It's Leading Edge Fellow day!!! This day fills me with joy and inspiration. This cohort holds a special place in my heart because it is named for Zara Weinberg, a beloved Leading Edge Fellow who was a visionary scientist and fierce advocate for building a better scientific ecosystem
I am so proud to share @forrestdrogers.bsky.social’s postdoctoral magnum opus, now out in @nature.com! Forrest discovered a novel role for Agouti in the MPOA of the hypothalamus to integrate socio-environmental information to flexibly tune paternal behavior
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Thread! 👇🏻
I suppose it's better late than never to mention that this September I started an Assistant Professor position at Rowan University @rowancsm.bsky.social. We will be doing cool work with chameleons 🦎 to understand early development, especially left-right patterning view.rowan.edu/the-human-pu...
The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.
What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.
Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.
New preprint to share! Incredible collab w/ Fei Chen’s lab: developed in vivo CRISPR screening platform for 🫁 epithelium, allowing single cell perturbation in post-flu repair. Take a peek to see what we found! Huge congrats to the leaders of this work @daisyah.bsky.social & @sundakao.bsky.social 🎉
And the amazing resource that is the Atlas of Inspiring LatinX/Hispanic Scientists, which you can learn more about and access here:
www.fredhutch.org/en/about/abo...
1st McKinley Lab grad student’s 1st preprint!
@claireang.bsky.social studied how the uterus safely excises massive amounts of tissue during menstruation and pregnancy.
Come for her GORGEOUS images, stay for her incredible discoveries.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
w/ @akelleher1017.bsky.social
1 more week to apply to give a short talk + for early bird registration for the 2026 Epithelial Stem Cells and Niches GRC!
Join us in Barcelona ☀️ for exciting presentations and discussions on this year's theme: "From Organ Function to Multi-Organ Communication"
www.grc.org/epithelial-s...
With the scientific input and experimental brilliance of the @franzelab.bsky.social this work was made possible. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
I am SO incredibly excited to announce the launch of a global list of Inspiring Black Scientists. You can use this list to nominate and connect with researchers. Please share and join us in highlighting these outstanding scientists for #BlackHistoryMonth and beyond!
www.wiley.com/en-us/resear...
Kara McKinley
Dr. Cate Peña
Natasha Shylo
Tissue regeneration is rare in mammals, but the digit tip can regrow after amputation, whereas injuries beyond the nail do not. How the microenvironment drives divergent outcomes remains unclear. In this study, we found that the extracellular matrix (ECM)...
Expression of agouti signalling protein in neurons in the medial preoptic area is increased by group housing and negatively associated with care, and overexpression of Agouti reduces care and enhances...
The Atlas of Inspiring Hispanic/Latinx Scientists is a grassroots effort developed to showcase the expertise, talents, and diversity of Hispanic and Latinx scientific faculty.
www.fredhutch.org
Chrystal Starbird
We are thrilled to announce the 2026 Zara Weinberg Leading Edge Fellows! 40 remarkable postdocs pursuing transformative research in biological/biomedical sciences.
This is the 7th Leading Edge cohort and we are so excited to welcome them!
www.leadingedgesymposium.org/fellows/
Rowan University biologist, Natasha Shylo studies human development and asymmetry.
view.rowan.edu
www.biorxiv.org
Why are some males caring toward infants while others are neglectful or abusive? I'm so pleased to share work that my colleagues and I @princeton.edu have just published @nature.com (an explanatory thread to follow!) (1/8)
Leading Edge Fellows Program
Excited to share my new preprint from the McKinley lab, where we explored regenerative mechanisms across menstruation and pregnancy! We thought specialized glands would regenerate everything.
We were wrong.
But the real mechanism turned out to be way cooler :) 🧪🧵
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Forrest Rogers, PhD
Claire Ang
Expression of agouti signalling protein in neurons in the medial preoptic area is increased by group housing and negatively associated with care, and overexpression of Agouti reduces care and enhances...
