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Ian Sudbery

@iansudbery.bsky.social
520 followers 834 following 938 posts

Senior Lecturer in Bioinformatics at the University of Sheffield. Likes gene regulation, 3' UTRs, non-coding RNA and dancing. He/Him/His Also at IanSudbery@genomic.social

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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 4h
I'm all in favour a a robin hood tax. But surely £2 a month per household is more likely £548 million, rather than billion.
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 10h
I wrote up that thread on the new paper on Rosalind Franklin as a Substack post. matthewcobb2.substack.com/p/how-our-vi...
A DNA image with the title of the post on it.
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Ming Tommy Tang @tommytang.bsky.social · 10h
The novel transcripts we keep rediscovering www.nature.com/articles/s4...
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Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 23h
And finally any version of “Do you know who I am?”. Really no answer to that benefits you in the face of a rejection, and worst-case scenario the retort will be “yeah and you’re lucky we didn’t factor that in to the decision”. 🤣
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Krista Koeller @kristalerista.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
We were already crowdfunding all these things that benefit society. It’s called taxes.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
My memory was the previous story was that she had suggested the double helical solution, but not followed it up? Can remember where I read that though.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Pretty much no UK institution allows the use of IF in academic moderation. So instead everyone thete own personal journal ranking uses there own private "head IF", I.e. what they would guess the IF of a journal would be. I don't know if this is better of worse.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
😥
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The Francis Crick Institute @crick.ac.uk · 28/09/2026
Applications are open for our new AI/ML clinical fellowships, combining formal MSc-level training in AI and machine learning with PhD or postdoctoral research at the Crick. Find out more about the programme and apply by 11 November: bit.ly/4hxmAgn
crick.ac.uk
AI/ML clinical fellows
Our clinical training pathway integrating AI and machine learning with discovery research.
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Nucleic Acids Research @narjournal.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
⭐ Celebrating the Launch of the Human Genome Project (HPG) 🧬36 years ago today, scientists launched one of biology’s most ambitious experiments: reading the ~3 billion bases of the human genome. On Oct. 1, 1990, HPG began with a seemingly impossible question: Could we sequence the human genome? 1/5
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Personally I.often find it easier to describe what I'm thinking in code than in English.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
What I don't see anyone taking about is now a piece of software written by Facebook manage to get root access to an OS. That's not (only) a flaw in Muse, it's a flaw in the apple OS.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Two things surprise me about this: 1. People aren't more mad at Apple. Surely it should not be possible for an app to ignore a permission set at the OS level. That does not sound like secure OS design. 2. People think that not using anything by Meta makes them safe from this.
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Melissa Johnson, PhD @ladyhistorian.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I am tired of having to pretend that the value of studying my discipline solely rests on the "marketable skills" we teach. Sometimes things are just worth knowing and doing because they make your life bigger and richer.
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 27/09/2026
Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc
nyti.ms
Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)
An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The chipping away at citizenship, which started with Shamima Begum, is utterly poisonous. Anytime now, Restore will support the removal of citizenship on the basis of race or religion.
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Stephen Turner @stephenturner.us · 26/09/2026
Personal essay, weekend edition. My relationship with AI is changing. 1.8k words, 8 min reading time. doi.org/10.59350/bh7...
doi.org
My relationship with AI is changing
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The section on reading was very relatable, especially this line: “Part of the reason I read the things I read is to understand how another person thinks.”
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Caroline Bartman @cbartman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Ok what is the most death metal biology term? Cytokine storm? Programmed death 1? Executioner caspase? Other?
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Personally I claimed benefits. And wrote a text book.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
People returning slop reviews for an easy packet of cash? At the moment there is no incentive to cheat at reviews, and yet some people still do it. Think how much worse it.would be if they could be paid.
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Duncan Sproul @sproullab.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Reposting this postdoc opening in our lab. We also now have an opening for a graduate research assistant for the same project. Deadline 23rd October 2026 and details here: elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com
Research Assistant
We are looking for a self-motivated, enthusiastic research assistant to join the laboratory of Dr Duncan Sproul at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute of Genetics and Cancer and support research i...
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I was earlier try to describe what I thought about the latest press release from Anthropic on the use of a Claude based agent in biology. I was trying to avoid saying that the agent "decided" something, but I realised that I just didn't have the any alternative language for the situation.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Right, so my understanding is that "terrorism law" about more than just what offense you are guilty of, but rather whether it is necessary to suspend part of the normal operation of the law to protect people. Seems to me that this should be avoided if at all possible.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
A system that decides to rank the interestingness of new RTs by the weirdness of their flanking sequence without prompting is much more novel.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Like a tool that identifies uncategorized enzyme families and ranks them by the unusualness of their surrounding sequences is nice, probably worthy of an application note in bioinformatics, or perhaps even a genome biology methods paper (given they actual found a new family)
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
If, however, it has been instructed or trained to look at the surrounding sequences, then this becomes an interesting tool, but no more. The text of the press release says: "It then searches for family members or genomic neighbors that fit no described system", it's unclear exactly what this means
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Interesting here is defined as having RNA repeats surrounding the gene. If Claude the model identified this feature without any promoting and you right this particular family because of this feature, then I think that is quite remarkable.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The interesting question here is to what extent was the model here following a prompt, and to what extent was it asking its own questions? At the top of the article it seems like they just said "find an interesting new enzyme family", a little further down it was "find an interesting new RT family"
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Surely the game plan here is to convince every scientist in the world that they can no longer work with a Claude subscription?
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Frances Yap @ribo1214.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
TT faculty opening at Indiana University-Bloomington. ⬇️
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Seems to me that in a properly functioning system it should be possible deal with those slashing boats with resorting to terrorism legislation.
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Lyndsey Stonebridge @lyndseystonebri.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
You're going to be needing specialists in: languages, narrative, history, psychology, information, mythology, conspiracies, etc, etc. then? #humanities #socialscience
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Depends at switch stage you are at. If you've been given 5 minutes per application to get a applicant list of 200 down to a long list of maybe 10, then even that will be too much work.
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This is true of many places - higher education is not only a cultural good, it is a massive driver of economies in otherwise left behind places that politicians and journalists rarely visit. What will happen if/when the financial crisis in HE leads to closures?
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The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Too late to change now, but the above should really be: Criminal law should be enforced against those committing criminal acts, says minister responsible for enforcing the criminal law against those committing criminal acts
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Why do all these AI generated infographics all looks the same? Down to their blue backgrounds and glowing 3D lines? Outs not like it would be hard to all for something different in the prompt.
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Robin Moira White @robinmoirawhite.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Curiously unreported by mainstream media. Carried by a show of hands with no opposition. labourlist.org/2026/09/tuc-...
labourlist.org
TUC Congress backs motion opposing EHRC guidance and calls for gender self-ID - LabourList
Unions have backed calls to campaign for gender ‘self ID’ and for a change in “discriminatory and unworkable” guidance around transgender rights.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It's not that your average biologist doesn't think that curing diseases is important, its what allows them to tell themselves that their work is socially good. But for many, deep down, its that urge to understand stuff that really drives them. Until now there was no contradiction between these.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Now this machine comes along that makes understanding unnecessary to generating to cure. If this were to become genuinely effective to would destroy that deal.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Plenty of biologists are worried about this. One way to do biology had always been that a deal is made between society and the researcher. The researcher works towards a cure, but they do that by generating understanding. The understanding its goal of the researcher, the cure society's goal.
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merr-itt came from outer space @merrittk.com · 15/09/2026
god, i was born in the wrong era. imagine being around in the Cambrian period. you could just evolve something simple like shell or legs that nobody had thought of before and coast on that your whole life
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Kristian G. Andersen @kgandersen.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
There is absolutely nothing to support that any of these scientists were "trying to weaponize pathogens". While I don't have access to the underlying data, reading the examples given by Anthropic, they all appear to be basic virological research.
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Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I don’t know which is greater: my inertia at getting going on Monday morning or my disappointment at all that I accomplished (or did not accomplish) in that week on Friday evening. Probably equal I would say.
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Dr Radu Zabet @raduzabet.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Great lab and excellent project. Highly recommend
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
No idea. I wondered if the functionality of biomart was constraining the structure of the database? Once upon a time you could connect directly to the Ensembl db mysql server, as far as I can tell, that option is no longer available, so perhaps the whole architecture of the backend is different.
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Joanna Hardy-Susskind @joannahs.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Well. Would you look at that.
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Ellie Mae O'Hagan @elliemaeohagan.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The anthropic whistleblower is like "no other activity has the potential to create human extinction." Well, speaking as someone who works for a climate think tank, I can think of one
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I'm an academic. I was once in a bar after graduation. You are supposed to wear the academic uniform of the university you graduated from, so I was wearing a white bow tie, undone by this point. Someone came over and asked if I was a conductor.
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Ian Sudbery @iansudbery.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Those are not really fully functional, maintained, and widely used wrappers that abstract away the underlying technical structure in the way the biomaRt package does.
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