iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Join a truly global and inclusive #SingleCell community at #HCA2026Asia 🌏Registrants from 28 countries 👩‍🔬30 female and 👨‍🔬34 male speakers (10 student, 15 EMCR and 37 senior) Speakers: tinyurl.com/7zy8x3ex Submit your posters by September 13: tinyurl.com/2b6rcst4 @humancellatlas.org

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Submit a poster for #HCA2026Asia!! Poster abstracts remain open until 13 September, and submissions will be accepted until venue capacity is reached, so don't wait too long! #SingleCell #SpatialTranscriptomics #HumanCellAtlas events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia/abs...

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

🦘 Hop to it! Reminder: Oral abstracts for #HCA2026Asia close this Friday. 🎤 30 talks available, including 15 for students and early-career researchers. #SingleCell #SpatialTranscriptomics #HumanCellAtlas events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia/abs...

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Building a truly global and inclusive #SingleCell community at #HCA2026Asia. So far: 🌏 Registrants from 25 countries ⚖️ 10 female and 9 male invited speakers 🎓 30 speaking opportunities, including 15 dedicated to students and ECRs Submit your abstract: events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia/abs...

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Want to give a talk at #HCA2026Asia? 🎤 30 oral presentations will be selected from submitted abstracts, including 15 for students and early-career researchers. 📅 Oral abstract deadline: 3 July 2026 events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia/abs... #SingleCell #SpatialTranscriptomics #HumanCellAtlas

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Welcoming Anunya Opasawatchai from Mahidol Uni to #HCA2026Asia! #SingleCell #Immunology to map why individuals respond differently to vaccines and infectious diseases. Join us in Fremantle: events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia #HumanCellAtlas #SystemsImmunology Publications: tinyurl.com/ybsj2kyr

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Welcoming Yun Xia from Nanyang Technological University to #HCA2026Asia! Advancing #StemCells and #Organoids to model kidney development and disease. Join us in Fremantle: events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia #RegenerativeMedicine #KidneyResearch #HumanCellAtlas Publications: tinyurl.com/3mue7any

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Welcoming Nguyen Thuy Thuong Thuong from @oucru.bsky.social to #HCA2026Asia! Applying new #single_cell approaches to understand tuberculosis. Join us in Fremantle: events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia #TB #InfectiousDisease #HumanCellAtlas Publications: tinyurl.com/cjm25w52

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Welcoming @aruthak.bsky.social to #HCA2026Asia! Advancing #SpatialBiology and #PrecisionMedicine. See recent whole-transcriptome spatial profiling of lung cancer TMAs. tinyurl.com/4ekx5aep Join us in Fremantle: events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia Publications: tinyurl.com/4utxupn9

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Welcoming Jian Yang from Westlake University to #HCA2026Asia Leader in #StatisticalGenetics now applying #spatial to mapping of cells for complex traits tinyurl.com/w3yvd2vw Join us in Fremantle: events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia #HumanCellAtlas Publications: tinyurl.com/bda3cdwx

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Hop to it! 🦘 Early bird registration closes June 1 for #HCA2026Asia. 30 talks will be selected from submitted abstracts, including 15 spots for students and early career researchers. events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia/abs... #SingleCell #Genomics #HumanCellAtlas

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Welcoming Ruby Huang from @ntu-taiwan.bsky.social to #HCA2026Asia! Advancing #Genomics, #SpatialBiology and #EMT in #Ovarian_cancer. Join us in Fremantle: events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia Publications: tinyurl.com/ywtc7kub

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Welcoming Ryan Lister from @perkinsinstitute.bsky.social and UWA to #HCA2026Asia! A pioneer in #epigenetics, #genomics, #synthetic_biology Join us in Fremantle: events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia Publications: tinyurl.com/kbdjb5x5

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

This is a numbat. Western Australia’s striped marsupial. Also the namesake of the Kharchenko Lab's single-cell CNV tool “Numbat”. Peter Kharchenko is joining us for #HCA2026Asia in Fremantle this November. events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia REGISTER NOW!! #SingleCell #Genomics #HumanCellAtlas

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

Welcoming @seyhanyazar.bsky.social from @garvaninstitute.bsky.social to #HCA2026Asia! A leader in #SingleCell #eQTLs to uncover mechanisms of autoimmune disease. Join us in Fremantle: events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia Publications: tinyurl.com/t5cbv9d7

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Be quick like a quokka. Early bird registration for #HCA2026Asia closes June 1. Don’t miss the discount → events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia Even the little ones know a good deal when they see one (Student & ECR discounts available!!) #quokka www.rottnestisland.com/see-do/wildl...

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Welcoming Woong-Yang Park to #HCA2026Asia! Pioneering #SingleCell #Genomics #Spatialtranscriptomics to study the TME. Join us in Fremantle in November: events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia All publications: tinyurl.com/yc362aud

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Be quick like a quokka. Early bird registration for #HCA2026Asia closes June 1. Don’t miss the discount → events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia #quokka www.rottnestisland.com/see-do/wildl...

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Welcoming @thewulab to #HCA2026Asia! Angela Wu (HKUST) is advancing #SingleCell #genomics and #microfluidics to build innovative multi-omic platforms. Join us in Fremantle this November: events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia #HumanCellAtlas All publications: tinyurl.com/4x7khwbt

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Reposted by Alistair Forrest

Vanja @halfacrocodile.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

1/10 Did you know that molecular phenotypes of human skeletal muscles are vastly different? Meet FANTOMUS, the skeletal muscles promoterome-proteome atlas: doi.org/10.64898/202... made with @andreybuyan.bsky.social @nikitagryzunov.bsky.social @alforrest.bsky.social @sevamakeev.bsky.social

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Welcoming @KharchenkoLab to #HCA2026Asia! A leader in #SingleCell #Genomics. Checkout latest on segmentation doublets in #spatial data www.nature.com/articles/s41... Join us in Fremantle in November events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia #HumanCellAtlas All publications: tinyurl.com/22vk2uss

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Welcoming Hae-Ock Lee to #HCA2026Asia! Applying #SingleCell #Genomics to lung cancer metastasis www.nature.com/articles/s41... and ICT elifesciences.org/articles/98366 Join us in Fremantle in Nov events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia #HumanCellAtlas All publications: tinyurl.com/mtj7xms9

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Welcoming Fuchou Tang to #HCA2026Asia! A true pioneer in #SingleCell #Genomics. From first scRNA-seq www.nature.com/articles/nme... to scHiC www.nature.com/articles/s41... Join us in Fremantle in November events.humancellatlas.org/2026asia #HumanCellAtlas All publications: tinyurl.com/4jstyd3e

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

30 speaking slots are available from the submitted abstracts with at least half dedicated to #ECR and #EMCR speakers. #SingleCell #Genomics #SpatialBiology #SpatialOmics #HumanCellAtlas

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Registration is now open for HCA Asia in Fremantle. Come make friends with our nearby neighbours. Many talking slot for EMCRs! @ozsinglecell.bsky.social @lornegenome.bsky.social #SingleCell #transcriptomics #multiomics #Spatial_transcriptomics

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Reposted by Alistair Forrest

Human Cell Atlas @humancellatlas.org · 28/01/2026

Registration for the HCA Asia Meeting on 2-4 November, 2026 is now open! The #HCA2026Asia meeting will be held in Perth, Australia, and online, and is hosted by @alforrest.bsky.social. Please register at buff.ly/gADDEnC 🖥️ 🧬 #Genomics #SingleCell #Spatial #HumanCellAtlas

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Reposted by Alistair Forrest

Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

connectomeDB2025: Quality matters! ✅3,579 ligand-receptor pairs supported by 2,803 papers ✅14 vertebrates ❌ >2,900 unsupported pairs from other DBs excluded connectomedb.org academic.oup.com/nar/advance-... @JARamilowski @sakura_maezono @rui_hou_ @weitao_lin @yen_yeow + team

A a figure showing comparison of connectomeDB2025 to other ligand-receptor pair databases.

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

First ride and ocean swim of the year in the big blue antidepressant. There's beauty out there, fish, seaweed and seagrass.. and so far no stingers!

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Reposted by Alistair Forrest

Jovana Maksimovic @jovmaksimovic.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Chelsea Mayoh at #abacbs2025: "If you're not using RNA-seq in your precision medicine program you're probably missing stuff"! Great to see @aliciao.bsky.social lab tools MINTIE, ALLsorts and TALLsorts making an appearance 🎉

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Yes they have increased in average awarded amount. $822k in 2019, increasing each year to $1.23m in 2024.

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Reposted by Alistair Forrest

Izzy Jayasinghe @ijayas.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

When I took this job as the Head of a department, I never thought my job would involve consoling & moving on some of my most talented researchers at the end of each year - just bc their ARC/NHMRC grant didn’t get up. Having worked in multiple countries, I have never seen this normalised like in Aus.

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Reposted by Alistair Forrest

Dr Shane Huntington OAM @drshanerrr.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

The success rate for NHMRC Ideas Grants announced yesterday was just over 8%. That means 11 of every 12 people who applied got rejected. This is a culture changing level of rejection and frankly a point of national shame. This is a crisis for research. I will not rest until we see this resolved.

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Be kind to each other.. bad news for most coming in under embargo. We need more funding in the system...

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Heading to Radelaide for #ABACBS2025 . Looking forward to catch up with old friends and nerd out on bioinformatics! Checkout PhD student Peiwen Liu's poster on connectomeDB2025 (Quality matters!) connectomeDB.org

connectomedb.org

– ConnectomeDB2025

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

Now, with co-first authors Peiwen Liu (Australia) and @sakura_maezono (Japan), we’ve released v3 — 10 years on. 🎉 Rigorous QC: >2,900 unsupported pairs excluded. 3,579 validated ligand–receptor pairs across 14 vertebrates. Check out connectomedb.org

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

In 2020 with then PhD student @rui_hou_ we released the first update and released NATMI (Network Analysis Toolkit for Multicellular Interactions) for cell-to-cell communication network prediction from single cell and other datasets. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Predicting cell-to-cell communication networks using NATMI - Nature Communications

Single cell expression data allows for inferring cell-cell communication between cells expressing ligands and those expressing their cognate receptors. Here the authors present an updated and curated ...

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

To support broader use, we annotated ligand and receptor reagents by species and expanded via orthology to 14 vertebrates. connectomeDB2025 enables accurate cell–cell communication analysis across model systems and disease contexts. 🌏

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Literature discovery is a major bottleneck. We used PerplexityAI to speed up identification of candidate papers and potential novel ligands/receptors. Still manually validated ✅ but it helped us find 800+ new supported pairs. And expand the coverage of major L&R gene families

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

For every interaction, we required a publication with primary experimental evidence. A substantial fraction of pairs in other databases were unsupported or misclassified — we excluded >2,900 low-evidence interactions.

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

We manually curated thousands of putative ligand–receptor pairs from existing resources (connectomeDB2020, CellChatDB_v2, CellPhoneDB_v5, ICELLNET_v2, CellTalkDB, LIANA). For many entries we found no primary experimental evidence — rigorous QC really matters. 🔍

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Alistair Forrest @alforrest.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

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