Meet Heankel Lyons @heankel.bsky.social, a 2026 Brain Resilience Postdoctoral Scholar @stanfordbrain.bsky.social. In the Gitler Lab, she studies how the protein TDP-43 regulates gene expression in motor neurons and how disruptions in this process relate to neurodegenerative disease.

Honored and excited to be selected as a JCC Fellow! I’m deeply grateful to all of my mentors and collaborators for their guidance and support. Thank you @jcchildsfund.bsky.social for this incredible opportunity. #JCCFellow

Jane Coffin Childs Fund for Medical Research@jcchildsfund.bsky.social · last mo.

We are thrilled to announce our 2026 Jane Coffin Childs Fellows! These thirty-two outstanding scientists are performing cutting-edge research to advance our understanding of human diseases such as cancer, neurodegeneration, autoimmunity, pathogenic infections, and more. 1/3

Thank you!! 🙏🏼

@brainresilience.bsky.social · last mo.

Congratulations to Heankel Lyons @heankel.bsky.social on being named a 2026 #JCCFellow! Lyons is a Wu Tsai Neuro Postdoc Scholar on the Brain Resilience Track. She studies how TDP-43—a protein linked to ALS—regulates gene expression in healthy motor neurons in Aaron Gitler's Lab.

Thank you 🙏🏼!! So grateful for this award from JCC to support my research on transcription dysregulation in ALS. And so lucky to join the JCC community! Thanks to my mentors Aaron Gitler (postdoc) and @bsabari.bsky.social (PhD). And Jim Shorter + Mike Rosen for supporting my application.

Jane Coffin Childs Fund for Medical Research@jcchildsfund.bsky.social · last mo.

We are thrilled to announce our 2026 Jane Coffin Childs Fellows! These thirty-two outstanding scientists are performing cutting-edge research to advance our understanding of human diseases such as cancer, neurodegeneration, autoimmunity, pathogenic infections, and more. 1/3

🎃 🥁This Wednesday in our 1st session of spookiest month👻 at #FragileNucleosome seminar, we are excited to host @sanimr.bsky.social & Alex Federation! Register here for upcoming session and the entire series: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Let’s kickstart new series of #FragileNucleosome seminars! We are delighted to have @gracebower.bsky.social from Kvon lab and @creminslab.bsky.social to present their work! Register here for upcoming session and the entire series: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Thank you, @philipcball.bsky.social ! It was a pleasure to meet you in person!

Philip Ball@philipcball.bsky.social · last yr.

I saw Tanja talk about this interesting work in Copenhagen a few weeks ago. Do stress condensates act as a precursor to amyloid fibrils or, on the contrary, a diversion from them? It seems the latter. www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Lou Gehrig’s courage brought ALS to national attention. On Lou Gehrig Day, we honor his legacy. Join Target ALS and #PacBio in an upcoming webinar to learn how long-read sequencing is powering the largest ALS genomics study to date. Register to learn more: bit.ly/4mFUEZo

Excited to share my postdoctoral research on how neuronal #aging contributes to RNA dysfunction is now online at Nature Neuroscience! Here we find that aged neurons suffer from chronic cellular stress that compromises resiliency to new stressors🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Neuronal aging causes mislocalization of splicing proteins and unchecked cellular stress - Nature Neuroscience

Rhine et al. find that neuronal aging leads to widespread dysregulation of RNA biology, including mislocalization of splicing proteins like TDP-43, chronic cellular stress and reduced resiliency.

nature.com

Happy to be back for graduation! Thankful for my mentor @bsabari.bsky.social , @utswtxid.bsky.social and family/friends who were there last night! 🙏🏼

Ben Sabari@bsabari.bsky.social · last yr.

Congratulations Dr. @heankel.bsky.social !

🧵1/ 🚨Check out our significantly updated preprint, now out on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social. Together with Sasi Conte lab, we characterize a novel role for intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) in promoting RNA-binding selectivity in RNA binding proteins (RBPs): www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

An intrinsically disordered region mediates RNA-binding selectivity and pro-oncogenic activities of LARP6

Intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) are prevalent in RNA-binding proteins (RBPs), yet their roles in RNA interactions remain poorly defined. Here, we examined the structured and disordered RNA-bin...

biorxiv.org

Protein organ clocks, as assessed in over 6,000 people (~4,000 plasma proteins, 8 organs) with 20-year follow-up are predictive for over 30 age-related diseases www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Really excited this is out! We found polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) were beneficial in models of C9orf72 FTD/ALS and the greatest benefit occurred when increasing levels specifically within neurons @ukdri.ac.uk @uclqsion.bsky.social @ucl.ac.uk @cziscience.bsky.social rdcu.be/ebbZf

Neuronal polyunsaturated fatty acids are protective in ALS/FTD

Nature Neuroscience - Lipidomics revealed that neurons of patients with ALS/FTD have reduced levels of polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA)-containing phospholipids. Increasing neuronal PUFA levels...

rdcu.be

Today @nature.com on how pancreatic cancer can hijack our nervous system and how denervation may be therapeutic www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Unpause! I'm super happy to now be able to share the published version of our paper at Science Advances showing that: 1) active histone mods occur independently of transcription 2) transcription coordinates histone deacetylation at active promoters www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

RNA polymerase II coordinates histone deacetylation at active promoters

Transcription initiation limits histone acetylation and H2AZ incorporation at promoters.

science.org

Very proud of our first peer-reviewed paper from the lab: a review on the multifaceted role of RNA-binding proteins in the metabolic control of stem cells. Check it out! This is a truly amazing effort by my PhD student Ellie Koletsou @mpiage.bsky.social #proudPI doi.org/10.1038/s443...

RNA-binding proteins as versatile metabolic regulators - npj Metabolic Health and Disease

npj Metabolic Health and Disease - RNA-binding proteins as versatile metabolic regulators

doi.org

Thrilled to see this paper out!! 🧪 Spatial transcriptomics of brain aging and 'spatial aging clocks' identify cells that have pro-aging or pro-rejuvenating effects on their neighbors! Huge CONGRATS to Eric Sun and all authors! Fantastic collaboration with @jameszou.bsky.social! rdcu.be/d33uQ 🧵

Spatial transcriptomic clocks reveal cell proximity effects in brain ageing

Nature - A spatially resolved single-cell transcriptomics map of the mouse brain at different ages reveals signatures of ageing, rejuvenation and disease, including ageing effects associated with T...

rdcu.be

👀 Less than 24 hours! Don't forget to register!

FragileNucleosome@fnucleosome.bsky.social · 2y ago

🎄🔔Ho Ho ho!😆 Our final #FragileNucleosome seminar of the year! We are excited to host Julia and Nithya, two amazing ECR scientists! 🗓️Don't forget to register: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

As you make have seen, there is a special issue of JMB on "Controlling Transcription Elongation and Termination: More Than a Means to An End" curated by my colleague here at Pitt Karen Arndt and by Steve Buratowski from Harvard Medical School 🧪🧵 1/ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Controlling Transcription Elongation and Termination: More Than a Means to An End

sciencedirect.com

Our latest paper, a fantastic collaboration with the Mendell Lab, is out. Great work by Xiaoqiang Zhu and Victor Cruz. We uncover how tRNA structural features in the ribosomal P-site modulate co-translational mRNA decay by the CCR4-NOT complex. #RNAsky #RNAbiology #translation #ribosome #cryoEM 1/5

Nice to see all you chromatin & epigenetics aficionados here! As we build our network back up please repost details for our upcoming webinar this Friday! We are delighted to welcome Emma Farley for her webinar 'Dependency Grammar of Developmental Enhancers' on November 22nd. Registration below 👇

Trying for a molecular and cellular neurobiology starter pack - happy to add folks and connect :) #neuroskyance #cellbiology go.bsky.app/PgEk7aF

I am excited to share our review published online with Nature Reviews MCB. Pilong Li, Gaofeng Pei, Heankel Lyons, and I review the current literature on the regulation of transcription by condensates, large length scale assemblies of complexes (Figure 1). www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Transcription regulation by biomolecular condensates - Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology

Transcriptional condensates, which are formed through dynamic multivalent interactions between proteins, RNA and chromatin, regulate transcription by compartmentalizing its machinery in the crowded nu...

nature.com

Biomolecular condensate starter pack! Trying to compile & to bring together biomolecular condensate enthusiasts & critics! Please join this non-exhaustive (sorry!) collection & just ping me for addition. #condensates, #phaseseparation, #granules, #IDPs go.bsky.app/NFqmffa