🛗 When your professor has just an elevator ride to explain their research…Hear UIC's Researchers of the Year explain their research — in a campus elevator. Learn about all #ResearcheroftheYear awardees: today.uic.edu/meet-uics-2025… #UICResearchWeek #UICResearchMatters #ThisIsUIC

Grateful to be featured by the @VanderbiltU in their 'Beyond the Postdoc' series. If you're a postdoc and looking for some perspective, keep reading until the end - I share a few reflections and pieces of advice that helped me along the way. vanderbilt.edu/postdoc/rupin…

1. For lots of people the hardest part of the paper to write is the discussion. Here is a a very brief guide: Paragraph 1: is a restatements of the two or three most important conclusions (starting with "here we showed", each conclusion gets 2-4 sentences).

New @SciSignal research reveals that a chemical widely used to inhibit enzymes called protein tyrosine phosphatases also activates different enzymes called protein tyrosine kinases, potentially confounding some experiments. scim.ag/467AlNC

Is there a formula for a competitive NIH grant application? This Perspective aims to provide an inclusive roadmap on the elements of NIH funding. Elements of successful NIH grant applications

🚨 New pub alert! Check out our latest one that showcases how chemical and genetic innovations can recreate complex host–symbiont interactions in the absence of the symbiont. cell.com/cell-reports/fullte…

🚨 Now in @ScienceMagazine: new imaging technique single-cell sequencing reveal a new understanding of ovarian aging. Led by @DJ_Laird, with #CZBiohubSF Genomics, the study could be key to strategies for extended fertility and healthier aging. ucsf.edu/news/2025/10/430841…

Science is generally wondrous. Yet the paper (out in a few weeks) that this Preview covers is one of the biggest WOW moments of my career. Illustrious credit to @KaurTweets who dreamed it and to the team. With the evidence, we end a debate on the nature of a key symbiotic trait.

Not all #mosquitoes are the same! #California is home to several species that can spread diseases like #WestNileVirus, #malaria, and even #Zika. Our latest guide highlights 5 mosquito species to watch out for and when they’re most active.

Happy to share that I’ll be joining @thisisUIC as an Asst. Prof. in Jan 2026! My lab will explore the epi/genetic principles of host–microbe interactions, symbiosis, and vector biology. We’ll be hiring postdocs and techs—details & lab website coming soon! bios.uic.edu/news-stories/me…

Free biotech labs, equipment, and training are all bundled into student-driven discoveries and teacher growth. Student publications? Yep. Industry partner? Yep. A must watch highlight reel of @srbordenstein digging into @WolbachiaProj @penn_state. youtu.be/yAuno4-Xa7c?feature…

The only rule in biology is that there are exceptions to every rule. This is what makes biology infinitely exciting; even when you think you’ve got the complete view, the floor can drop out from underneath you at any given moment. Case-in-point: The nucleus is the thing that makes eukaryotes...well, eukaryotes. It's the part of the cell that stores the genome, separating DNA from the cytoplasm and other organelles. (Bacteria do not have nuclei.) For decades, scientists thought that each nucleus contains one or more haploid sets of chromosomes. But there are exceptions. Red blood cells, for example, don’t have nuclei at all. (They expel their nuclei during maturation to maximize hemoglobin concentrations.) Cells in the eye lens, too, lose their nuclei and organelles during differentiation, thus becoming transparent. And so on. But now there is yet ANOTHER exception to this rule, and it’s one I hadn’t seen before. For a study in Science, researchers discovered that two types of pathogenic fungi that infect plants, called Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Botrytis cinerea, have two different nuclei. And instead of storing a full set of chromosomes in each nuclei, they instead “distribute their chromosomes such that each of their nuclei contains only a subset of the haploid chromosomes.” The authors confirmed this by throwing a kitchen sink of methods at these cells; chromosome counting, DNA measurements using flow cytometry, single-nucleus PCR, and more. Nobody knows why the fungi do this, but the scientists claim (in their discussion) that it could enable them "to respond and adapt more effectively to local environmental stresses within their extensive mycelial networks. Nuclear shuffling may facilitate the rapid generation of new genotypes, enhancing adaptability to changing environments.” There is also evidence that the chromosomes within each nucleus may briefly collide during cell division, before going back into their separate nuclei. This is a great paper. It is simple, to the point, and challenges the status quo. It has serious potential to become a “classic” of the genre. Link: science.org/doi/10.1126/scie…

🧬A new imaging technique developed by the Liu Lab uses a novel DNA barcode system to track hundreds of RNA & protein molecules in single cells within thick biological samples, providing a full picture of how these structures are organized inside tissues. janelia.org/news/new-method-…

I am thrilled to present the Mosquito Cell Atlas! We analyzed 367K nuclei from 19 tissues in male & female mosquitoes, creating a comprehensive resource for vector biology & infectious disease research. Plus we made some surprising discoveries! 🦟🧵 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/… 1/n

🌸 The Wait is Over! 🌸 Our Spring 2025 CIDD Seminar Schedule is here. Featuring talks from @Megan_Stanifer, @LB_Barreiro, @nmideo, @FoxandtheFlu, @TAlexPerkins, @KaurTweets, @shanice_webb, and many more!

Happy holidays from the Digital Bio team! We've hijacked photolithography -used in printing silicon chips- to print DNA. This is our logo printed in DNA on a biological tissue. Much more to come from us in the new year, using this to fuel an engine for biological medicines 🚀