We are thrilled to announce the 2026 Zara Weinberg Leading Edge Fellows! 40 remarkable postdocs pursuing transformative research in biological/biomedical sciences. This is the 7th Leading Edge cohort and we are so excited to welcome them! www.leadingedgesymposium.org/fellows/

Live on bioRxiv🎉🧬🧠! We @BhaduriLab use perturb-seq in human cortical tissues to make sense of the shifting molecular trajectories that form the human prefrontal cortex. (1/7) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Posting for Vibhu Sahni: Due to unforeseen circumstances the Burke Neurological Institute will have to terminate its research operations 5/22. There are international postdocs on visas who are looking for new homes. Please reach out to Vibhu if you can help

Thanks for highlighting our review, @cedricboeckx.bsky.social!!

Cedric Boeckx@cedricboeckx.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Very good @natneuro.nature.com review by @janetsong.bsky.social M. Greenberg D. Reich & C. Walsh, capturing progress made by genomic approaches to understand the evolution of the human brain 🧪🧬🧠 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity! We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have: (1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs) (2) better hand dexterity (3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵

bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Evolutionary expansion of the corticospinal system is linked to dexterity in Peromyscus mice https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.16.682851v1

Applications for our Next Generation Leaders program are open! For 3 years, accepted early career scientists will join a supportive network and contribute to our research initiatives. Apply by Mar. 31: https://bit.ly/3OjzdRa 📸 Photo by NGL Alum @bjmarlin.bsky.social

The Sosa Lab is going to #SfN25 and actively recruiting ✨postdocs✨ with systems neuroscience experience! We study both fundamental memory processes and how memory changes during pregnancy and postpartum. If you are interested in meeting at SfN, please email me! www.sosaneurolab.com/join/postdoc...

Sosa Lab - Postdoctoral Researchers

We are seeking postdocs to start in 2026!

sosaneurolab.com

Thrilled to start my Group Leader adventure with these and other great scientists!

Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics@molgen.mpg.de · 9mo ago

We are excited to welcome @fueyoraquel.bsky.social, @sedonamurphy.bsky.social, and @jmstein.bsky.social as new group leaders at our institute! Read more about their work: --> www.molgen.mpg.de/2025-10-31-n... All three are recruiting in the IMPRS PhD Call! --> www.molgen.mpg.de/IMPRSPhDproj...

The Leading Edge Fellows gathered this week to celebrate Zara Weinberg, a beloved member of our community. Our 7th cohort of Leading Edge Fellows (2026) will be named in her honor. The Zara Weinberg Leading Edge Cohort application is now open! Due Feb 2. www.leadingedgesymposium.org/apply/

Meet our 2025 cohort of Next Generation Leaders! For the next 3 years, they will network with other rising stars, participate in professional development, and share their ideas for future research directions.

I’m thrilled to share my postdoc work and the first paper from the McKinley Lab! 🎉 @karalmckinley.bsky.social We built the first transgenic model of menstruation in mice. We used it to uncover how the endometrium organizes and sheds during menstruation. 🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵

Induction of menstruation in mice reveals the regulation of menstrual shedding

During menstruation, an inner layer of the endometrium is selectively shed, while an outer, progenitor-containing layer is preserved to support repeated regeneration. Progress in understanding this co...

biorxiv.org

Today in @nature.com, we present our work leveraging functional genomics and human blastoids to uncover a human-specific mechanism in preimplantation development driven by the endogenous retrovirus HERVK. Special thanks to the reviewers whose comments improved our manuscript a lot! rdcu.be/eI3tD

A human-specific regulatory mechanism revealed in a pre-implantation model

Nature - Genetic manipulation of blastoids reveals the role of recently emerged transposable elements and genes in human development.

rdcu.be

The Sosa Lab website is now live! www.sosaneurolab.com We will be seeking a postdoctoral researcher to join the growing team! If you are a rodent neuroscientist and interested in doing systems neuro work in the mountains 🏔️, please check out the "Join" page.

Sosa Lab

sosaneurolab.com

I'm excited to share that I've started my lab @stanford.edu in the Neurobiology Department! neurobiology.stanford.edu/who-we-are/f... #stanford #newPI #neuroscience

1) I am delighted to present this terrific tour de force research conducted by my post-doc Dr. Gayani Senevirathne @gayani.bsky.social and published today in Nature - www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The evolution of hominin bipedalism in two steps - Nature

The human pelvis exhibits distinct spatiotemporal ossification patterns and an ilium cartilage growth plate that is shifted perpendicularly compared with those of other mammals and non-human primates—...

nature.com

Extremely excited to share that I’m joining Columbia University @columbiauniversity.bsky.social as an Assistant Professor! We will explore how the mobile genome works—how transposons shape us, our DNA and how they can be harnessed to build useful technologies. #NewPI #RNAsky #TEsky thawanilab.org

The Thawani Lab at Columbia University

The Thawani Lab at Columbia University describing their research on mobile genome, cryo-electron microscopy and genome engineering

thawanilab.org

Thanks for featuring my new lab @thetransmitter.bsky.social!

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 12mo ago

In this month’s “Liftoff,” @janetsong.bsky.social shares how she plans to expose trainees to new ideas during lab meetings and Rachel Parkinson emphasizes the importance of taking a step back and reminding yourself about the joys of science. By @franciscorr25.bsky.social bit.ly/4mFNGCQ

Diet/microbes place the gut epithelium as a nexus for evolutionary change. With Jason Spence and Craig Lowe labs we use #organoids to explore how evolution prepared the developing human intestine for exposure to the environment. @science.org #evodevo www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 1/11

“I would like to cure brain cancer. I think that's not particularly controversial.” Be that as it may, the NIH terminated that scientist's grant. Here's a huge survey of the 2,500 grants that NIH has killed or delayed...so far. Gift link: nyti.ms/43Jz1yJ

Want to write to your community about the importance of science funding? Join me on zoom this Friday at 12pm ET / 9am PT to learn to write an op-ed as part of the #McClintockLetters initiative! Sign up to write a letter and register for the workshop here: blogs.cornell.edu/asap/events-...

We are thrilled to announce the 2025 Leading Edge Fellows! 40 outstanding postdoctoral fellows doing pioneering research in a wide range of biological and biomedical disciplines. Learn more about these exceptional scientists: www.leadingedgesymposium.org/fellows

Postdoc position in human brain evolution at the amazing @janetsong.bsky.social lab at Harvard! Despite the freeze, she’s hiring! Send her a message.

Thrilled to share our latest study out in @natureportfolio.nature.com led by the fantastically talented Jing Liu. Our study provides insight into a long standing question in biology: What molecular features make us uniquely human and how do these function? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A human-specific enhancer fine-tunes radial glia potency and corticogenesis - Nature

HARE5, a human accelerated region enhancer, modulates cortical development by influencing neural progenitor cell behaviour, leading to an enlarged neocortex with increased functional independence betw...

nature.com

Today in @nature.com , we report a spatial single-cell atlas of human cortical development, revealing surprisingly early specification of human cortical layers and areas. We built an interactive browser to explore the spatial data: walshlab.org/research/cor... Paper link below 👇

I am thrilled to share our preprint where we take advantage of the unique opportunities offered by human blastoids to uncover a human-specific mechanism potentially playing a role in preimplantation 🧵. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A project five years in the making, we've now published complete "T2T" genomes for six additional ape species! It turns out that finishing (and analyzing) six genomes is slightly more work than one... doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Compelling evidence that the activity-dependent gene expression program has changed between human and chimpanzee neurons (new preprint by @janetsong.bsky.social and collaborators) 🧪🧬🧠 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

FOS binding sites are a hub for the evolution of activity-dependent gene regulatory programs in human neurons

After birth, sensory inputs to neurons trigger the induction of activity-dependent genes (ADGs) that mediate many aspects of neuronal maturation and plasticity. To identify human-specific ADGs, we cha...

biorxiv.org

Fascinating new work by @janetsong.bsky.social and colleagues on species-specific neural gene regulation, using human-chimpanzee tetraploid cells 🧪🧬🧫🧠 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We just posted two preprints on uncovering the genetic bases of species-specific differences in neural progenitors, excitatory neurons, and upon neuronal stimulation using the human-chimpanzee tetraploid system. Please check them out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Human-chimpanzee tetraploid system defines mechanisms of species-specific neural gene regulation

A major challenge in human evolutionary biology is to pinpoint genetic differences that underlie human-specific traits, such as increased neuron number and differences in cognitive behaviors. We used human-chimpanzee tetraploid cells to distinguish gene expression changes due to cis -acting sequence variants that change local gene regulation, from trans expression changes due to species differences in the cellular environment. In neural progenitor cells, examination of both cis and trans changes – combined with CRISPR inhibition and transcription factor motif analyses – identified cis -acting, species-specific gene regulatory changes, including to TNIK , FOSL2 , and MAZ , with widespread trans effects on neurogenesis-related gene programs. In excitatory neurons, we identified POU3F2 as a key cis -regulated gene with trans effects on synaptic gene expression and neuronal firing. This study identifies cis -acting genomic changes that cause cascading trans gene regulatory effects to contribute to human neural specializations, and provides a general framework for discovering genetic differences underlying human traits. ### Competing Interest Statement C.A.W. is on the SAB of Bioskyrb Genomics (cash, equity) and Mosaica Therapeutics (cash, equity), and is an advisor to Maze Therapeutics (equity), but these have no relevance to this work. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

biorxiv.org

Introducing CellBouncer, a unified demultiplexing toolkit built by nkschaefer.bsky.social to check IDs and keep the riff raff out of single cell genomics datasets, including by using genetic variation as an external ground-truth for ambient RNA removal: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...