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darnelr.bsky.social
Perpetually in training as a physician scientist, humanist...and triathlete! https://www.hhmi.org/scientists/robert-b-darnell https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0002-5134-8088
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I heard some folks try Bluesky, don’t get enough engagement, and go back to Twitter! Be generous with posts you like—it doesn’t cost a dime!

Leaving lab for NYC @standupforscience.bsky.social Message to current policy drivers: science identifies relative certainties in a world of uncertainty. Purified Penicillium mold extract saved millions, purified castor bean extract (ricin) is lethal. Who knew? Oh, scientists. FAFO, budget cuts kill

Good morning 🌞 Do you know about the #standupforscience2025 rallies on March 7? Find one near you here👇🏽

Fun audio here of NOVA1-humanized mice vocalizing ... melodic to my ear :) Thanks again to @lauraungar.bsky.social for this nice piece apnews.com/article/spee...

Single Amino Acid Mutation May Have Helped Shape Human Language Ability scienceblog.com/single-amino...

The breadth and scope of cowardice amongst our scientific leadership is staggering.

Very interesting study by @a-urciuoli.bsky.social & colleagues, offering insight into the derived morphology characterizing the Neanderthal clade. Reduction in bony labyrinth disparity linked to underlying genetic variation resulting from bottleneck events H/t @chrisbstringer.bsky.social

Optimism in the face of [fill in feelings of the day-for me, I’ll run with agitated frustration], a nice summary of hope here: open.substack.com/pub/robertre... My own means to humbly helping humanity: medical science. Not to say that I don’t believe in being politically active-I do & I will

#ScienceIsPeople 🧪 👇 Thread

Therapy by modifying #RNA alternative splicing continues its successful journey from the bench to the clinic and now to the uterus. Root cause analysis—go #AdrianKrainer @cshlaboratory.bsky.social

Fascinating new study led by Yoko Tajima and @darnelr.bsky.social, revisiting the impact of the ‘sapiens’-specific protein-coding mutation in NOVA1 — here showing that vocalisations are impacted in a humanised mouse model 🧪🧬🧠🐭 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Lovely article by @emilyfcooke.bsky.social describing role of human-specific NOVA1 amino acid variant as impacting vocalization when “knocked in” to mouse genome, suggests key role in human language development www.livescience.com/health/genet...

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/s...

NOVA1, a neuron-specific RNA binding protein & splicing factor, likely impacted language function in human evolution. Human NOVA1 is unique (vs mammals, Neanderthals), & it changes vocalization in CRISPR’d mice! TY @NatureComms @RockefellerUniv team, collaborators @erichjarvis @asiepel labs 🧵👇

Thanks to all of the NIHers and their friends who reached out to me. I am still here (DM me or Signal jeremymberg.78) I still have a very incomplete picture but based on what I have been told, the damage to NIH and to many wonderful people who work(ed) there is/was impossible for me to imagine 1/n

As wiser people have pointed out to me--simple action to take every day with your coffee: New York Senator Chuck Schumer 202-224-6542 Senator Kristen Gillibrand 202-224-4451 You’ll just get a voicemail box but they count them

Another assault on US competitiveness at a time when biomedicine is roaring with innovation, an own-goal in a high-stakes international tournament. Of course the real losers are American people needing medicines and cures. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

1/4 The National Academy of Medicine rethinking US Biomedical Research in this new piece--Great points made, but concern that even with publication date (Feb 2025!) things are moving so fast that this already needs an update dealing with new realities: www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/...

Thank you again to @rbreich.bsky.social for articulate, action oriented and thoughtful support for--all of us--struggling with "what to do" ... robertreich.substack.com/p/what-you-c...

Taking refuge from the not so sweet smell of tweet-musk here.

Excited to publish PNAS our Rockefeller University finding that Nova1 acts as an oncogene in GBM, up regulating cholesterol synthesis, which ASOs may block. Kudos to Yuhki Saito, all coauthors esp Viviane Tabar, & reviewers Ben Blencowe & @Adrian Krainer for thoughtful critiques & @hhmi.bsky.social