Simon Bayly

Simon Bayly

@simonbayly.bsky.social

Reformed chemist 👨‍🔬 IP licensing and spinouts at the Francis Crick Institute. Also post about cycling 🚲 Opinion my own etc.

1.4K followers867 following2.1K posts

Simon Bayly
@simonbayly.bsky.social

Not good

Kai Kupferschmidt@kakape.bsky.social

The Ebola outbreak in the DRC has now crossed 10,000 cases and is getting close to 5,000 deaths. It is a staggeringly large outbreak and it continues to grow rapidly, with 96 new cases in the last 24 hours alone. #IDsky 🧪 insp.cd/sitrep-n164-...

Simon Bayly
@simonbayly.bsky.social

Awesome!

Andrea Devon@andreadevon.sheshed.rocks

Canadian cliff diver Molly Carlson just became the first woman to dive off an iceberg. Perfection! 📍 Newfoundland, Canada 🇨🇦 #SheShed #VivaHerAlliance

Simon Bayly reposted

Anthony
@atmo.adpt.chat

Replying to @adamrutherford.bsky.social

The real crime here is they even failed to use the obvious name for their company: Jurassic Bark.

Simon Bayly
@simonbayly.bsky.social

I wish this was a joke

Amy Feldman@amyfeldman7.bsky.social

*NEW* Colossal Biosciences’ Ben Lamm and Anduril’s Palmer Luckey team up on a new startup to genetically engineer war dogs for the military. Warhound comes out of stealth at $1.2B valuation For @forbes.com with @iainmartin.bsky.social and @mhunterhart.bsky.social www.forbes.com/sites/amyfel...

forbes.comBillionaires Palmer Luckey And Ben Lamm Spin Up Startup To Genetically Engineer Military DogsBen Lamm of de-extinction startup Colossal has teamed up with Palmer Luckey’s team at Anduril to create a dog that’s optimized for military use. The new “warhounds” will be cloned and gene edited.

Simon Bayly reposted

Brandon Zipp
@zippypickle.bsky.social

Holy hell. 80% of AI token spending is from VC backed companies. YOLO the FOMO.

Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT@mikezaccardi.bsky.social

T at Apollo: AI circularity extends to token spending: Ramp data shows 80% of top AI spenders are VC-backed (vs. 13% median), meaning compute is paid for with venture capital, not organic earnings. If the AI payoff lags, VC returns take a hit... and token demand weakens with it.

Simon Bayly reposted

Alexis Verger 🧬🧫🧪
@alexis-verger.cpesr.fr

🤯

Will Chen@chenomics.bsky.social

Thrilled to share my freshly "baked" Baker lab paper. We took a bottom-up approach to designing transcriptional regulators. Instead of relying on natural activation domains, we designed compact proteins that recruit specific cofactors. Activators for now, repressors to come!

Simon Bayly reposted

Prof Jenny Rohn
@jennyrohn.bsky.social

This is wild - a synthetic engineered “organelle” that recruits ~90% of all endogenous mRNAs and protect them for a few days, giving you #scRNA readout over time

Waggoner Lab@labwaggoner.bsky.social

Recordanelles: a nondisruptive and unbiased transcriptome-wide single-cell RNA recording technology to enable a deeper understanding of biology of human cells @natbiotech.nature.com @reinkemeiercd.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Simon Bayly reposted

Clément Canonne
@ccanonne.github.io

Writing a grant application feels like a weird remake of Ocean's Eleven. Assemble a team! Each person has a purpose, a specific skillset. Make a plan! Every detail should be thought of, carefully scheduled. I guess it's exactly Ocean's Eleven, but with 100 other teams planning the very same heist

Simon Bayly
@simonbayly.bsky.social

This piece also identifies why Foundation Labs are going big on life sciences

Rebecca Montacute@beckymontacute.bsky.social

In another life (about a decade ago) I was a lab scientist - this is a great explainer on why you should be (at least for now) relatively sceptical re AI allowing us to suddenly cure all diseases (or even a lot of them) - we don't have the info to give an AI. ahalflife.substack.com/p/why-are-so...

ahalflife.substack.comWhy are so many AI kingpins moving toward drug discovery?Do they know something we don’t, or is it the other way around?

Simon Bayly reposted

Theo Sanderson
@theo.io

Londoners! I've made a website that discovers everything going on in the physical world of London (talks, exhibitions, gigs, plays, etc.) and finds stuff it thinks you'll like. You teach it your interests by swiping events left or right. Decent recs after ~100 swipes. Check out realworld.events!

realworld.eventsrealworld.events: what’s on in London, picked for youSwipe through London’s upcoming events: right if it’s your kind of thing, left if not, and the deck learns your taste. Filter by date, evening, area and type.

Simon Bayly reposted

Oxford Clarion
@oxfordclarion.bsky.social

Immunologist Menna Clatworthy is to become the first woman to hold Oxford University’s Regius Professorship of Medicine. Gavin Screaton, head of the Medical Sciences Division, described her as “an outstanding clinician-scientist”. www.chch.ox.ac.uk/news/profess...

chch.ox.ac.ukProfessor Menna Clatworthy appointed Regius Professor of MedicineThe King has approved that Professor Menna Clatworthy, FRCP, PhD, FMedSci, Professor of Translational Immunology at the University of Cambridge, be appointed to the Regius Professorship of Medicine at...
Simon Bayly
@simonbayly.bsky.social

Still the GOAT in women’s cycling

LeGruppetto@legruppetto.fr

Marianne Vos est championne du monde de gravel ! La Néerlandaise (39 ans) décroche un deuxième maillot arc-en-ciel dans la discipline après 2024. C'est son 15e titre de championne du monde, toutes disciplines confondues. Rosa Klöser 🇩🇪 est 2e, Larissa Hartog 🇳🇱 3e. #Nannup2026

Simon Bayly
@simonbayly.bsky.social

I can't make head or tail of this 🤷‍♂️

Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social

Breaking: Burnham commits £1bn for regional innovation over four years Prime minister says his government is working with UKRI on a “more place-based approach” www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

researchprofessionalnews.comBurnham commits £1bn for regional innovation over four years - Research Professional NewsPrime minister says his government is working with UKRI on a “more place-based approach”

Simon Bayly reposted

Leonardo Carella
@leonardocarella.bsky.social

In other words, a 10 percent contraction in one of Britain’s most successful exports. If it were steel or fish or other infinitely less profitable sectors, people would be having a meltdown.

Times Higher Education (THE)@timeshighered.bsky.social

Visa applications to study in the UK fell by 10.3 per cent for the key recruitment month of September, new Home Office figures show. @jgro-the.bsky.social reports #highered #visas #internationalstudents #edusky https://ow.ly/3LSs50ZVPAE

Simon Bayly
@simonbayly.bsky.social

Really interesting finding on genetic switch that controls calcium binding

The Francis Crick Institute@crick.ac.uk

Researchers have shown that an anti-ageing mechanism that evolved from remnants of viral DNA can not only be hijacked by cancer cells to stop them ageing, but also plays an important role in helping the embryo develop. https://www.crick.ac.uk/news/2026-10-07_an-ancient-advantage-hijacked-by-cancer

crick.ac.ukAn ancient advantage, hijacked by cancerResearchers show that an anti-ageing mechanism hijacked by cancer cells to evade normal biological limits, also plays an important role in helping the embryo develop, having evolved from remnants of v...
Simon Bayly
@simonbayly.bsky.social

Surprise winners and actual chemists too!

Nobel Prize@nobelprize.org

BREAKING NEWS The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2026 #NobelPrize in Chemistry to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai “for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.”

Simon Bayly reposted

Matthew Cobb
@matthewcobb.bsky.social

A lot of excitement on here about the article in Science summarising the discoveries of @alistairsponsel.bsky.social and Brian Sutton, just published in the Journal of the History of Biology. Some people have asked, so here is what I think they show, and what are the implications:

link.springer.comPhotograph 49 is the Key to Understanding the History of Rosalind Franklin’s DNA Photograph 51 - Journal of the History of BiologyThis essay, co-authored by a historian of science and an X-ray crystallographer, sheds new light on Rosalind Franklin’s Photograph 51. We refute the infamous claim that, unlike James Watson, Franklin ...

Simon Bayly reposted

Geoff Brumfiel
@gbrumfiel.bsky.social

The IceCube neutrino detector has won the 2026 Nobel Prize in physics. The Trump administration has proposed slashing its budget in half in 2027.

Simon Bayly reposted

Kindra Crick 🧩
@kindracrick.com

One of today’s Nobel Prize winners, Karl Deisseroth, said he was inspired by Francis Crick’s original call for precision targeting of neurons in a Scientific American called "Thinking about the Brain" and kept a copy of the original 1979 issue on his desk. 🧪 stanfordmag.org/contents/new...

stanfordmag.orgNew Light on the BrainBy combining genetics with fiber optics, Karl Deisseroth has given researchers a powerful tool with which to probe our most enigmatic organ.
Simon Bayly
@simonbayly.bsky.social

Medicine Nobel goes to two biophysicists and a neuroscientist

Nature@nature.com

BREAKING: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.” More to follow.