I joined the Sohal lab with one major hypothesis: psychedelic drugs can be powerful psychiatric treatments, depending on underlying neurobiology. Indeed, psilocybin restored cognitive flexibility in one circuit model of dysfunction, but not another! Then, we had to find out how! 🧠🍄🧪

Vikaas Sohal@vikaassohal.bsky.social · 4w ago

New preprint led by @christineliu.art! How do psychedelics improve cognitive flexibility? Psilocybin prevents inflexibility caused by aberrant mesocortical error signaling (but not inflexibility due to other mechanisms); this is tied to plasticity of PFC-MD neurons: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New preprint led by @christineliu.art! How do psychedelics improve cognitive flexibility? Psilocybin prevents inflexibility caused by aberrant mesocortical error signaling (but not inflexibility due to other mechanisms); this is tied to plasticity of PFC-MD neurons: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Psilocybin selectively rescues cognitive flexibility impairments caused by aberrant prefrontal error signaling

Psychedelic drugs show remarkable potential for treating psychiatric disorders, but the mechanisms underlying their therapeutic effects remain relatively unknown. Here, we demonstrate that psilocybin ...

biorxiv.org

For the last 5 years, my lab has focused on developing mutational scanning methods and learning how to answer specific questions in protein biology. @matthewkhoward.bsky.social and I wrote a review on experimental decisions and future directions for our nascent field! doi.org/10.1146/annu...

Mechanistic Mutational Scanning to Uncover the Secret Life of Proteins

Deep mutational scanning (DMS) has emerged as a transformative tool for dissecting individual protein function and broader cell biology. DMS methods enable comprehensive interrogation of sequence–func...

annualreviews.org

Happy to announce that I received tenure! This is all down to the brilliant team I get to work with every day and my collaborators and supportive colleagues. Now UCSF can’t get rid of me…

I am delighted to share that my newest manuscript and the first of my postdoc in the Marqusee and Bustamante labs, “A detailed molecular picture of protein folding during active translation”, is now on the BioRXiv! (1/n) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A detailed molecular picture of protein folding during active translation

All proteins can begin to fold on the ribosome, and many proteins critically rely on co-translational folding to attain their native conformation. The molecular details underlying this crucial process...

biorxiv.org

A proposed OMB rule would allow political appointees to override scientific peer review when making federal research funding decisions. For ECRS, this isn’t abstract. It affects training, jobs, and future discoveries. Read more ⬇️ sciencepolitics.org/2026/06/05/w... From us @snapcoalition.org

What Happens to the Next Generation of Scientists if Politicians, Not Peers, Determine Research Funding - Science Politics

Fewer trainees today will mean fewer scientific discoveries tomorrow.

sciencepolitics.org

Delighted to share our lab's latest (w/ inimitable @genophoria.bsky.social) in final form at @nature.com. Enormous lift by Sean Wang, @palindromephd.bsky.social & @martyyang.bsky.social to address extensive & constructive reviewer comments & see this through. (1/n) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Pervasive and programmed nucleosome distortion on single chromatin fibres - Nature

An analytical pipeline called Iteratively Defined Lengths of Inaccessibility (IDLI) maps the genome-wide occupancy of a range of nucleosome types and shows that most nucleosomes exhibit programmed ‘di...

nature.com

The Phenotypic Landscape of a Circadian Clock https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.23.720472v1

1/28 How do you optimize a dynamic protein property that emerges from multiple states? Our finally published paper in @NatureComms takes on one of the hardest problems in protein engineering with phage assisted evolution: evolving allosteric switches🧵

I'm ecstatic to share that I'm joining the @diffuseproject.bsky.social (diffuse.science) full-time as Scientific Program Director at @asterainstitute.bsky.social .

The DiffUSE Project

Unlocking Protein Dynamics

diffuse.science

Rebecca is starting her lab as a UCSF Sandler fellow in August 2026; folks at #Dros26 interested in host-parasitoid interactions should try to catch her at the meeting to find out about available positions: www.tarnopollab.org/people

Harmit Singh Malik@harmitmalik.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Rebecca Tarnopol @tarnopol.bsky.social receives the 2026 Larry Sandler award for best Drosophila PhD thesis

Check out the new, improved version of our Mutation Browser preprint. We worked with a team from the Broad including their outreach office, a great summer intern, and the G2P project to add a new browser panel that maps mutations onto yeast protein structures! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congrats @jeromics.bsky.social on getting your facs model out - we literally use it all the time and was so happy to work together with you on it!

Jerome@jeromics.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Happy to see this work out now in Genome Biology! Check out the final version here for your FACS DMS needs: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Of course, I am over the moon with happiness that @veatchlab.bsky.social won the 2026 Agnes Pockels Award from the @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social. Moreover, TWO students in Sarah's lab won poster awards at the BPS Meeting! What a year for the Veatch Lab! #bps2026

A wonderful first for me at the upcoming @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social meeting in SF is having many lab members present! See 6 brilliant graduate students postdocs from the lab present talks and posters on how they are pushing the boundaries of technology and mechanistic membrane protein biology

If you’re attending #BPS2026, there are several opportunities to hear about ongoing projects in the Starbird lab. Looking forward to seeing everyone at BPS!

Awesome seminar today by UCSF's @willowcoyote.bsky.social! He is not afraid to blaze his own trail, redefining paradigms along the way!

Excited to share emerging studies in the lab and learn from all the brilliant scientists at uw Madison!

UW–Madison Department of Biochemistry@uwbiochem.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Join us on Feb. 16 for Biochemistry Colloquium with Willow Coyote-Maestas. The @willowcoyote.bsky.social Lab builds and applies technologies to learn about membrane proteins in health and disease. More info: today.wisc.edu/events/view/...

Our paper is (finally) out in Cell today! CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons reveal principles of tau proteostasis www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... Great collaborative effort - read more from first author @asamelson.bsky.social below:

CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons reveal principles of tau proteostasis

CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons reveal that the E3 ubiquitin ligase CRL5SOCS4 ubiquitinates tau, that CUL5 expression is correlated with resilience in human Alzheimer’s disease, and that electr...

cell.com

asamelson@asamelson.bsky.social · 6mo ago

After a long review process, I'm excited that our paper is finally in print: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... TL;DR: We use CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons to find a new tau E3 ligase and a relationship between oxidative stress, the proteasome, and tau proteolytic fragments. More below 👇

Alex Pretti was a colleague at the VA. We hired him to recruit for our trial. He became an ICU nurse- I lover working with him. He was a good kind person who lived to help and these fuckers executed him. White. Hot. Rage.

NEW pub in @science.org 🥳 Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life? For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided. We provide new evidence suggesting that... 🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

When people celebrate the individual genius of folks in science, they should also mourn the collective loss of genius of folks who were actively discouraged or disadvantaged from a career in science because of the same person(s)

Zara was one of the best people I've crossed paths with in this career, in this life. A fissure has opened with her departure, and I will miss her terribly.

Willow Coyote-Maestas@willowcoyote.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Zara Weinberg passed away earlier this week. She joined my lab earlier this year when her postdoc lab formally closed. She was a brilliant scientist, supportive mentor, dear friend, avid music fan, rabid believer in public transit, open science champion, and above all just an amazing human.

Zara was an inspiration. We never met in person but became friends through Leading Edge. She zealously advocated for her ideals, but was also passionate about helping others realize why they should too. Her loss is gutting & the world is the worse for it. RIP, I'll do my best to continue the fight.

Willow Coyote-Maestas@willowcoyote.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Zara Weinberg passed away earlier this week. She joined my lab earlier this year when her postdoc lab formally closed. She was a brilliant scientist, supportive mentor, dear friend, avid music fan, rabid believer in public transit, open science champion, and above all just an amazing human.

We are all better because of the energy, inspiration, brilliance, and tenacity that Zara was. A bright light, role model, advocate & snarky tweeter... everything I needed in a person when I was navigating dark times when we met in 2021. You will be missed deeply, Zara, but never forgotten ❤️

Willow Coyote-Maestas@willowcoyote.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Zara Weinberg passed away earlier this week. She joined my lab earlier this year when her postdoc lab formally closed. She was a brilliant scientist, supportive mentor, dear friend, avid music fan, rabid believer in public transit, open science champion, and above all just an amazing human.

Zara was a great inspiration and mentor... Its really sad the excellent often leave us too soon... You will be missed Zara 💕

Willow Coyote-Maestas@willowcoyote.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Zara Weinberg passed away earlier this week. She joined my lab earlier this year when her postdoc lab formally closed. She was a brilliant scientist, supportive mentor, dear friend, avid music fan, rabid believer in public transit, open science champion, and above all just an amazing human.

Zara will be missed. Such terrible news.

Willow Coyote-Maestas@willowcoyote.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Zara Weinberg passed away earlier this week. She joined my lab earlier this year when her postdoc lab formally closed. She was a brilliant scientist, supportive mentor, dear friend, avid music fan, rabid believer in public transit, open science champion, and above all just an amazing human.

Zara Weinberg was a brilliant, loving, and beautiful woman. She inspired everyone who she interacted with, and always strived to make the world a better place for everyone. Tho the world is a little less bright today without her, her memory will always be a blessing. She was truly one of the best.

Truly one of the best. We worked on various initiatives/wrote a paper together, and had the best conference meet ups. She was a bold and tireless advocate for change. Last time we met, we had a great time trying new cuisine and imagining a future that’s so different for trainees than we experienced.

eartha mae@endoeartha.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Zara Weinberg was a brilliant, loving, and beautiful woman. She inspired everyone who she interacted with, and always strived to make the world a better place for everyone. Tho the world is a little less bright today without her, her memory will always be a blessing. She was truly one of the best.

Zara Weinberg passed away earlier this week. She joined my lab earlier this year when her postdoc lab formally closed. She was a brilliant scientist, supportive mentor, dear friend, avid music fan, rabid believer in public transit, open science champion, and above all just an amazing human.