BARI spotlight: Martin Kampmann’s group used genome-wide CRISPRi to find regulators of the interferon-responsive microglial state. Known interferon genes plus unexpected hits. A toolkit for asking when this program helps or harms the aging brain. #Microglia #aging bit.ly/4reK3az

BARI’s Katrina Abuabara & team find higher estimated salt intake is associated with more IL-17-related inflammatory disease in ~470,000 UK Biobank participants, especially skin and joint conditions. Worth asking whether cutting salt could help. www.clinicalnutritionespen.com/article/S240...

Cool story from one of BARI’s newest members, Jason Gestwicki. Tau fibrils formed without cofactors are dynamic, and evolve over weeks unless agitation or polyanions stabilize them. A fresh look at how disease-specific tau folds may mature. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Really excited to see this paper from @balynzaro.bsky.social finally out!!! Membrane proteins from phagocytosed cells get redeployed to the macrophage cell surface. And they're functional!!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Macrophages transfer functional proteins to their surface during live-cell uptake - Nature Chemical Biology

Macrophages acquire intact surface proteins from cancer cells during live-cell uptake, with these proteins remaining active, revealing a transcriptionally silent process where macrophages can reengine...

nature.com

BARI spotlight: Martin Kampmann’s & team present a new CRISPR screen for genes that change how neurons depolarize. In human iPSC-derived neurons, they found known excitability players and disease genes not previously tied to firing. Excellent resource for the field. #Neuroscience #CRISPR

New BARI member Reza Abbasi-Asl & colleagues find that daily step patterns, especially mid-day activity, reflect disability in progressive MS and can complement traditional clinic tests. Great use of wearable data! #MSResearch #wearables journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

BARI spotlight: Jeanne Paz & colleagues report a new focal ischemic model of thalamic stroke that produces persistent spontaneous pain-like behavior in mice, closer to what many stroke survivors actually experience. An important new tool. #stroke #painresearch www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A focal ischemic stroke of the somatosensory thalamus produces persistent spontaneous pain–like behavior

Ischemic injury to the somatosensory ventrobasal (VB) thalamus is strongly associated with central post-stroke pain (CPSP), yet preclinical models of …

sciencedirect.com

Most basic science departments at UCSF are having faculty searches this year. Biochemistry & Biophysics, Microbiology & Immunology, Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology and more. We're looking for new and exciting science and nice people. You'll find them all at aprecruit.ucsf.edu

And finally—a bit of personal news: 🔬 I’m on the faculty job market this year! I’m looking for tenure-track opportunities where I can build a lab at the intersection of developmental biology, mechanobiology, reproductive biology & aging.

Kate Cavanaugh@katecavanaugh.bsky.social · 4w ago

🧵 What if one reason fertility declines with age isn’t just genetic-but mechanical? Thrilled to share our new paper in @NatureCellBio : Elevated contractility drives implantation failure in mouse embryos from aged females… here’s what we found 👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/11

Proud moment for BARI: Greg Bieri from the Villeda lab has been named a 2026 Simons Fellows-to-Faculty Awardee. This highly competitive program provides support to help outstanding postdocs transition to faculty positions.

Job alert from BARI! Seeking a passionate, highly motivated person to lead community building across our aging biology network. If you love connecting people and advancing the science of aging, this could be your role! Know someone perfect? Share or apply here: careers.ucsf.edu/careers/JobD...

New review! BARI’s Su Guo discusses how intranasal delivery offers a promising route to get therapies into the brain for Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s, but significant hurdles remain. Excellent overview of platforms, models, and computational tools. #Alzheimers #Parkinsons

Big congrats to BARI’s John Greenland on this thoughtful ERJ Open Research editorial! Frailty improves for most lung transplant patients, especially those who start most frail, yet understanding which cases are driven by biology versus deconditioning could sharpen candidate selection and care.

Big congrats to BARI’s David Toczyski on this new paper in EMBO reports! His team uncovered how FBXO42 and CCDC6 keep protein phosphatase 4 under control, and why that matters for the survival of certain cancer cells. Beautiful mechanistic work that could open new doors! #cancerresearch #cellbiology

Some chemical scaffolds just keep surprising us. New work from BARI’s Kevan Shokat shows that certain benzoxaboroles selectively bind the mRNA cap-binding pocket of eIF4E (a tough-to-drug proto-oncogene).

How does a tiny zebrafish rebuild its tail after injury? One key player is a carefully timed shift in intracellular pH. New work from BARI’s Diane Barber shows that after tail amputation, cells first drop then raise their internal pH.

BARI spotlight: Isha Jain’s new study shows hypoxia can rescue a severe form of mitochondrial disease caused by protein quality control defects. In mice, it dramatically extends life, rescues striatal degeneration, and corrects the toxic tissue hyperoxia that arises when complex I becomes unstable.

Big congrats to BARI’s Peggy Cawthon and team on this new paper! Using radiomics on thigh CT scans, they tracked how subtle muscle ‘texture’ patterns change over 5 years in older adults, and found these patterns help explain shifts in strength and real-world function

Ever wonder how a fish that lives just a few months could unlock secrets of aging and suspended animation? BARI’s Param Priya Singh just launched Killiverse: an interactive platform that brings together multi-omics data from killifish species like the African turquoise killifish.

Congrats to BARI’s Margaret Wallhagen on this thoughtful new review in The Gerontologist! Her team looked at what raises or lowers depression risk in older adults with vision loss and found that social support and good coping skills really help. Useful insights for supporting healthy aging!

Big congratulations to BARI’s Suneil Koliwad on this important JCI Insight paper! People with HIV show a distinct form of scarring in their body fat that drives insulin resistance and higher diabetes risk, even in those who are not obese. Real progress toward protecting metabolic health in HIV!

BARI spotlight: John Greenland’s new review beautifully links the origins of rapamycin on Easter Island to today’s innovative nanoparticle approaches for lung transplantation.

Big cheers for BARI’s Paul Wolter’s on this breakthrough! Telomere-stressed AT2 cells turn profibrotic early in lung fibrosis, p53 is the driver. Inhibiting it reverses damage, boosts healthy AT2 cells & halts fibrosis. Hopeful step toward better IPF therapies! academic.oup.com/ajrccm/artic...

Proud to highlight Christopher Hernandez’s review urging the field to target bone matrix quality for better fragility fracture prevention. Matrix mechanical properties matter as much as density, and they’re modifiable. A compelling case for new therapeutic strategies beyond current approaches.

BARI spotlight: Dena Dubal urges a shift in how we approach Alzheimer’s, recognizing women’s unique mix of vulnerability and resilience. Strong call for more research on female biology, sex-tailored care, and discoveries that help everyone age better. Important perspective! #Alzheimers #Womenshealth

Check this out from BARI’s Kevan Shokat: Chai-1 deep learning makes crystal-quality models of covalent K-Ras complexes fast, accurate, and works great with covalent restraints for tough targets. Super useful for speeding up drug discovery! #Kras #drugdiscovery

Big cheers for BARI’s Sarah Knox on this new iScience paper! Simple PBS rewetting restores damaged corneal stroma in autoimmune dry eye, fixing collagen, basement membrane & shifting keratocytes to reparative mode. Game-changer for dry eye! #opthalmology #dryeye www.cell.com/action/showP...

Big cheers for BARI’s Jayanta Debnath on this new Autophagy review! Membrane ATG8ylation helps cells secrete proteins, load EVs, and handle everything from metabolism to immune responses via clever non-degradative autophagy routes. Super interesting deep dive! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42178909/

Our conference chairs @joneslabucsf.bsky.social & Ophir Klein are busy adding the final touches to the first draft of our #stemgastro programme! It's shaping up to be a fantastic meeting, don't delay in joining us in Mexico this November ➡️https://bit.ly/43wSRNZ

Congratulations to BARI/Hillblom fellows Lea Baskin Monk, who received the ARCS Scholarship, and Yujie (York) Zhang, who received the Fletcher Jones Fellowship!