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Ashley Albright

@aralbright.bsky.social
666 followers 305 following 123 posts

i like weird cells and i cannot lie #stentor #NIHMOSAIC K99/R00 #FirstGen postdoc - @wallaceucsf.bsky.social‬ | NIH #IRACDA Scholar | PhD - Berkeley w/ Mike Eisen | UG UNC Bio

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Reposted by Ashley Albright
Pravrutha Raman @pravrutharaman.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Now that we have moved coasts, I am thrilled to share that the ChromEvo (Raman) lab is officially open at UMass Boston 🎉 We ask how CHROMatin EVOlution leads to functional innovation and we are hiring at multiple levels. Read on and share with folks who maybe interested chromevoramanlab.github.io
The logo with a phylogenetic tree, a budding yeast, a fly and a nucleosome that has Raman lab Chrom Evo written in the middle
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Not only is @wallaceucsf.bsky.social an innovative scientist, but he's a wonderful human being. I can't think of anyone more deserving of this award and I am so grateful to have such an amazing postdoc advisor!!
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Reposted by Ashley Albright
Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
From literacy for children to helping make the covid vaccine a reality, Dolly Parton was just a damn good person. A sad day. Rest in Power.
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Amadi Lovelace @amaditalks.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Remember that if you got the Moderna Covid vaccine, you have Dolly Parton to thank, she gave the largest individual contribution toward their research to make it possible.
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EPIGENETIC HULK @epigenetichulk.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! EPIGENETIC HULK LIKE THIS SMASH! NO SMASH NOTES! www.cell.com/cell-genomic...
cell.com
Single-cell 3D genome imaging shows super-enhancer hubs are rare, nonspecific, and neither necessary nor sufficient for transcriptional bursting
Super-enhancers have been proposed to cluster in the nucleus when compared to other genomic elements. Le et al. found that super-enhancer clustering was rare and driven by non-specific interactions. P...
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Already realized I messed up and stopped counting the number of posts 😅 I'll just add some tags while I'm here. #protistsonsky #stentor #pondscum #science #kthxbye
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Gosh, another shoutout to my #NIHMOSAIC and @ascbiology.bsky.social community. Science (and life in general let's be real) is hard, but again good people make everything so much better. I'm gonna stop rambling now before I cry again, AMA about weird cells!!
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Also, shout out to @connieyan.bsky.social, @davidangeles.bsky.social, Yina, Tatyana, and Jamarc for being total SUPERSTARS 🤩 AND huge acknowledgement to Marshall Lab alum @mmslabodnick.bsky.social for pioneering so much of the Stentor work that even makes this possible!
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
There's no way I could ever give enough thank yous to everyone involved, but especially @wallaceucsf.bsky.social. Being a postdoc in academia is hard, but having a truly amazing person and advisor makes it so much better (and FUN!). If I'm 10% as awesome, I'm a success. 100% on Halloween tho
Picture of Ashley Albright hair up and glasses on the left. Ashley is wearing a Center for Cellular Construction shirt on the left as Wallace for Halloween. Mountain dew is gross, so the can of mountain dew he normally carries is actually Dr. Pepper with yellow tape covering the logo that says, "MTN DEW."

Wallace Marshall is on the left wearing a gray UCSF hoodie with the hood up, weird yellow transparent glasses, and an actual can of the disgusting beverage that is mountain dew.
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
A single cell can encode spatial information through regionalized mRNA, and microtubules help maintain that pattern. Stentor are an amazing system, and I plan to continue decoding the rules of intracellular positional identity! Next 🛑: what is UP with the nucleus?
Image of Stentor coeruleus autofluorescence and hoescht staining. The cell contracted from fixation, but the autofluorescence in cyan shows the cortical rows and oral apparatus of the cell. Hoescht in magenta shows the multi-nodular nucleus.
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
[9/n] There wasn't just an apparent loss of global polarity, many transcripts became enriched in the opposite half after knockdown of β-tubulin/dynein. This suggests microtubules act as tracks for mRNAs in Stentor. Unlike in other systems, we can dissect this mechanism quite literally.
Left - heatmap of skew in half cell control vs. B-tubulin RNAi for 50 genes also found in the bulk dataset where anterior skew is in orange and posterior skew is in blue, all of these genes have the opposite skew in knockdown vs. control. Right - heatmap of skew in half cell control vs. dynein RNAi for ~150 genes also found in the bulk dataset where anterior skew is in orange and posterior skew is in blue, all of these genes have the opposite skew in knockdown vs. control.
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
[8/n] What maintains regionalization? We disrupted the microtubule cytoskeleton (via RNAi of β-tubulin or dynein) and went beyond single-cell RNA-seq with half-cell RNA-seq. 🙃 When we projected knockdown data onto the control PC space, the anterior/posterior separation disappeared.
Top left - brightfield image of beta-tubulin knockdown Stentor with a tulip rather than the classic trumpet shape. Top Right - PC2 from PCA where in the control anterior and posterior are separated, but in tubulin knockdown that separation is diminished. Bottom Left - brightfield image of dynein knockdown Stentor also with a tulip shape rather than the extended trumpet. Bottom Right - PC1 from PCA where control and anterior are distinct, but two different dynein conditions tested have a diminished separation.
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
[7/n] RNAi knockdown of posterior-enriched MYB transcription factor genes caused cells to fail to regenerate their posterior after bisection. Regionalized mRNA -> regionalized function. These genes appear to be part of what defines posterior identity.
Quadrant of Stentor images. Bisected anterior and posterior controls showing normal Stentor regeneration on the left, and an example knockdown Myb on the right. Only the regenerating posterior in the anterior half of the cell in the knockdown case fails to regenerate a tail.
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
[6/n] Yes! mRNAs are regionalized within this single cell. We found distinct sets of transcripts enriched in the anterior half vs. the posterior half. The cell is not a homogenous soup of RNA. It has molecular geography 🗺️
Volcano plot colored by statistically significantly differentially expressed RNAs from the posterior on the left (in orange) and anterior on the right (in blue). X-axis = log2FoldChange, Y-axis = -log10(padj)
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
[5/n] We physically bisected individual Stentor cells into anterior and posterior halves, then did bulk RNA-seq on each. This simple, but elegant idea let us map which transcripts were enriched at each pole of the cell.
Same cut in half image of Stentor as before, except this time 50 anteriors and 50 posteriors go through bulk RNA sequencing
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
[4/n] Full circle moment: as a grad student I used single-nucleus RNA-seq to map gene expression across a pre-cellularization Drosophila embryo, clustering nuclei by position. Now we're asking the same question, but in a ciliate and the positions are halves we cut apart with a needle.
journals.plos.org
Single-nucleus RNA-sequencing in pre-cellularization Drosophila melanogaster embryos
Our current understanding of the regulation of gene expression in the early Drosophila melanogaster embryo comes from observations of a few genes at a time, as with in situ hybridizations, or observat...
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
[3/n] Stentor coeruleus is a single-celled ciliate ~1 mm in length, with a defined anterior-posterior axis. Cut it in half and each piece regenerates perfectly. It's complex like an embryo, which makes it a dream model for studying how cells organize themselves.
cartoon depiction of a smiley face blue-green outlined Stentor coeruleus containing a black 'beads-on-a-string' nucleus that is cut in half and making a surprised face. arrows point to smaller regenerated Stentor making kinda sad faces
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
[2/n] How does a single cell know which end is which? We used a giant wacky protist that lives in ponds (we grow it in pyrex tupperware lol) and allows us to perform microsurgeries, to ask whether mRNA regionalization could provide positional information within a single cell.
Brightfield image of ~1 mm in length Stentor coeruleus. 100 um scale bar.
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
[1/n] Our preprint-in-progress on RNA regionalization in Stentor is no longer in progress! Now @pnas.org 🥳 Turns out a single cell isn't a homogenous soup… it has molecular geography, including things like regionalized transcription factors. Think bicoid, but in a ciliate.
pnas.org
Genome-wide analysis of mRNA regionalization in a giant single cell | PNAS
The molecular mechanisms that produce cell structure are poorly understood. The giant ciliate Stentor coeruleus is a unicellular model organism who...
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Pacifica, CA! Not too far south from SF, it's a great lil beach town and I actually have a place with a yard instead of a tiny SF apartment. ...but this beach front taco bell is about 4 minutes from my house and I may or may not visit at least once a week.
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
paper revision cram session with my bestie @wallaceucsf.bsky.social at one of the most beautiful places in the world I'm happy to talk about Stentor from anywhere, but why not Taco Bell on the beach?! 🔬 🌮🏖️
Taco Bell Cantina building situated on the beach in Pacifica, CA on a cloudy day with the ocean in the background. Image focused on my hand holding a Taco Bell cup labeled with Marshall W, blurry ocean and cloudy sky in the background. Foreground features greenery on the sand, midground waves crashing, background green hill and blue sky with clouds.
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Deepa Rajan, PhD @deeparajan.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
How can a single cell learn without a brain? We explore this in my paper with @wallaceucsf.bsky.social! We discovered that single cells may learn using molecules similar to those that animal brains use to learn, like CaMKII. Cells can also propagate memory states to their progeny!
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Deepa Rajan, PhD @deeparajan.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
We discovered a new species! Our paper on Stentor stipatus is now published @wallaceucsf.bsky.social @aralbright.bsky.social
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
maybe it isn’t a coveted Nobel parking spot, but at least I get to feel special when I go to the dentist who I happen to share a last name with 🦷🪥
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Reposted by Ashley Albright
Sarah Guest @sarahmoeba.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Our work on Naegleria Myosin 2 is out! Naegleria encodes 3 Myo2s which contract its actin network—the first evidence of contractile Myo2 outside of Amorphea. Myo2 is actually widespread in Naegleria's relatives and correlates with fast cell crawling. Read more: www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
Myosin 2 drives actin contractility in fast-crawling species outside of the amorphean lineage
Myosin 2-dependent actin contractility—the force that powers cell division and migration in animals, fungi, and other Amorphea—had been previously unknown outside this single eukaryotic group. Guest e...
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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
This kind of inconsistency is often used to lift up a few women without helping all, maintaining misogyny. How many other women, and non-white people, could have had a similar effect given the chance or opportunity? We will never know.
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
I'm SOO jealous!! I haven't been to a game in years and I already know I won't be able to make the UNC vs. Stanford or Berkeley games when they're over here in January 😭
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Kate Cavanaugh @katecavanaugh.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
See this? This = implanting mouse embryo. Usually this happens inside its mother and is invisible to us, but we can actually watch implantation ex vivo with the hope of understanding why implantation goes awry in embryos of older women. A 🧵...
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
when you and your friend @dnamystrom.bsky.social both win awards from @ascbiology.bsky.social MBoC you celebrate with hot pot and nails that match your shirt 😍💅
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MagnoliaBouton @magnoliabouton.bsky.social · 14/09/2025
Sharing stories matters. If you’ve faced grant terminations, funding delays, loss of research jobs, etc., your voice is needed. Help show the real impact of NIH funding interference - tell your story so we don’t lose innovation, cures, and hope for the future. www.27unihted.org/biohealthbeats
27unihted.org
Biohealth Beats — 27 UNIHTED
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Mega shout out to all of the authors, Wallace again for making science so fun, MBoC, and @ascbiology.bsky.social for supporting the #NIHMOSAIC program and science funding in general :)
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
I am so grateful to have the opportunity to work with Vincent and @wallaceucsf.bsky.social in the first place, but I am so happy that Vincent and I were awarded Paper of the Year at MBoC 🤩 www.ascb.org/society-news...
ascb.org
ASCB and MBoC Announce 2025 Paper of the Year Award Winners - ASCB
ASCB and its research journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell (MBoC), are proud to recognize the outstanding scientific achievements of early career researchers through the 2025 Paper of the Year Award...
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Here is a word cloud of the words that were missing from the noncompetitive renewal awards but had been present in the parent award. 3/4
A word cloud with dominant words "equity", "disparity", "diverse", and similar words.
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Ben Larson @blarson.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
What could be more exciting than watching Euplotes scurry around under the microscope? How about adding some raptorial predation by supergiant cannibal cells? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Video by Vittorio Boscaro. 1/n
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MagnoliaBouton @magnoliabouton.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Listed are some of the many NIH research training programs that were terminated! Together, these programs supported thousands of trainees, whose careers are now in limbo. Such a great loss for discovery and innovation. We must protect our next generation of scientists! #HandsOffNIH #ProtectScience
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
As one can imagine, I have some thoughts. Here’s a thread no one asked for: 1. SCIENCE IN THE US IS POLITICAL. No matter how much you want to ignore that fact, it is supported by taxpayer dollars and is therefore, political by nature. 2. BUT it has had bipartisan support for decades, which…
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Erica Rodriguez, PhD @ericarodriguez.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
I have certainly lost a lot of hope in this process, but it is nice to see some people are still advocating for us. Thanks @jeremymberg.bsky.social
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
I am one of these faces. I certainly do feel like my life has been turned upside down multiple times this year, but I will always love my #NIHMOSAIC family and I am so glad we have people like @jeremymberg.bsky.social fighting for us ❤️
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adelaide tovar @adel-aide.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
Throughout this whole saga, I’ve felt the collective agony of being in constant contact with other MOSAIC scholars facing the same shitty fate. I don’t want to downplay the deep solidarity/support, but what I feel most acutely is the wave of grief crashing over hundreds of early-career scientists.
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Wallace Marshall @wallaceucsf.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
😭 you’re super inspiring!
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Alex Long @alexandralong.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
Really important article in the NY Times today about cuts to NIH diversity grants, featuring a profile of Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social who is an amazing and super inspiring cell biology postdoc whose K99 was prematurely terminated.
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
I do know they like duckweed but I’m always curious about wild Stentor and where people find them 😊
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
... but did you look for any Stentor among the duckweed?
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eartha mae @endoeartha.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Still waiting... www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
NIH will reinstate 900 grants in response to court order
Projects touching on sensitive topics such as DEI had been illegally terminated, judge found
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MwahahahahahadScientist @mads100tist.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Read preprints. Cite preprints. Email people and tell them you loved their preprint. Email people you hated their preprint. Embrace preprints, preprints are good.
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
I’ll say that yesterday wasn’t necessarily the happiest birthday I’ve ever had, but I love the solidarity from my friends and @uaw4811.bsky.social Thank you UAW and thank you to the person that captured this photo of my sign at the rally ❤️
A line of members of UAW4811 are carrying a union banner for the 48,000 academic workers in the University of California. Behind this line, a sign reads “Today is my birthday. I want my K99… and some cake.”
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
To say I’m devastated to lose what I’ve worked SO hard for is an understatement, but I am trying to remind myself of how grateful I am for the community I got from it. ❤️ you ASCB and friends
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Chrystal Starbird @drstarbird.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
I have heard the final goal for overall cuts (external and internal) is higher than this. What are we doing to prepare? It’s clear that most places are not about fighting back, so I hope you have a plan to protect your people and the research that you’ve indicated is critical your mission.
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Ashley Albright @aralbright.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Thank you! I can’t take credit for the design (hi @christineliu.art), but I can take credit for the quote… it’s an Ashley original 🙂
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