Profile avatar
slavov-n.bsky.social
Mentor, scientist & engineer. Having fun in @slavovlab.bsky.social and Parallel Squared Technology Institute @parallelsq.bsky.social with biology & single-cell proteomics. https://nikolai.slavovlab.net/
215 posts 1,946 followers 116 following
Prolific Poster
Conversation Starter

For decades, the NIH has had one core function: support health research in the US. For the past month, the agency has been doing very little of that, despite orders from multiple federal judges blocking the Trump administration’s freeze on federal funding. www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

I keep hearing from people who have either listened to or watched this podcast. They often tell me that my perspective was new to them as they did not realize the fundamental differences between proteomics and transcriptomics. youtu.be/sGW4cFee1IY?...

Remember the role of regulation by degradation. Research often focusses on the regulation of synthesis rates. Here, @andrewleduc.bsky.social and I show that degradation can be just as influential in shaping protein abundance variation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This means that many young scientists and students across the US have their project abruptly terminated. The results from years of research are lost. That is a net loss on investments already made. Careers are impeded, altered or undermined.

When the data are inconclusive ...

Provocative: "The great ideas of the ages have come from people who weren’t paid to have great ideas, but were paid to be teachers or patent clerks or petty officials, or were not paid at all. The great ideas came as side issues."

Preprints are good for science, but they also benefit authors. Releasing a preprint is associated with more attention and citations for the peer-reviewed article

Join us for a Mechanobiology and Mechanomedicine Summit next week ! mechanobiology.northeastern.edu/conference/

Larger species face higher cancer prevalence than their smaller counterparts. As variation in body size has evolved in birds and mammals, it has also driven the evolution of enhanced cellular growth control.

Biological systems find ingenuous solutions. Almost anything that can happen, happens. Still, I would not have guessed a role of RNA-binding proteins on the cell surface. @raflynn5.bsky.social and his team are boldly investigating glycoRNAs and following their leads.

New discoveries often require leaps in the dark. Such leaps may be inhibited by fear of failure.

It's called a CV because those are the keys that you will spend countless hours using to copy & paste information into other forms with slightly different orders and formats.

Are you good at multitasking ?

Our study reconfigures our understanding of the mechanism cells use regulate gene expression. What was previously reported to have little global impact now is reported to explain up to half of the variation in how protein levels are controlled. Protein degradation matters! shorturl.at/5wPiS

What are examples of causal inference from large-scale CRISPR perturbations that you find compelling ?

Now that NIH funding is widely discussed, I hear earnest perspectives that betray complete lack of understanding of the system. While cancer can be killed by killing the patient, a much better option is to understand the cancer and kill it without harming the patient.

Delusion may enjoy temporary success as various cults and Ponzi schemes have shown. Ultimately, delusion fails. The problem is that delusionary leaders bring failure to their organizations and followers.

pre-rRNA is cleaved into rRNA by a 500 kDa ribonucleoprotein, RNase MRP. Why is such a large complex needed for a simple cleavage ? We show how specific protein subunits distinguish RNase MRP from related enzymes and define its catalytic repertoar. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

As nosy data & predictions are scaled up, we get more noisy results. Designing good experiments, measuring directly what matters, and improving quality may be harder, but it's also more productive & rewarding.

American greatness www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ame...

NIH has stopped considering new grant applications, delaying decisions about how to spend millions of dollars. The freeze occurred because the Trump administration has blocked the NIH… www.npr.org/sections/sho...

A common problem is that high-throughput data (and models) often focus on what can be easily measured at high-throughput rather that what should be measured (and modeled) to answer scientific questions. Just scaling up is not enough. nikolai.slavovlab.net/high-through...

The dominant factors determining protein abundance vary substantially across biological systems. The reason is simple:

A spectrum of scientific talks: 1) Present all data you ever collected 2) Present all of your projects . . . 8) Present only the most direct data supporting the key conclusions 9) Emphasize the questions, concepts and logic 10) Combine 8 & 9

My MIA talk at the @broadinstitute.org on how we may understand biological systems. Technology has evolved -- along expected trends & with some creative leaps -- and the concepts remains the same. youtu.be/P0-_gDUNikc?...

A batch effect leads to spurious mutation calls in the 1000 Genomes Project data and to the apparent population stratification. Suspicious mutations carried by individuals with low-quality data have distinct mutational profiles.

Join us to present, discuss & engage. Submissions from early career researchers are strongly encouraged. single-cell.net/proteomics/s...

Dimensionality reduction can see structures that do not exist and miss structures that exist. The simplest explanation isn’t always the best one.

I do not understand the elected officials who submit to the will of a self-serving egotistic executive. Many things are more important than a subservient career.

What determines protein abundance variation ? For many proteins, abundance variation is dominated by clearance (degradation and dilution) variation. Globally, clearance variation across tissues explains ~ 40 % of protein abundance variation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What explains the divergence between RNA and protein levels ? Protein degradation is a HUGE factor. It accounts for up to 50 % of protein variation across proteins & tissue types. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵

Protein degradation exerts a context-dependent and larger than previously appreciated contribution in shaping protein variation both across the proteome and across cell states. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A simple model that explains a lot ! We demonstrate that simple mechanisms -- growth-rate dependent dilution and cell-type specific protein degradation -- explain much of the protein variation across proteins and across cell & tissue types.

I am looking forward !

In 2021, we introduced plexDIA: plexdia.slavovlab.net It enabled many studies, but suitable tags have remained a limitation. Soon, @parallelsq.bsky.social will introduce tags that improve multiplexing, sensitivity & coverage, helping realize huge potential pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/... Stay tuned!

It’s interesting how some papers are emphasising the denominator of their models, training data size, rather than the numerator, new non trivial results.

Attempting to rule by hasty fiats betrays weakness. Strong leaders build consensus and lead with well thought-out durable legislation.

Multiple recent changes to scientific institutions threaten to undermine scientific research and disrupt the lives & careers of many scientists. These are ill-considered, regrettable choices, but they must not define the trajectory of scientific research. They can be reversed.

Substantial & worthwhile effort. In addition to enabling reuse and replication, it increases the chance to identify accidental mistakes if any.

Welcome @savitski-lab.bsky.social to Blue Sky.