Kyle Cottrell

Kyle Cottrell

@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Father | Assistant Professor @PurdueBiochem (RNA editing and regulation) | Postdoc & PhD @WUSTL | MS & BS @MissouriState | #firstgen #NewPI #NIHMOSAIC K99/R00 (posts and comments are my own and do not reflect my employer)

1.3K followers167 following121 posts

Kyle Cottrell reposted

Purdue RNA Club
@purduernaclub.bsky.social

It's a new year and the Purdue RNA Club is back! Mark your calendars as we will be meeting September 11, October 2, 2026, November 6 and December 4, all 3:30-4:30 in ABE B061.

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Switch to natives and you get beautiful blooms and pollinators.

Mother Jones@motherjones.com

For decades, native plants couldn't be given away. Now a Chicago park sale that normally draws 1,100 people drew 2,300 this year—and sold out completely. "It's not a fad," says one nurseryman who's watched the trend for 44 years. "This is a long, steady climb."

motherjones.comOnce dismissed as weeds, native plants are flying off the shelvesGardeners are flocking to climate-resilient species amid concerns about extreme heat, flooding, and pollinator survival.
Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

This week the lab said goodbye to three undergraduate researchers. Estelle was the first person to join the lab. Renee and Madison joined not long after. Each have made important contributions leading to authorships. They are now off to dental, medical and graduate school! We will miss them greatly.

Kyle Cottrell reposted

Jacki Heraud-Farlow
@jackiheraudfarlow.bsky.social

I’m super excited to be opening a lab at WEHI. We’ll be focussing on how double-stranded RNA is regulated in cells, how failures in these pathways drive disease and new therapies to manipulate inflammatory responses to RNA. #newPI #RNAsky

WEHI (The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)@wehi-research.bsky.social

Say hello to our incoming lab heads! 👋 Excited to announce Dr Danika Hill, Dr Jacki Heraud-Farlow and Dr Sylvie Callegari will soon be establishing new labs at WEHI. More info: www.wehi.edu.au/news/excepti... bsky.app/profile/sylv... bsky.app/profile/jack... bsky.app/profile/prec...

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

I wonder who gets spots in the Purdue summer camp before us plebs gets our chance to register? Must be nice to have a guaranteed spot and not have to block out your morning and stress over getting a good spot in the registration queue.

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Fuck.

Jeremy Berg@jeremymberg.bsky.social

The language in the bill restricts the amount of multiyear funding to the level is fiscal year 2025. The Senate bill limited it to that level in fiscal year 2024. This is not good news...better than nothing, but thousands of lost projects. 3/5

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Some us, not very many, started at community college and never took the ACT or SAT...

Jonathan Rosenblum@jsrosenblum.bsky.social

Which links to this proposed Act, which says "...requiring all parts of a state university system to publish every higher-education standardized test score (SAT, ACT, CRT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT, etc.) of every faculty member..." and every applicant. So it's super dumb, but not "SAT but not GRE."

civicsalliance.orgFaculty Merit Act - Сivics AllianceIntroduction Administrators and faculty at colleges and university regularly discriminate in their hiring and tenuring. Usually they do so by merely political discrimination—they draft job advertiseme...
Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

My first trip out of the Purdue Airport went... well, it didn't. I ended up on the shuttle to ORD anyway. It could be great to fly out of LAF, but there probably needs to be more volume to make it reliable.

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

How are we supposed to advise undergraduates interested in applying to graduate school soon? They are scared that their options will be limited. They don't know if it is better to rush to get in or wait until things maybe get better. They don't have as many options for post-bacc programs. It's rough

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Here is the post thread describing the work. bsky.app/profile/kyle...

Kyle Cottrell@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Here is the post thread I promised: We have been interested in ADAR1 as a therapeutic target for triple-negative breast cancer for a while. That project was supported by the NIH before Trump terminated it, but that is another story. While ADAR1 is a promising target - there aren't any inhibitors 1/n

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Anyone in the West Lafayette area have an explanation for why they closed the right lane of River Road here? It's closed for maybe 200 ft. I think that they did this either to intentionally make traffic worse or to further aggravate the businesses that didn't sell their land.

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

This manuscript was accepted @rnajournal.bsky.social and is online ahead of publication now! Congratulations to first author Addison Young and all the co-authors (for several this is their first publication). @cancer-inst-purdue.bsky.social 1/2 rnajournal.cshlp.org/content/earl...

rnajournal.cshlp.orgPACT suppresses PKR activation through dsRNA binding and dimerization, and is a therapeutic target for triple-negative breast cancer A monthly journal publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed research on all topics related to RNA and its metabolism in all organisms
Kyle Cottrell@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Just in time for #RNA25, the Cottrell Lab has posted our first independent preprint to bioRxiv. This is the first first-author publication from graduate student Addison Young and the first publication for the four undergraduate co-authors. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/n

biorxiv.orgPACT suppresses PKR activation through dsRNA binding and dimerization, and is a therapeutic target for triple-negative breast cancerTriple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), the deadliest breast cancer subtype, lacks broadly applicable targeted therapies. Induction of viral mimicry by activation of viral double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) se...
Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

This is my first research article as sole corresponding author and the first research article from the Cottrell lab. I'm very happy that it ended up at RNA. This is my first time publishing in RNA and this was by far my best review experience to date. Huge thanks to editor and reviewers!

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Here is the post thread I promised: We have been interested in ADAR1 as a therapeutic target for triple-negative breast cancer for a while. That project was supported by the NIH before Trump terminated it, but that is another story. While ADAR1 is a promising target - there aren't any inhibitors 1/n

Kyle Cottrell@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Our second preprint is out today! Post thread to come later.

View full thread
Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

In the end, our data do not support ZYS-1 as an ADAR1 inhibitor. Our findings are also consistent with those reported in another preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... This is the first, first author manuscript preprint from graduate student Cassandra Smoak - who joined the lab this spring 7/n

biorxiv.orgRe: Concerns Regarding the Validation of ZYS-1 as a Bona Fide ADAR1 InhibitorWang et al. in Nature Cancer report ZYS-1 as an ADAR1 inhibitor and present biochemical and cellular evidence to support ZYS-1’s direct interaction with and inhibition of ADAR1, including enzymatic as...
Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

The other authors on this preprint are both undergraduates in the lab. Estelle Gardner performed the in vitro A-to-I editing assay, and is responsible for getting this assay up and running in the lab. Renee Chua helped with the A-to-I editing analyses. 8/8

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Here is the post thread I promised: We have been interested in ADAR1 as a therapeutic target for triple-negative breast cancer for a while. That project was supported by the NIH before Trump terminated it, but that is another story. While ADAR1 is a promising target - there aren't any inhibitors 1/n

Kyle Cottrell@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Our second preprint is out today! Post thread to come later.

View full thread
Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

We next asked if ZYS-1 could phenocopy ADAR1 depletion. Depletion of ADAR1 in ADAR1-dependent cell lines by knockout or knockdown causes activation of PKR and induction of interferon stimulated genes. ZYS-1 treatment generally did neither in the cell lines that we evaluated. 5/n

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Finally, we evaluated A-to-I editing both in cells treated with ZYS-1 or in vitro. We assessed three different A-to-I edit sites in four cell lines. With only one exception, ZYS-1 treatment did not reduce A-to-I editing in cells. We observed the same in vitro with purified ADAR1 and 5-HT2C RNA. 6/n

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Here is the post thread I promised: We have been interested in ADAR1 as a therapeutic target for triple-negative breast cancer for a while. That project was supported by the NIH before Trump terminated it, but that is another story. While ADAR1 is a promising target - there aren't any inhibitors 1/n

Kyle Cottrell@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Our second preprint is out today! Post thread to come later.

View full thread
Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Recently, ZYS-1 was reported to inhibit ADAR1 www.nature.com/articles/s43.... Given our past experience evaluating putative ADAR1 inhibitors, we decided to put ZYS-1 through a series of tests. First, we asked if ZYS-1 is more cytotoxic to ADAR1-dependent vs ADAR1-independent cells. 3/n

nature.comTargeting ADAR1 with a small molecule for the treatment of prostate cancer - Nature CancerYang and colleagues present a small-molecule inhibitor for ADAR1 and show that its use is therapeutically beneficial in the context of prostate cancer.
Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Here is the post thread I promised: We have been interested in ADAR1 as a therapeutic target for triple-negative breast cancer for a while. That project was supported by the NIH before Trump terminated it, but that is another story. While ADAR1 is a promising target - there aren't any inhibitors 1/n

Kyle Cottrell@kylecottrell.bsky.social

Our second preprint is out today! Post thread to come later.

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

So, when this gets packaged into an exosome, is it a virus? I'm only being a little sarcastic.

eLife@elife.bsky.social

A promising new approach for self-amplifying RNA that avoids triggering strong inflammatory responses in cells, paving the way for safer, longer-lasting gene therapies without immune suppression. buff.ly/xQWCPhJ

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

This is terrible, and unfortunately, based on my experience sharing this information with others, many in academia (especially more senior faculty) aren't even aware of this change.

Hiten Madhani@hitenmadhani.bsky.social

The NIH ‘s new forward funding approach is an accounting trick designed to artificially reduce the budget by committing next year’s funds to this year’s budget without making the funds available. It’s an excuse to fund fewer grants. Bureaucratic authoritarianism to nullify congressional intent.

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

I treated the lab to a trip to the San Diego Zoo to celebrate our first preprint and for the members attending their first conference, surviving #RNA25. While the zoo is famous for the pandas, the koalas were my favorite!

Kyle Cottrell
@kylecottrell.bsky.social

This evening, the newest Cottrell Lab graduate student, Cassandra Smoak, will be presenting poster 402. Over the last few months she has been evaluating a recently published ADAR1 inhibitor - ZYS-1. I'll let her tell you if it is a good inhibitor or not... #RNA25