asamelson

After a long review process, I'm excited that our paper is finally in print: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... TL;DR: We use CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons to find a new tau E3 ligase and a relationship between oxidative stress, the proteasome, and tau proteolytic fragments. More below 👇

Celebrate PDB55 with Stephanie A. Wankowicz The wwPDB Foundation partnered with IUCr2026 to share select presentations from the 2026 Congress Watch "Decoding conformational ensembles to leverage entropy for function and design"

What if an embryo made immune cells before it finished building the tissue they usually come from? In our new preprint, we show that annual killifish embryos specify neutrophils before germ layers are fully resolved. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Huge thanks to my PI, @ohnolog.bsky.social ! 🧵

3. Create & fund a California scientific research institute to ensure we fund science research even if the federal government continues to pull back (SB 895) 4. Ensure California’s ICE mask ban, which I passed last year, is fully enforceable (SB 1004)

Excited to share Sampleworks led by @karsonchrispens.bsky.social with @diffuseproject.bsky.social. It's a modular framework connecting structure predictors to experimental data and guidance methods. Swap predictors or guidance methods. All open and made to be built upon. t.co/fvNHH3gfVu

That's right. Worse than Pointless www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...

Maybe science organizations don’t want to play outside game. FINE. 1. Apologize to your people for not responding well & 2. Support some activists who are doing the dirty work you can’t be bothered to do. Not a SINGLE science org or society has donated to @standupforscience.bsky.social

If I were a blue state governor, I’d be looking into adding a bunch of tenure lines at my state schools. I know that seems like “kick ‘em when they’re down,” but it’s more like “let academics who can escape to where they can do real work.” Builds up your own schools AND protect US academic output.

Get in, dorks. We're ready for round two. RALLY TO TAKE BACK SCIENCE! 🔬🧪✊ March 7th, 2026 in Washington, DC Learn more at www.standupforscience.net/ma... (link in our bio.)

Our paper is (finally) out in Cell today! CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons reveal principles of tau proteostasis www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... Great collaborative effort - read more from first author @asamelson.bsky.social below:

Lab tours. Live demos. Real talk with scientists. Students from South Gate High School got an inside look at UCLA's breakthrough research in medicine and disease treatment. Their curiosity and questions brought so much energy to our labs! 🔬🧬🧫

LISTEN UP, DORKS! @standupforscience.bsky.social is getting (even more!) political. People often say "well what can one person do??" 🥊 If all our followers joined Science Fight Club and gave $5 a month, we could save science! 🥊Join here: www.standupforscience.net/join-science... SHARE WIDELY!

Thank you Alzforum for featuring our new preprint identifying regulators of disease states of #microglia. Project led by Amanda McQuade, computation by Reet Mishra, collaboration with the Nunez and De Jager labs. Alzforum www.alzforum.org/news/researc... Preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

On Sept 17th, 2025, @aaas.org and @researchamerica.bsky.social hosted Jay Bhattacharya—NIH Director—as the keynote for the National Health Research Forum. Less than two weeks later, he spoke at the MAHA Action hour alongside Oz, Russel Brand, Tony Lyons, and Callie Means. I have a call to action:

🎀 New from the lab 🎀 We used the SPARK design for kinase biosensors to develop a PINK1 biosensor, PINK1-SPARK. We used PINK1-SPARK to measure PINK1 activity in multiple cell types & when using HaloTag, for multiplexing! Plasmids coming soon, check out the preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Researchers at UCLA built mini models of human lungs, hearts and brains to study hantaviruses and identify potential therapies. With no current treatments, these deadly rodent-borne viruses pose a serious threat to public health. #ResearchPowersProgress stemcell.ucla.edu/news/ucla-sc...

Los Angeles rents are high, especially compared to the average pay - but it wasn't always that way. In this video, LA Councilmember Nithya Raman goes over the history of why LA stopped building enough housing relative to the number of new jobs, and how the city can reverse that trend. 🏠🏠🏠

Excited that the paper presenting our mouse brain in vivo CRISPR screening platform is out today in @natneuro.nature.com! Great team effort, led by Biswa Ramani and @ivlrose.bsky.social in the Kampmann lab. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

2 bits of data from new Economist/YouGov poll..... 13% support for cutting research funding to universities. 24% among Republicans. Polling on this continues to be catastrophic for the Rs, suggests Dems should be learning far harder into standing up for science and our universities. 1/

“Los Angeles leaders are once again demonstrating their cowardice and failing their own constituents who desperately need more housing—and they’re doing it at the behest of LA’s wealthiest, most entitled voters, who have consistently blocked progress on housing affordability.” - @hanlon.bsky.social

In a first-of-its-kind clinical trial, UCLA scientists have shown it’s possible to reprogram a patient’s own stem cells to create a continuous supply of functional T cells, the immune system’s most powerful cancer-killing agents. bit.ly/4fhvMnv #CancerResearch #StemCellResearch

I'm thrilled to announce my next career step-- I’m joining Genentech as a Principal Scientist & Lab Head in Discovery Oncology! I’ll be hunting new ways to target cancers using my background in disordered nuclear proteins.

the republican party is a modern day Slave Power and the only way forward for this country is to sweep it into the ash heap of history

UCLA-led team has received a $3.5 million grant from the NIH to study and develop treatments for the infectious disease #mpox. Their discoveries could help prevent the next global outbreak. ➡️ bit.ly/3TW38hI

Logging off for the weekend, but shouting it one more time before I do: they don't believe in America. actioncookbook.substack.com/p/america-be...

Once again, this is a massive public jobs program for fascists. This bill was never just about tax cuts and gutting social services. It's about investing our collective resources in violence and using state power to spread fear and destroy solidarity. We need to resist this with all we've got.

I am grieving the barbarism that is going to unfurl from all this. People are going to die. Livelihoods gone. All to feed a corrupt kleptocracy. I see every day up close how different it is from the first time around. There are no guardrails. A disaster. I’m sorry we have to live through this.

Legitimately feel sick. We are hours away from the largest cuts to low-income people in history. People’s lives will be ruined. It is so unfair. It’s unfair to be born into a system that allows this level of poverty in the first place and it’s evil to rip away aid from the needy. Hard to watch this.

genuinely, kicking 17 MILLION people off of their health insurance and stripping TWO MILLON people off of food assistance is so grotesque and depressing it’s hard to think of anything else

GOP reconciliation bill's effects: —Poorest 1/5 of earners: *declining* after-tax incomes —Those making >$3 m/year gain $118,000 —12 m people become uninsured —3.2 m people lose food stamps —US stops its efforts to combat climate change —$122 billion spent on deportation & concentration camps

Our paper demonstrating that within-species warfare interactions are ecologically important on human skin is now published in Nature Micro! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Basically the @elife.bsky.social model?

Final Senate votes in next 36 hours. www.mobilize.us/mobilize/eve... Save Medicaid NOW - Final Push Phonebanks to Republican Congressmembers · Mobilize

New preprint with Benjamin Lang, Richard Kriwacki, John Christodoulou, and M. Madan Babu! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Protein Dynamics at Different Timescales Unlock Access to Hidden Post-Translational Modification Sites #bioinformatics #compchem #folding #proteindynamics

Elites aren't even using their existing mechanisms set up to allow deniable messaging. Go look at PhRMA, the big bad lobbying group; they've got nothing to say about their NIH R&D pipeline being destroyed, nor about the worst regression in public health and vaccine acceptance in U.S. history.

We're so close to fixing key drivers of California's housing crisis: ✅️ SB 79 would legalize apartments near transit. ✅️ AB 130 would end frivolous litigation against infill. ✅️ AB 253 + AB 1308 would prevent permitting/inspection delays. ➡️ Here's how you can help.

For Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness Month, we highlight the work of Dr. Jessica Rexach, a UCLA neurologist and neurogeneticist working to uncover the molecular drivers of Alzheimer’s disease. Learn more about her work: stemcell.ucla.edu/member-direc... #StemCellResearch #Neuroscience #BrainHealth

A big thanks to NC Rep. Valerie Foushee for being the first signature on this bipartisan letter urging the House to maintain a strong commitment to funding for NIH in the 2026 Appropriations bill. Is your Representative here? www.aamc.org/research/adh...

Check out Laura's thread on our latest preprint demonstrating best methods for low biomass skin sampling.

Interested in supporting the brave NIHers mentioned in RFK jr.’s hearing today? Join 29k of us - Nobel Laureates, NIHers, doctors, scientists & concerned citizens- in signing our letter of support: act.standupforscience.net/forms/add-na... #StandUpForScience #BethesdaDeclaration #SaveNIH #RFKjr

🧵Excited to share our new preprint introducing iHOTT - an autologous tumor-immune co-culture model that captures patient-specific responses in #Glioblastoma 💥Now on @biorxivpreprint : biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Led by Dr. Shivani Baisiwala, Neurosurgery Resident in the lab

the biggest crew of goddamned idiots you ever saw

Big lawsuit filed today defending NSF. It’s a coalition including @aaup.bsky.social , @uaw.org , and @democracyforward.org . See thread🧪

Very much into this idea