Christopher Douse

Christopher Douse

@chdouse.bsky.social

Scientist (chromatin, epigenetics, repetitive elements, brain development). British male human living in Sweden. Views are my own.

124 followers107 following15 posts

Christopher Douse reposted

📣We are looking for a Project Assistant to join my group at the Wallenberg Center for Molecular Medicine at Umeå University. Join us if you are interested in transposable elements, epigenetics and human brain aging. 🧠🧬 Dont hesitate to reach out with any questions! 📣 umu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

umu.varbi.comProject AssistantThe Department of Medical and Translational Biology at the Faculty of Medicine is now seeking a project assistant for a research project related to human brain aging. The position is full-time and lim

Christopher Douse reposted

Had an absolute blast presenting my “Last Minute Breakthrough talk” at #EMBOmobilegenome today! 🔥 What an incredible crowd, the energy in the room was unreal. Huge thanks to the organizers for selecting me and to everyone who came, asked questions, and made it such a fun session! 🙌

Christopher Douse reposted

Christopher Douse reposted

How do pluripotent stem cells resist harmful interferon responses to safeguard development? Through total epigenetic lockdown of ligands, sensors and effectors of IFN-I. In our preprint, James Holt shares his PhD discoveries on the ground state of immune evasion 😊: www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

biorxiv.orgEpigenetic lockdown of type I interferon sensing and signalling in human pluripotent cells.The Human Silencing Hub (HUSH) complex safeguards genome integrity in human somatic cells by repressing transposable elements and regulating type I interferon (IFN-I) induction. In early development, ...

Christopher Douse reposted

🌟Im happy to share that this winter I'll be starting my lab at the Wallenberg Center for Molecular Medicine at Umeå University! Excited to join the Department of Medical and Translational Biology as a Wallenberg Fellow and looking forward to new collaborations and cool transposon research 🤩 🧬

Christopher Douse reposted

The @crick.ac.uk is recruiting Early Career Group Leaders - Lab set-up, research costs, salaries for up to 5 researchers - Support for up to 12 years - Access to our core facilities - Competitive salary - Fantastic colleagues - All areas of biology Deadline 27 Nov www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...

crick.ac.ukEarly career group leadersWe appoint researchers from across biology and biomedicine to set up their first groups at the Crick.

Christopher Douse reposted

Christopher Douse reposted

Very happy to share our protocols paper for CELLO-seq. This will make single cell long read RNA-seq more accessible and provides analysis guidelines. We hope this helps the #transposon #TEsky community and folks working on #singleCell isoform and allelic #gene expression. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

doi.orgLong-read RNA sequencing of transposable elements from single cells using CELLO-seq - Nature ProtocolsSingle-cell long-read RNA sequencing enables the high-fidelity mapping of single-cell expression data from highly sequence-similar transposable elements to unique genomic loci by correcting errors fro...

Christopher Douse reposted

Second, the factor directing human L1 methylation in early development was unknown - a deletion in the ancestral promoter is thought to evade silencing by the KRAB-ZNF/TRIM28 system. We show MORC2 is critical here, at least for those most dangerous elements transcribed in the pluripotent state. 8/X

The work was led by my inspiring PhD student Fereshteh Dorazehi and ably supported by a team of wonderful scientists over many years! Fereshteh and I have presented/will present the story at some recent and upcoming meetings and are happy to hear feedback. For now it's time for summer holidays! 9/9

First, MORC2 ATPase mutations cause severe developmental disorders: we explain how ATPase activity is coupled to chromatin binding and CpG methylation patterning of different targets. That many of the hyperrepressed genes encode KRAB-ZNFs, themselves TE silencers, is conceptually fascinating! 7/X

Explaining the persistence of these transcriptional phenotypes we found striking loss of CpG methylation over the youngest human- and hominoid specific L1s (including polymorphic alleles), and hypermethylation of gene promoters. 4/X

We engineered mutations to figure out requirements of MORC2 binding to its distinct chromatin targets. Accumulation of MORC2 at L1s and other broad targets requires reversible ATP-dependent dimerization, whereas engagement of gene promoters does not. Mutation misdirects MORC2 onto promoters. 2/X

Modelling these effects in pluripotent stem cells, we observed loss of function (transcriptional activation) at L1s and gain of function (transcriptional repression) at promoters, an effect which persisted upon differentiation to neural progenitors. 3/X

Christopher Douse reposted

Christopher Douse reposted

A major KI initiative to recruit new assistant professors with outstanding proposals in all areas of medicine, biomedicine and public health. We offer an amazing research environment, great colleagues and generous startup packages. Check it out and get working on your applications! (repost please!)

Applications are now open! We are recruiting 20 Assistant Professors in a wide range of subject areas. We're looking for early-career researchers with strong scientific merits and future potential. 🔗 All positions: ki.se/en/about-ki/...

Christopher Douse reposted

The call just opened! ki.se/en/about-ki/... You can apply to several departments simultaneously, check out which depts better fit your profile! Here is the call for our Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics ki.varbi.com/what:job/job...

ki.varbi.comAssistant Professor in Biomedical ScienceJoin a global community of excellence Are you a bold, creative researcher ready to shape the future of medical science? Karolinska Institutet (KI), one of the world’s foremost medical universities,
Gonçalo Castelo-Branco@gocastelobranco.bsky.social

Come and join us! Start your group at Karolinska Institutet @ki.se!

Christopher Douse reposted

Christopher Douse reposted

How to find Evolutionary Conserved Enhancers in 2025? 🐣-🐭 Check out our paper - fresh off the press!!! We find widespread functional conservation of enhancers in absence of sequence homology Including: a bioinformatic tool to map sequence-diverged enhancers! rdcu.be/enVDN github.com/tobiaszehnde...

rdcu.beConservation of regulatory elements with highly diverged sequences across large evolutionary distancesNature Genetics - Combining functional genomic data from mouse and chicken with a synteny-based strategy identifies positionally conserved cis-regulatory elements in the absence of direct sequence...

Back at work full-time after six month parental leave with kid 2. Spring blossoms out in Lund 🌸🌸🌸 Now on this new site and wondering if anyone is using it. Hi! 👋 #transposons #epigenetics

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