Will Macnair
@willmacnair.bsky.social
Amateur neuroscientist, quite a bit of experience in single cell analysis, working on #neurodegeneration in Basel. Formerly postdoc with @markrobinsonca.bsky.social at UZH.
The Center for Scientific Integrity is proud to announce the inaugural winners of the 2026 Ctrl-Z Award. Named for the universal keyboard shortcut for “undo,” the Ctrl-Z Award this year honors @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social and @katelaskowski.bsky.social for choosing transparency over reputation.
ScienceAdviser Exclusive: Meet the inaugural winners of the Ctrl Z Award
Today in Science and science: Ice age hunters’ penchant for female mammoths, a detailed vagal map, and more
science.org
“A p-value is the most widespread statistical concept that is not definable in a single sentence“ CHECKMATE
Darren Dahly@statsepi.bsky.social · yesterdayStop trying to explain what a p-value is in a single sentence (ICYMI) statsepi.substack.com/p/no-you-can...
people getting upset about this is so crazy. bsky needs to become more than just a liberal politics app. doesn’t mean it needs more nazis & right wingers, just means it needs less politically focused users. it’s not good to be in your own little bubble, can’t have change with nobody to influence.
The Verge@theverge.com · 2d agoBluesky's new CEO Toni Schneider on the platform's reputation for being a liberal bubble: "Yes, we definitely want that to change. It is already changing. It certainly wasn’t designed to attract one specific group of people."
a university is not for generating profit, it provides cultural enrichment via weird little gremlin people who love visigoths or haikus, and very occasionally a scientist who figures out faster than light travel
Gaining therapeutic access to the human brain is one of the biggest unsolved problems in biomedical science. Today @nature.com, we uncover a massive influx of immune cells into the human brain during aging, revealing that the brain is more accessible than previously thought. 1/
Somatic mutations reveal the ontogeny of microglia in human aging - Nature
Nature - Somatic mutations reveal the ontogeny of microglia in human aging
nature.com
A couple paid more than $800,000 for a gene-editing therapy for their daughter. She died, and it wasn’t made public. An exclusive from us and @science.org.
Exclusive: Death of girl in Chinese gene-editing trial was never made public
Parents want accountability after study went disastrously wrong, Science and Retraction Watch investigation reveals
science.org
“Seven days after the girl’s medical team infused trillions of viruses carrying the recipe for the base editor into her spinal fluid, she died of a severe immune reaction linked to the therapy…” This, in @science.org, is an important and tragic story. (It’s also an incredibly well reported one.) 🧪
Exclusive: Death of girl in Chinese gene-editing trial was never made public
Parents want accountability after study went disastrously wrong, Science and Retraction Watch investigation reveals
science.org
Localized PD-1 CAR T therapy reprograms neuroinflammation #NeuroDegeneration 🧪🧠 https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(26)00756-7?rss=yes
"My message to the people of the UK is that I'll train the new guy but you're going to have to stick with one of them eventually."
Genetic‐Proteomic Integration Identifies Predictive Plasma Proteins for Multiple Sclerosis #NeuroDegeneration 🧪🧠 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.78256?af=R
Cross-disease LC–MS/MS plasma proteomics identifies reproducible shared and disease-enriched biomarker signatures in neurodegenerative disorders #NeuroDegeneration 🧪🧠 https://link.springer.com/10.1186/s40478-026-02377-w
Integrated proteogenomic profiling reveals coordinated differential expression signatures during neuroinflammation #NeuroDegeneration 🧪🧠 https://link.springer.com/10.1186/s40478-026-02365-0
New preprint from my lab with a methodological follow up on our work on fast GSEA algorithm: Hash-augmented adaptive multilevel splitting Monte Carlo algorithm for accurate estimation of two-sample permutation test p-values 1/7
Very exciting new method for inferring latent disease trajectories, led by the tireless Dr. Urbut with Natarajan and Parmigiani labs. If you're considering a postdoc in this area talk to Sarah! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A Bayesian framework for longitudinal EHR and genetic discovery - Nature
A Bayesian generative framework that integrates longitudinal electronic health records with genetic data to identify latent disease signatures is presented.
nature.com
The Bhangale Lab at Genentech is looking for a postdoc to investigate the genetic basis of neurodegenerative diseases (Parkinson's, ALS). This is an exciting opening for scientists wanting to work at the intersection of human genetics and machine learning: careers.gene.com/us/en/job/20...
Postdoctoral Fellow - Human Genetics, Bhangale Lab in South San Francisco, California, United States of America | Students & Graduates at Genentech
Apply for Postdoctoral Fellow - Human Genetics, Bhangale Lab job with Genentech in South San Francisco, California, United States of America. Students & Graduates at Genentech
careers.gene.com
Thrilled to share that our ENCODE enhancer–gene mapping paper is now out in Nature! An encyclopedia of human enhancer–gene regulatory interactions: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Thread 👇 1/
An encyclopedia of human enhancer–gene regulatory interactions - Nature
An encyclopedia of more than 92 million enhancer–gene regulatory interactions created as part of the ENCODE4 project provides a valuable resource for future studies of gene regulation and human geneti...
nature.com
The queue for the Mobile Library yesterday 🐈⬛️🐈
Cell-type signatures of Alzheimer’s disease shared across population groups #NeuroDegeneration 🧪🧠 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10793-0
An integrated atlas of RNA to protein concordance across human tissues and cell types #NeuroDegeneration 🧪🧠 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.13.738336v1
Everyone wants to cure all diseases but nobody wants to do no hard ass biology experiments
My journey with @anthropic.com's Fable 5 model has been a very short one; characterized by "No". So, in my most recent blog post, I explain why I think "Fable is not a useful model" combine-lab.github.io/blog/2026/07...
COMBINE-lab - Fable is not a useful model
COMBINE-lab develops algorithms, data structures, and software for high-throughput genomics.
combine-lab.github.io
(1/10) The majority of human genetic variation is located in non-coding regions. The great challenge of the post-genomic era is to assign function to these variants. We reasoned that combining haplotyping with allele-specific multiomics can help pinpoint the functional ones: rdcu.be/fgr5W. A thread:
Mapping functional non-coding variation in individual human genomes through haplotyping, multiomics, and deep learning
Nature Communications - How non-coding mutations in DNA contribute to phenotypes is a largely unresolved question. Here the authors integrate personal genomics and machine learning to identify...
rdcu.be
An emergent disease-associated motor neuron state precedes cell death in ALS #NeuroDegeneration 🧪🧠 https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(26)00647-1?rss=yes
I just made this bot that posts links published papers related to neurodegeneration. (Same template that I used for preprints, just took me a while to get around to the papers one...) I think I've covered the major journals and diseases, but let me know if you think something is missing :)
@papers-neurodegen.bsky.social · last mo.Arc mediates intercellular tau transmission via extracellular vesicles #NeuroDegeneration 🧪🧠 https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(26)00695-1?rss=yes
But I'm afraid that people will read this differently as a claim that RCTs are not the best tool available to arrive at an unbiased estimate of the effects of a clearly defined medical intervention, and that observational causal inference has gotten so good they've become superfluous. They haven't!