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Don Arnold

@don-b-arnold.bsky.social
320 followers 296 following 18 posts

🇨🇦 Neurobiologist interested in toolmaking, synapses, and circuits.

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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Hey- I’m going to Berlin tomorrow. Mind if I listen in? I would also be interested in restaurant suggestions.
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
Our latest paper identifying negative valence neurons in the zebrafish pallium is now posted on bioRxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Emily Liman @emilyliman.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
Excited to report the identification of small molecule inhibitors of OTOP1 and their binding sites. Congratulations to first authors Batuuji Burendei from Ward/Forli labs at TSRI and Josh Kaplan for great team work! rdcu.be/eMpV9
rdcu.be
Structure-guided discovery of Otopetrin 1 inhibitors reveals druggable binding sites at the intrasubunit interface
Nature Communications - Otopetrins form proton channels in animals ranging from nematodes to humans. Here, authors identify small molecule inhibitors and characterize their binding in the...
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
Hi Farin, we have had mixed results with transgenic reporters. I would say that using them with ATLAS is “off-label”, but you are welcome to try. We are currently trying to figure out what is causing the variation and hope to be able to publish something on it in the near future.
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
ATLAS is more specific than previous anterograde tracers like AAV1 because it can trace from genetically determined cells and is strictly transsynaptic. It is not as efficient as rabies (maybe 50%), but also likely causes less toxicity.
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Use this handy link to find the ATLAS plasmids at Addgene. Otherwise, they are kind of tricky to find.
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eLife @elife.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Want to edit brain circuits with precision? 🧠 A new toolbox lets researchers erase specific excitatory or inhibitory synapses on demand, using light or chemicals.
buff.ly
Manipulating neuronal circuits
Newly developed tools that eliminate specific synapses could make it easier for researchers to precisely control how neurons communicate in rodents.
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
Only problem is that it doesn’t work in cells without synaptotagmin 1 (inhibitory neurons, dopaminergic neurons, etc.). Any chance you have developed nanobodies against other synaptotagmins?
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
Synaptotagmin 1 nanobody is great! Far superior to vamp2 overexpression.
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Ishmail Abdus-Saboor @ishmailsaboor.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Congrats to my undergrad student Amanda on graduating yesterday. She even got to bring her family by the lab to see where she's been working. We also recently learned that Amanda has been awarded a Fulbright!
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
ATLAS, a rationally designed transsynaptic tracer is out today! Plasmids will soon be available on @addgene.bsky.social addgene nature.com/articles/s41... Many thanks to first authors Jackie Rivera and Haoyang Huang, and to collaborators @blsabatini.bsky.social @beherring.bsky.social
nature.com
ATLAS: a rationally designed anterograde transsynaptic tracer - Nature Methods
ATLAS is a tool for circuit tracing, demonstrated here in rodents. It allows anterograde transsynaptic tracing, starting from genetically defined neurons.
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
New tools for ablating excitatory and inhibitory synapses quickly, specifically, and without toxicity elifesciences.org/digests/1037...
elifesciences.org
Manipulating neuronal circuits
Newly developed tools that eliminate specific synapses could make it easier for researchers to precisely control how neurons communicate in rodents.
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
I signed up for research kick on march 19 for $30/month. Now when i sign in it has no memory of me and there doesn’t seem to be a way of stopping the payments. You can’t be messaged, so i need to do this in public unfortunately. Please give me instructions for how to stop my subscription.
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
GO CANADA!!!!
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Alt NIH Bluesky 🧪 @altnih4science.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
This account is for sharing info with US scientists, both extramural and intramural to NIH, about attacks on science in the US. Education is power, and we can help advocate for science and medicine together. 💪🧪 We are a team of NIH people. Please ask us questions you might have.
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Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
I see some suggestions, in the reporting regarding the OMB impoundment order, that a mere delay in spending appropriated funds is legal. But that's not really true. The delay OMB has ordered specifically contradicts the Impoundment Control Act. A thread.
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BWJones @bwjones.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
I’m scrolling through news a day after the Trump admin shut down coms, travel, and function from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and I don’t see any mainstream media coverage for an impact upon our society & economy that is going to be multiples of 100s of billions and science and health.
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 30/12/2024
He was just being honest- probably a mistake. He also said some very nice things about Barkley. Must be difficult to watch others do what you are no longer able to.
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Thanks, Nathalie! Hope you and Emre are keeping warm and enjoying the northern lights.
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
The problem seems to be that even though it is possible to acquire followers on bluesky, engagement seems to be <10% of what it was on X.
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
We believe that these tools will work even if they don’t have an impact factor.
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Our new paper on recombinant tools for reversibly ablating excitatory and inhibitory synapses is out in eLife. Congrats to first author, Aida Bareghamyan! elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre... Plasmids, and hopefully AAVs, will be available soon on Addgene.
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Emily Liman @emilyliman.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
For your thanksgiving reading pleasure: OTOP1, the sour and ammonium sensor in taste cells, is apically localized, and not restricted to Type III taste cells. www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...
Taste bud showing OTOP in magenta and actin in green, demonstrating apical localization of OTOP1.
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Aashish Manglik @amanglik.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
First post on bsky to highlight our latest work on smell receptors (www.nature.com/articles/s41...). Odorant receptors are notoriously challenging to work with - we used a classic strategy from protein engineering to get a peek into how these receptors recognize such a diversity of smells.
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Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · 27/10/2024
Recording synaptic minis (mEPSCs)? We have a new paper trying to better understand how recorded datasets match synaptic changes. In short, they don't.. More info below, and the preprint here: biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.26.620084v1
Simulated mPSC data
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Reviewer 3!
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Don Arnold @don-b-arnold.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Sorry to hear that. It’s incredibly frustrating when innovation is penalized.
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