iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 23h

I don't know how scientists stay quiet when speakers present loose/correlative/cherry-picked connections with confidence and certainty that the data does not warrant. I feel complicit.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

That is reasonable. Is there a problem wiht lifting over coordinates?

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

are we still tolerant of aligning to hg38? why aren't people using hs1?

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Can we stop using the term "axis" in papers/grants/seminars? I have no idea what it means when you say the p53/CBP cancer axis

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Reposted by Michael Guertin

Seychelle Vos @voslab.org · 08/09/2026

⚡Preprint alert⚡ So proud of @amohamed98.bsky.social! Abdallah determined the cryo-EM structure of BRD4 bound to the kinase P-TEFb, defining the molecular basis of this key transcription interaction — and revealing that BRD4 and AFF4 binding are mutually exclusive to P-TEFb. Lots more inside 👇

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

As an enlisted Airman in the early aughts, I often said “I support the war, but not the troops” as a comical response to the reciprocal trite saying. It took over 20 years, but now the highest levels of the government have adopted this as their official stance

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Registration for this mechanisms of RNA Polymerase regulation meeting is Aug 2: u.osu.edu/mltermmeeting/

u.osu.edu

Mountain Lake Termination Meeting

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

The gas pump is not a parking spot. Vacate if you are not actively paying or pumping

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

3 graduate students staggered over 4 years 1 postdoc 1 long term undergraduate 3 randos over the summer

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Maybe we stop drinking in our 40s because 2 beers is not enough for a buzz, but sufficient for a hang over.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

AI slop and electric scooters/mopeds make society worse.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

If you are an admin and claim something is policy and not just your convention, you should be able to point to a written policy. Everyone's priority at the university is to support the education and research missions! do not make our lives harder for no reason.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

i often hear faculty complaining that students do not enter graduate school with the skills necessary to complete a PhD. they don't seem to understand that graduate students need to be trained in these skills.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

in the era where moving small amounts of liquid between tubes and bioinformatics is relatively easy, domain expertise and knowing how to address a question is what will get you a fellowship, grant, job, tenure, etc

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

You really ‘peeked my interest’

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

I am glad I went to college without a cell phone and without AI

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

They should show healthy people smiling

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

conflating statistical significance and biological significance is the downfall of many scientists. We have really sensitive assays in 'omics, so be careful about chasing small effect sizes of statistically significant phenomenon.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

I would much rather complete a ChIP-seq analysis midterm than grade 16 midterms. Giving everyone their own transcription factor raw data makes it much tougher to grade.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

This is a great regional conference that focuses on RNA polymerase: u.osu.edu/mltermmeeting/

u.osu.edu

Mountain Lake Termination Meeting

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

but then what will digest the proteinase K? I love PEG-mediated fractionation of DNA (Lis and Schleif, NAR, 1975!), or so-called AMPure beads, but an alcohol precipitation is the way to go if you are not size selecting.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

we just have a bunch of proteins that we want to purify out first. I think EtOH works better than isopropanol for short DNA (<1000bp), but I haven't tested side-by-side (I was told this by a rigorous molecular biologist who trained in the 70s, so I beleive them).

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

EtOH precipitation, then Illumina library prep. There is very little material.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

what do you think is the best way to extract DNA from a protein/DNA binding reaction? I don't really want a size bias, so kits are out.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

thanks for the explanation. I have always just had them pour into conical tubes and use tips, but I just learned this empirically by testing it out. I had noticed 20 years ago that the writing on my serological was melting.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

does phenol:chloroform still dissolve serological pipettes? is this still a concern that my students shoudl have?

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

digitally signing documents with Adobe is the hardest part of my job. Signatures always disappear, nothing seems reproducible. I can see signatures in Preview, but not Acrobat; I see them on email previews, but not when it is downloaded. I must be missing something. Is it because I am 40+ now?

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

during a undergraduate seminar Tom Eisner casually mentioned that the y-axis numbers were all in German, so we probably couldn't read them. The entire class was silent, but I choked laughing.

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Reposted by Michael Guertin

All-Ireland Chromatin Consortium @aicc-ireland.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

⏰ Calling all chromatin aficionados! We we will be joined by @adelmanlab.bsky.social from @harvardmed.bsky.social for our March 27th webinar 📅 Karen will be sharing her groups work on 'Transcription & RNA Quality Control in Health & Disease' 😷🧬 Register here: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

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Reposted by Michael Guertin

Seychelle Vos @voslab.org · 12/02/2026

Please join Andreas Ladurner and me for the GRC Chromatin Structure and Function conference to be held near Barcelona Spain from May 31-June 5! We accepting abstracts for posters and talks. The meeting is preceded by an awesome GRS. Learn more in our video below and apply www.grc.org/chromatin-st...

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

consistently having smaller incoming PhD class sizes is going to kill labs. I am fortunate to have grants, but with incoming PhD classes at 15 for the entire UConn Health, there is no way I can fill out the 3 student positions I can fund.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

when my university communications office wants to highlight/detract from the data, they selectively include zero on the y-axis or not. They also seem to really like default excel graphics

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

it really is never the student's fault either. 100% one of the other professors just doesn't respond to the poll.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

If I fill out a scheduling poll, it is not safe to assume that I will still be free at those same times over 2 weeks later.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

you paper was in review for 4 months, then one month of editorial who knows what. YOU HAVE 24 MINUTES TO GET THESE PROOFS BACK TO US!!!!

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Is it ok to use "you nerds" as a gender neutral term to refer to the students in class? I cannot get myself to use "y'all" and "you guys" is not neutral.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

submitting to a journal who accepts LaTeX submission, but the .bst file is not correct and they cannot send me a correct one. Why bother having editors, copy editors, and production staff?

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

my 13 year old is learning to code and I told him he should not use chatGPT. I know he listened because the code is crap (but it works!) and all his comments are just commented out print() statements.

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

this does not address the core of my question: genetics is great for finding the causal gene. Once known, why is it important to find more causal variants that likely regulate the gene or determine the mechanism by which the variant regulates, as opposed to figuring out how the protein contributes

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

as an outsider to the human genetics field, why does it matter to know the causal variant that affects gene expression modestly for a lifetime to confer a modest contribution to a phenotype? isn't it 100x more important to understand how the protein encoded by the target regulated gene contributes?

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Reposted by Michael Guertin

Teif lab @teiflab.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

As usual this time of year, started drafting the list of gene regulation conferences for 2026, enjoy! generegulation.org/conferences-... Know of a relevant event that’s missing? Please reply below

generegulation.org

Conferences & Schools – 2026 – Gene Regulation – Teif Lab

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Michael Guertin @guertin.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

-40 Celsius or Fahrenheit? ;-)

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