Our latest paper identifying negative valence neurons in the zebrafish pallium is now posted on bioRxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited to report the identification of small molecule inhibitors of OTOP1 and their binding sites. Congratulations to first authors Batuuji Burendei from Ward/Forli labs at TSRI and Josh Kaplan for great team work! rdcu.be/eMpV9

Structure-guided discovery of Otopetrin 1 inhibitors reveals druggable binding sites at the intrasubunit interface

Nature Communications - Otopetrins form proton channels in animals ranging from nematodes to humans. Here, authors identify small molecule inhibitors and characterize their binding in the...

rdcu.be

Use this handy link to find the ATLAS plasmids at Addgene. Otherwise, they are kind of tricky to find.

Addgene@addgene.bsky.social · last yr.

AAV plasmids for ATLAS, a rationally designed transsynaptic tracer, are now available at Addgene. They are also available for Packaged on Request, our on-demand AAV packaging service. www.addgene.org/brow... @don-b-arnold.bsky.social‬ @blsabatini.bsky.social @beherring.bsky.social

Want to edit brain circuits with precision? 🧠 A new toolbox lets researchers erase specific excitatory or inhibitory synapses on demand, using light or chemicals.

Manipulating neuronal circuits

Newly developed tools that eliminate specific synapses could make it easier for researchers to precisely control how neurons communicate in rodents.

buff.ly

Congrats to my undergrad student Amanda on graduating yesterday. She even got to bring her family by the lab to see where she's been working. We also recently learned that Amanda has been awarded a Fulbright!

ATLAS, a rationally designed transsynaptic tracer is out today! Plasmids will soon be available on @addgene.bsky.social addgene nature.com/articles/s41... Many thanks to first authors Jackie Rivera and Haoyang Huang, and to collaborators @blsabatini.bsky.social @beherring.bsky.social

ATLAS: a rationally designed anterograde transsynaptic tracer - Nature Methods

ATLAS is a tool for circuit tracing, demonstrated here in rodents. It allows anterograde transsynaptic tracing, starting from genetically defined neurons.

nature.com

New tools for ablating excitatory and inhibitory synapses quickly, specifically, and without toxicity elifesciences.org/digests/1037...

Manipulating neuronal circuits

Newly developed tools that eliminate specific synapses could make it easier for researchers to precisely control how neurons communicate in rodents.

elifesciences.org

GO CANADA!!!!

This account is for sharing info with US scientists, both extramural and intramural to NIH, about attacks on science in the US. Education is power, and we can help advocate for science and medicine together. 💪🧪 We are a team of NIH people. Please ask us questions you might have.

I see some suggestions, in the reporting regarding the OMB impoundment order, that a mere delay in spending appropriated funds is legal. But that's not really true. The delay OMB has ordered specifically contradicts the Impoundment Control Act. A thread.

I’m scrolling through news a day after the Trump admin shut down coms, travel, and function from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and I don’t see any mainstream media coverage for an impact upon our society & economy that is going to be multiples of 100s of billions and science and health.

Our new paper on recombinant tools for reversibly ablating excitatory and inhibitory synapses is out in eLife. Congrats to first author, Aida Bareghamyan! elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre... Plasmids, and hopefully AAVs, will be available soon on Addgene.

For your thanksgiving reading pleasure: OTOP1, the sour and ammonium sensor in taste cells, is apically localized, and not restricted to Type III taste cells. www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...

First post on bsky to highlight our latest work on smell receptors (www.nature.com/articles/s41...). Odorant receptors are notoriously challenging to work with - we used a classic strategy from protein engineering to get a peek into how these receptors recognize such a diversity of smells.

Recording synaptic minis (mEPSCs)? We have a new paper trying to better understand how recorded datasets match synaptic changes. In short, they don't.. More info below, and the preprint here: biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.26.620084v1