The Chen Lab @ EMBL Rome (current population: 1) is hiring! Looking for an experimental Lab Manager w/ a PhD and experience in molecular bio and mouse-based neuro research. Apply if you like: mouse behaviors, high-throughput sequencing, good coffee & ancient history tinyurl.com/48h66vfh

Lab Manager

The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is one of the world’s leading life science research organizations. With sites across Europe, EMBL fosters an international, collaborative, and inclusiv...

tinyurl.com

So excited to announce that I will be starting the Chen Lab at EMBL Rome in September 2026 🎉 ! The Chen Lab will investigate the genetics + evolution of innate behavior w/ high-throughput sequencing + computational methods across diverse rodent species. Stay tuned for upcoming opportunities...

cool study showing across all placental mammals, recombination is suppressed around the x inactivation center — a region of the genome that always make me think of the severance quote, “the work is mysterious and important”

Isabella Childers@ichilde.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Please check out the newly published Murphy lab’s new paper in @nature.com! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

When I was interviewing for grad school (2011), the “missing heritability question” was THE burning question in genomics 1/

Sasha Gusev@sashagusevposts.bsky.social · 9mo ago

I wrote a little bit about the "missing heritability" question and several recent studies that have brought it to a close. A short 🧵

🧠🌟🐭 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

I, too, can become aggressive toward my pups (children) when hungry #hangrymom #cantgentleparentonanemptystomach

The Francis Crick Institute@crick.ac.uk · 10mo ago

Researchers at the Crick found that virgin female mice can become aggressive towards pups when hungry, but only in certain hormonal states. It highlights the importance of understanding hormones when observing how different physical states interact in the brain. www.crick.ac.uk/news/2025-10...

Anyone out there know of a good public benchmark/dataset for rodent vocalizations? Something intended for benchmarking ML models (detection, classification, etc) would be ideal, eg like AnuraSet but mice/rats/etc 🐀🐀🐀 #bioacoustics #prattle💬 #neuroskyence

A nice, layperson writeup of my latest work, which is now out on eLife! TLDR: Using snRNA-seq, we find cell type abundance differences and sex-biased gene expression differences that may explain innate differences in mating + parenting behavior elifesciences.org/digests/1031...

The parenting styles of deer mice

Single-nuclei RNA-sequencing sheds new light on how two closely related species of deer behave differently when mating and caring for young.

elifesciences.org

UGA asking the hard hitting questions on their faculty applications

Excited to share that my preprint about cellular differences in the hypothalamic preoptic region across behaviorally divergent deer mice is now reviewed on eLife! elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

Hello, world! Always exciting to join a new platform early enough to actually get my name as my handle 💃