Surviving deletions are depleted not just for known essential genes, but some non-coding regions as well, giving us a direct, annotation-agnostic measure of what's essential in the genome of one human cell line. We are able to put empirical bounds on dispensability of 50-96%!

Our new preprint: Chromatin at ~10–100 kb scales behaves far beyond standard polymer expectations. DNA-PAINT data reveal broad fluctuations and sharp local bends. Our study suggests emergent active forces at these scales and quantifies the nature and strength of this activity.

Excited to share this preprint from our team and collaborators at UCSD Transcription initiation profiling defines the regulatory logic of astrocyte gene regulation biorxiv.org/content/10.64898… We asked how do astrocytes decide which genes to turn on during inflammation?

A growing role for ER-Ca2 release and store-operated Ca2 entry in neuronal physiology and pathophysiology now available at authors.elsevier.com/a/1mvCL… @NCBS_Bangalore @DBTIndia

Last few days to register and submit an abstract!

New Lab Alert! 🧬 labadelab.com/ Thrilled to start the Labade Lab at @AshokaUniv! @TSB_Ashoka @KCDH_A Join us to explore expansion microscopy, nanoscale spatial genomics, and the epigenetics of aging. PhD Program at Ashoka for 2026-27 intake. Apply by 20 April 2026: ashoka.edu.in/programme/phd-… We’re investigating how "inflammaging" alters the epigenome and how to decipher and ultimately reverse those changes. We build new technologies to visualize genome & epigenome changes at the nanoscale and explore ways to make the genome more resilient to aging. #PhD #SpatialGenomics #ExpansionMicroscopy #Inflammaging

Happy to share our Current Opinion review on the key challenges in accurately predicting 3D distances between chromatin segments and computing their dynamics. Thanks to Daniel Jost @djost_physbiol & Luca Giorgetti for the invitation to write this review @DuttaShuvadip @BsbeIitb

Exited to share Current Opinion review on how chromatin hubs involving multiple enhancers and promoters are formed, and their potential roles in gene regulation: sciencedirect.com/science/ar…. @zubi___ @Sakshi_Shigvan @Amanjsingh1996 @NCBS_Bangalore

♦️Tightly packed chromatin ➡️ lower chance of a particular harmful translocation♦️ Latest article from @LabRanjith, led by Anirudh, on how chromatin compaction and DNA breaks⚡ govern translocation statistics. 🔗sl1nk.com/5x9Dz (1/5)

GCBA Seminar Series announces Dimple Notani, PhD, EMBO Global Investigator, National Centre for Biological Sciences - TIFR presenting "RNA as a Key Regulator of Enhancer Hierarchies and Promoter Priming." @DimpleNotani @UNMC_GCBA @UNMC_BISB

Check this new work on BRD4's role in preventing the premature activation of developmental transcription factors via #Polycomb, providing new mechanistic insights into the pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental disorder #CdLS #NDDs, #chromatinopathies biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…

Excited to share that my first-author PhD paper on genomic instability at CTCF/cohesin binding sites in cancer is finally published in @iScience_CP! Huge thanks to @r_sabarinathan and @DimpleNotani for all the guidance and support throughout this journey cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S…

🦈👀Eye-opening research about Greenland sharks — the longest-living vertebrate — may lead to new ways of preserving vision as we age! Learn more about this research by @DrDorotaSK at @UCIrvine School of Medicine. bit.ly/450mCYD

A lonely goodbye to Madhav Gadgil, one of the tallest environmentalists of our times. Under the banyan trees of Navi Peth in Pune, Madhav Gadgil was taken for cremation last evening. The gathering was small, some forty, perhaps fifty people. No ministers. No senior officials. No tricolour to drape the body. No guard of honour salutes. No ceremonial rifle volleys. One expects a crowd, the usual press cameras and public mourning. Instead, there was a pause, a quiet uncertainty, as if this farewell were happening somewhere it wasn’t meant to. State honours had been promised, but never quite arrived. Even the police escort lost its way. For nearly half an hour, Gadgil’s body lay waiting, wrapped in simple white, while the city carried on around it, indifferent. For me, this was not the death of a distant public figure. In the 1990s, when I was starting out as a science correspondent with the Press Trust of India in Bengaluru, Madhav Gadgil was already a towering presence at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). At the IISc's Centre for Ecological Sciences, he stood out, not by volume or self-importance, but by intellectual rigour and moral clarity. I walked into his office many a time in those years, notebooks open, deadlines close. He listened carefully, answered precisely, never spoke down. He believed knowledge carried responsibility, and that science without ethics was incomplete. Those conversations stayed with me, shaping how I understood both journalism and ecology. This was also the man who later led the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, producing a report that treated the mountains not as real estate or mineral stock, but as living systems. The Gadgil Committee Report spoke of ecological limits, decentralised governance, community rights, and long-term survival. A Padma Bhushan awardee. A UN Champion of the Earth. A lifelong defender of forests, rivers, biodiversity, and uncomfortable truths. In death, he was treated as someone easily forgotten. The trees were not. The old banyans stood quietly, their leaves stirring in the afternoon air. Gadgil had given his life to them. Trees remember. Animals remember. They show up when people don’t. Had this been a politician or an industrialist, roads in Pune would have been sealed, helicopters circling, television studios filled with tributes and theatrical grief. Power is never allowed to pass quietly. But a man who tried to protect the land that sustains us all was sent off almost unnoticed. The trees stood witness. The rest of us moved on. Goodbye, Madhav Gadgil. Forgive us. We did not know how to honour you. (Photo Courtesy: R S Gopan)

Stress controls epigenetic inheritance! A histone ubiquitylation-based regulatory hub links stress/environmental signaling to heterochromatin self-propagation and epigenetic inheritance-reshaping how we think about development, drug resistance and cancer👉nature.com/articles/s41586-0…

Finally out! We introduce NoLMseq, a #nucleolus laser microdissection method to capture single-cell genome-nucleolus interactions in normal and stressed nucleoli, revealing novel insights into genome organization & function. nature.com/articles/s41467-0…

📢We are gearing up for NCBS’s Annual Science Carnival, BioBuzz- a celebration of exciting ideas, and fantastic science🎉 📡Live updates on X start tomorrow. Stay tuned! #NCBSAnnualTalks2026 @NCBS_Bangalore (1/n)

🚨 Postdoc Position Open 🚨 Study protein-DNA interactions w/ cutting-edge single-molecule imaging in our lab! Exciting projects perfect for ANRF-NPDF apps. Motivated postdoc candidates: Approach us! Mahipal Ganji ganji@iisc.ac.in ganjilab.org