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Jeffrey Townsend

@jeffreytownsend.bsky.social
4.3K followers 3.6K following 395 posts

Elihu Professor of Biostatistics @yalesph.bsky.social--Evolutionary biology of cancer, infectious disease, and fungi; sometimes running.

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Reposted by Jeffrey Townsend
AgentJoeMcJoe 🇺🇸 @joemcjoe11.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I am old enough to remember Richard Nixon. What he did was criminal, but basically more stupid than anything. He didn't hurt American citizens. He was just paranoid. Compare to Trumpy who has cost everyone so much, it's not even a fair comparison. Trumpy makes billions while all of us suffer.
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Patrick De Klotz @patdeklotz.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
It is a national scandal that we are buddy-buddy with someone who bonesawed a journalist. Indeed, we assisted in covering up the murder.
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This Old Man of the Woods wasn't in the woods—it was in my back yard! 📸🍄
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
People say #Medicare4All is “too expensive” yet Americans already pay huge sums through taxes, premiums, deductibles, copayments, and prescription costs. The real question is: should our health-care system should serve patients or profits. 🛟 youtu.be/BPOq6oup228
youtu.be
Over and over, we hear that Medicare for All is just “too expensive.” That is false. Here’s why.
YouTube video by Bernie Sanders
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Yale Cancer Center @yalecancer.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A new study from @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social shows how ranking mutations by cancer effect size, not frequency alone, can surface rare, potentially high-impact variants overlooked by standard approaches. medicine.yale.edu/cancer/publi... @plosone.org @yalesph.bsky.social
medicine.yale.edu
Driver Mutations in Chinese Liver Cancer Ranked
This study identifies which mutations most strongly drive hepatocellular carcinoma—liver cancer—in Chinese patients by measuring each mutation's selective
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I am tired of people saying we can’t win in front of the Supreme Court. I’m annoyed by those who say my firm is too partisan to be effective. Today we won a huge redistricting fight before SCOTUS and a ballot access case before the Nebraska Supreme Court. The lesson: When we fight we win.
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
In liver cancer, the most frequent mutations aren’t always the most important. 🧪 Estimating the growth and proliferation advantage in tumor evolution, we identified rare, high-effect candidates that frequency-based analyses can miss. ♋ @yalecancer.bsky.social: medicine.yale.edu/cancer/publi...
medicine.yale.edu
Driver Mutations in Chinese Liver Cancer Ranked
This study identifies which mutations most strongly drive hepatocellular carcinoma—liver cancer—in Chinese patients by measuring each mutation's selective
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Andrew Weinstein @andrewjweinstein.com · 09/09/2026
You know who actually did show up at Ground Zero? Canadian emergency rescue crews.
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Patton Oswalt @pattonoswalt.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Apparently people are sharing this far and wide on social media, which I think is horrible. This could cripple ICE operations. PLEASE do not share this.
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Moi Expósito-Alonso (MOILAB) @mexpositoalonso.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
The prestigious Miller Research Postdoctoral Fellowship is open! University of California, Berkeley This is a postdoc fellowship with substantial support and independence to be hosted at a lab at Berkeley, reach out with interests! miller.berkeley.edu/nominate-app...
miller.berkeley.edu
Miller Research Fellowship | Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science
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Vincent J Lynch 🐘🦣🦥 🦇🐋🐢🐍 @devoevomed.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I’ve been saying for years that cancer is a “problem” to be solved by #EvoDevo #DevoEvo and here @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social is showing it!
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
An exciting scientific collaboration 🧪 uncovered a gene–environment "collaboration" in colorectal cancer: an inherited MGMT variant predisposes tumors to alkylating DNA damage, red-meat intake amplifies it—and the damage it causes drives oncogenic KRAS mutations. #EvoDevo doi.org/10.1158/1055...
doi.org
Germline Predisposition to Oncogenic Alkylating Damage in Colorectal Cancer
AbstractBackground:. Red meat consumption is a risk factor for colorectal cancer and has been linked to tumor alkylating DNA damage. rs16906252-T is a cis expression quantitative trait locus variant a...
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Colon and rectal cancers are neighbors—but do their somatic mutations evolve in the same way? 🧪 Our analysis shows that prevalence can mislead: selection is broadly similar by gene, yet BRAF V600E and PIK3CA hotspots are far more strongly selected in colon cancer. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
A comparative mutation–selection reanalysis of colon and rectal adenocarcinoma highlights PIK3CA variants and BRAF V600E - Journal of Translational Medicine
Journal of Translational Medicine -
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
A paper w/ a satisfying origin—it began as a Statistical Practice class project for Master’s students @yalesph.bsky.social. Ruiheng Wu & Houmin Xing kept at it 🧪 —and turned it into published research quantifying the selection on mutations in liver cancer 🩺 @plosone.org! doi.org/10.1371/jour...
journals.plos.org
Driver mutation impact in Chinese hepatocellular carcinoma
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains a leading cause of cancer mortality in China. The Chinese Liver Cancer Atlas (CLCA) recently reported whole-genome sequencing of 494 HCC tumors, nominating 23 co...
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The Wolfpack @wolfpack11720.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
"Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men." ~ Plato @knecessary.bsky.social
"What luck, for governments, that the people are stupid!"
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
A small decline in MMR vaccination can carry a very large price. In this @pnas.org Science Sessions podcast, Alison Galvani discusses new work quantifying how waning measles vaccination translates into outbreaks, illness—and billions of dollars in societal costs. 🛟 www.pnas.org/post/podcast...
pnas.org
Economic toll of declining MMR vaccination
Alison Galvani explains the costs of waning measles vaccination rates.
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Reposted by Jeffrey Townsend
Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 15/08/2026
Listen to Commander Adama.
"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Universal health coverage could save $1 Trillion and 114,000 lives every year. 🛟🧪 m.yale.edu/dmfs
m.yale.edu
Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Universal health coverage could save $1 Trillion and 114,000 lives every year. 🛟 🧪 m.yale.edu/dmfs
m.yale.edu
Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it
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Yale Cancer Center @yalecancer.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
@jeffreytownsend.bsky.social shares an editorial in #InternationalJournalofCancer on the analysis from Vaeyens et al. of BRAF, KRAS & EGFR, showing why co-mutation patterns are hypotheses and not proof of biological interaction. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Empowering Inference of Epistasis on the Basis of Mutual Exclusivity, Co‐Occurrence, Functional Antagonism and Synergy in <fc>ERK</fc>‐Pathway Oncogenes
Click on the article title to read more.
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Medicare for all would save 114,000 lives and more than $1 trillion per year. www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releas...
sanders.senate.gov
NEWS: New Study Confirms Medicare for All Would Save 114,000 Lives and more than $1 Trillion a Year » Senator Bernie Sanders
WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today issued the following statement after Yale University rese...
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Reposted by Jeffrey Townsend
Yale Cancer Center @yalecancer.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Analysis from @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social et al. suggests continued investment in #mRNA #cancer #immunotherapy could have substantial population-level benefits with an est. 49,000 deaths averted across NSCLC, pancreatic cancer, RCC, and melanoma. sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
The Trump regime admitted in court filings that the cancellation of clean energy grants for Hawaiʻi was because the state voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, rather than the previously stated reasons of advancing energy needs or economic viability.
civilbeat.org
Trump Administration Lawyers Admit Hawaiʻi Funding Cuts Were Partisan
The admission about terminated clean energy grants emerged in recent court filings, confirming what many already suspected.
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Rep. Mike Levin @levin.house.gov · 07/08/2026
$4 BILLION. That’s how much the Trump Administration has now spent paying companies to cancel offshore wind projects that would have lowered your electric bill. Yes, you heard that right: they are PAYING to keep more energy off the grid and your bills higher.
nytimes.com
Trump Administration to Pay RWE to Cancel Wind Leases
It was the fifth such deal struck by the administration to get companies to drop offshore wind projects.
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Among U.S. patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, renal cell carcinoma, and metastatic melanoma alone, in a single year, mRNA immunotherapies avert over 49,000 deaths. 🧪 The corresponding economic value is $75.6 billion. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Projected lives saved and economic value of mRNA cancer immunotherapies in the United States
Messenger RNA (mRNA) technology helped prevent millions of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic and is emerging as a promising cancer treatment modalit…
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Noah Whiteman @nkwhiteman.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
I’m thrilled to share that our search for a tenure-track colleague in my *truly wonderful and collegial* Genetics, Genomics, Evolution and Development Division in the MCB Department at Berkeley @berkeleymcb.bsky.social is live! Please share this broad search widely: aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05481
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Assistant Professor -Genetics, Genomics, Evolution, and Development - Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
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Leonie Moyle @speciationlab.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Interested in genetics, diversification, and speciation? We're hiring a Research Associate to help with our projects, including the convergent evolution of fruit color. Come and work with us! Feel free to contact me with questions. (Reposts appreciated!) Link: indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/33973
a matrix of 6 different Solanum (wild tomato) species with six different fruit colors, ranging from white to bright red.
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Walker Bragman @walkerbragman.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
SARS-CoV-2 did not come from a lab. There is no evidence pointing to laboratory origins. There’s been a massive disinformation campaign to convince the public otherwise. It’s scary how effective that campaign has been.
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
250 years young, let’s keep our republic academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...
academic.oup.com
250 years young, let’s keep our republic
Soon after exiting the Constitutional Convention on 17 September 1787, when asked by a member of the public if the delegates had created a republic or a mo
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Just published in Journal of Translational Medicine: we investigate mutations driving colon and rectal adenocarcinomas. Deconvolution into mutational supply and selection motivates anatomical specification with BRAF and PIK3CA hotspot status. 🧪 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
A comparative mutation–selection reanalysis of colon and rectal adenocarcinoma highlights PIK3CA variants and BRAF V600E - Journal of Translational Medicine
Journal of Translational Medicine -
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Ro Khanna @rokhanna.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
The Trump Administration is sending billions to Amazon, Apple, Walmart, and other big corporations to refund them for Trump’s tariffs. American households were estimated to lose over $1,000 to tariff price hikes. Here's an idea: refund working families before big business.
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 25/07/2026
Admirable clarity @science.org
The Trump administration hates academic science funding, full stop. They hate where that money goes, and they hate who it goes to. They want to keep all that money for themselves, to hand out to favored cronies who can help them get elected and to steer yet more money and more power back into their hands.

That’s it. That’s the story
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
just out in Frontiers in Genetics: "Evaluating the prognostic value of mutational signatures in small-cell lung cancer" www.frontiersin.org/journals/gen... —a scientific publishing story 🧪: from a curious student, to an investigation, to a journal inquiry, to a new study.
frontiersin.org
Frontiers | Evaluating the prognostic value of mutational signatures in small-cell lung cancer through reference-based signature assignment and continuous activity analysis
BackgroundSmall-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an aggressive malignancy with poor survival outcomes. Biomarkers that reliably capture tumor mutational burden (TM...
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Dmitri Petrov @petrovadmitri.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Cannot be more excited about the lineup for the inaugural Function of Evolving Systems GRC conference I am co-organizing with the amazing Joy Bergelson. Less than a month away: August 9 - 14, 2026. Still a few spots left! And do check out the amazing list of speakers: www.grc.org/function-of-...
grc.org
2026 Function of Evolving Systems Conference GRC
The 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Function of Evolving Systems will be held in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. Apply today to reserve your spot.
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Nadia Aubin-Horth @naubinhorth.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
As #SMBE2026 in Copenhagen is behind us, thanks to everyone who showed enthusiasm for #SMBE2027 ! Even after the cancellation of SMBE 2020 because of the pandemic, we still are like the little Hoptimist guy from Denmark. See you in Québec City in June 2027!
A spring loaded orange character with two feet and an antenna on it’s round head sits on a table with a box saying Hoptimist
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Leducq Lab @leducq-lab.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Thank you to #SMBE2026 organizers for this great meeting in København! See you next year for #SMBE2027 in Québec City, Canada! smbe2027.org
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Anne-Marie Dion-Côté @amdioncote.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
So excited for #smbe2027 to occur in my hometown, and grateful to @christianlandry.bsky.social, @naubinhorth.bsky.social, the LOC and the student committee for jumping in again! It will be an amazing opportunity for members of the lab to network, learn and share our work!
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
has accessed the office transcription of Scott Jennings' call to Mitch McConnell: open.substack.com/pub/jeffreyp...
open.substack.com
Transcription of Scott Jenning's call to Mitch McConnell
Jennings:
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
@multitarga.com was featured in this Yale School of Public Health piece on community and health innovation. Our Multi-Targeted Primer reagents aim to make high-quality RNA-seq more focused, efficient, and accessible across health, agriculture, and surveillance. ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
Three entrepreneurs standing next to an electronic poster featuring the company MultiTarga and its tagline, "Targeted technologies for genomic discovery".
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Tumor driver co-mutation patterns are not conclusions—they are hypotheses. Mutual exclusivity/co-occurrence in cancer genomes become biologically meaningful (i.e. informative of epistasis) only when evaluated in the context of mutation-rate heterogeneity. 🧪: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Empowering Inference of Epistasis on the Basis of Mutual Exclusivity, Co‐Occurrence, Functional Antagonism and Synergy in ERK‐Pathway Oncogenes
Click on the article title to read more.
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Tahir Ali @tahirali-biomics.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Working at the intersection of AI, LLMs, genomics, and evolution, I agree: AI accelerates, but expertise drives. The real question is no longer “Can you use AI” but “Do you know when it’s right—and when it only looks right?” Excellent read: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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phy_papers @phypapers.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
prepR4pcm: An R Package for Preparing Data and Trees for Phylo- genetic Comparative Methods ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/13554
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Peter Andolfatto @pandolfatto.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
8/n As proof of principle, we used scarless CRISPR-cas9 genome-editing to reconstruct evolutionary intermediates for one candidate, Trio (flybase.org/reports/FBgn...), that harbors a cluster of three putatively adaptive amino acid substitutions unique to the D. melanogaster lineage.
flybase.org
FlyBase Gene Report: Dmel\trio
FlyBase: a database for drosophila genetics and molecular biology
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Peter Andolfatto @pandolfatto.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
7/n Using genome-wide population genetic approach based on the McDonald-Kreitman test framework (called MASS-PRF, Zhao et al. 2017 10.1093/molbev/msx213, @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social), we identified dozens of potentially experimentally tractable candidate proteins.
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Peter Andolfatto @pandolfatto.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
2/n Intramolecular epistasis is increasingly recognized as an important feature of adaptive protein evolution. But how do adaptive amino acid substitutions actually accumulate? Do epistatically interacting substitutions fix sequentially, or do favorable combinations assemble before fixation?
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Peter Andolfatto @pandolfatto.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
1/n Check out our new paper, spearheaded by @fborne.bsky.social, just out in PLoS Genetics doi.org/10.1371/jour....
doi.org
Epistasis among clustered lineage-specific amino acid substitutions in the Drosophila Trio protein
Author summary Proteins fold into three-dimensional structures that are essential for their function. Because these structures depend on interactions among amino acids, the fitness effect of a mutatio...
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
visited our new "blue" Lincoln Monument reflecting pool.
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Politics is entitled to determine the topics and targets for public investment of funds. But the science to be done to accomplish those goals is best decided on by scientists. White House seeks to tighten political oversight of grantmaking | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
White House seeks to tighten political oversight of grantmaking
Sweeping proposed rule, now open for comments, would also restrict foreign collaborations and remove federal funding for open-access fees
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Jeffrey Townsend @jeffreytownsend.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
New @plos.org-GENETICS: Borne, Taverner & @pandolfatto.bsky.social use MASS-PRF to detect clustered, lineage-specific amino-acid substitutions in Drosophila proteins—then beautifully validate one case in Trio. journals.plos.org/plosgenetics... 🧪 #EvoDevo
Four-panel figure showing MASS-PRF inference of clustered, lineage-specific amino acid substitutions in Drosophila proteins. Each panel plots selection intensity across protein sequence position, with the inferred signal shown as a black curve, uncertainty or background density in gray, and focal clustered amino acid substitutions highlighted in red. Domain schematics below each plot compare D. melanogaster and D. simulans protein architecture, with red dots marking focal substitutions and gray dots marking other substitutions. Insets show predicted or known protein structures with the clustered substitutions labeled in red.

Panel A shows Trio, with a strong peak of selection intensity near residues 1315, 1318, and 1335 in the DH-PH region, mapped onto a Rac1-interacting structural model. Panel B shows Fmr1, with clustered substitutions near residues 75, 84, 89, 92, 104, and 127 in the N-terminal region near Argnet domains, shown on an inset structure. Panel C shows CG3544, with a strong peak near residues 402, 405, and 412 in an FGGY-domain region, mapped near an ADP-binding structural model. Panel D shows Pgd, with a strong peak near residues 50, 52, and 60 in the NAD-binding region, mapped near an NADP-associated structural model.
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