Klaus academic.oup.com/nar/article-...

Separation of telomere protection from length regulation by two different point mutations at amino acid 492 of RTEL1

Abstract. RTEL1 is an essential DNA helicase that plays multiple roles in genome stability and telomere length regulation. The ultra-long telomeres of the

academic.oup.com

I was truly honored to contribute as Keynote speaker to the 25th meeting of the European Islet Study Group in Malmo, Sweden. Fantastic meeting, lots of progress on all fronts! See you all next year in Barcelona!

Thank you, Christos, for the shoutout! It was a great honor to be invited as Keynote speaker to the European Islet Study Group conference in Malmo. Great meeting, I learned a lot!

Christos Karampelias @ckarampelias.bsky.social · last yr.

Great overview of HPAP consortium and exciting new projects by @kkaestner.bsky.social to start day 3 at @eisg2025.bsky.social #eisg2025

What really happens at the onset of type 1 diabetes? The HPAP team profiled the immune system of the lymph nodes near the pancreas, the reservoir of the relevant immune cells. Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪

Immune perturbations in human pancreas lymphatic tissues prior to and after type 1 diabetes onset - Nature Communications

The status of immune cells within human pancreatic lymphatic tissues during the onset and progression of type 1 diabetes (T1D) is underexplored. Here, by flow cytometry and CITEseq, the authors profil...

nature.com

Two new, NIH funded postdoc positions available. (1) Somatic mutations as primary causes of autoimmune disease and (2) Epigenetic drivers of diabetes in humans. Send CV and names of references to kaestner@upenn.edu

A wonderful day, celebration the recently graduated Dr. Michelle Lee at the UPenn hooding ceremony.

Two new, NIH funded postdoc positions available. (1) Somatic mutations as primary causes of autoimmune disease and (2) Epigenetic drivers of diabetes in humans. Send CV and names of references to kaestner@upenn.edu

Do the islet biology community, we have good news. Good news- the HPAP islet perifusion dashboard for glucagon and insulin secretion is now live on PANC-DB: hpap.pmacs.upenn.edu/explore/peri... 🧪

It appears that Biotech is no longer an attractive option 🧪 www.inquirer.com/health/spark...

Spark Therapeutics is laying off 337 people, more than half its workforce, starting in May

The layoffs at the gene therapy company are part of restructuring of Spark Therapeutics by its owner, Roche Group.

inquirer.com

One of the most powerful moments of the day came from Emily Whitehead who told the story of how she was the first pediatric patient to receive CAR T-cell therapy for her leukemia at age 5: “I stand up for science because science saved my life. And that’s a fact.” @standupforscience.bsky.social

Great to see thousands at the rally to save science in Philadelphia today! A truly inspiring event!

Dear Friends, Happy to share our new preprint which describes the discovery of a new alpha to beta cell transitional cell type in the human pancreas using singe cell multiomic and genetic lineage tracing. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Single-cell multiome analysis supports α-to-β transdifferentiation in human pancreas

Spontaneous transdifferentiation of pancreatic glucagon-producing alpha to insulin secreting beta cells has been observed in mouse but not in human islets1. Here, we analyzed the largest single cell d...

biorxiv.org

While it may be true, as claimed by Mr. Bannon, that in the IT industry H1b visas have been abused to bring in cheap labor, in biomedical research progress can only be made by recruitment of foreign fellows. There simply are not a sufficient pool of US born Ph.D.s left who want to work in academia

I do hope that President Trump and Mr Musk realize that US biomedical research is still one of our strengths and only possible because of NIH funding

It appears that NIH study sections (IRGs) are operating again

I should have put 🧪 in the first time to get this in the science feed. US science folks: Call!

Meredith Welch-Devine@mwdevine.bsky.social · last yr.

www.politico.com/news/2025/02... Politico is reporting that cuts ranging from 1/4 to 1/2 of the National Science Foundation’s personnel are on the horizon. The quote from a program officer that such cuts would be catastrophic for the US position in global scientific leadership is not hyperbole.

My NIH Commons login stopped working today- anyone have similar issues?

ft. K. Trang, M. Pahl, J. Pippin, C. Su, S. Littleton, P. Sharma, N. Kulkarni, L. Ghanem, N. Terry, S. Anderson, B. Zemel, @alessandrachesi.bsky.social A. Wells, @struangrant.bsky.social, J. O'Brien, W. Yang, @ptitchenell.bsky.social P. Seale & @kkaestner.bsky.social elifesciences.org/articles/95411