Sign in

Kerry Cobb

@kerrycobb.bsky.social
73 followers 112 following 16 posts

Bioinformatics Analyst in the UConn Computational Biology Core. UConn Health Affiliate.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Rob Patro @robp.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It's here! new preprint: Gravlax, an annotation-independent molecular evidence archive for scRNA-seq. A count matrix freezes one annotation. Molecules never change. Instead, gravlax keeps the evidence. Requantify, query, and discover under any annotation. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
33413
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
rachellcosby.bsky.social @rachellcosby.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Infertility affects ~1 in 6 people, and up to 30% of cases are unexplained. I am excited to present my postdoctoral work from @toddmacfarlan.bsky.social 's lab, now available as a preprint: tinyurl.com/yync6f2r addressing a possible role for the meiotic gene PRDM9 in infertility 🧵/1
Link to preprint titled: "PRDM9-mediated meiotic hotspot specification is constrained in humans despite extensive sequence diversity"
12917
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Rob Patro @robp.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
New preprint led by Zoe Rudnick: bramble 🌿 RNA-seq quantification makes you pick a side. Align to the transcriptome and your quantifier is happy, but reads from unannotated transcripts get misassigned to annotated ones. Align to the genome and you keep discovery, but limit quantification choices.
12913
Kerry Cobb @kerrycobb.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
This is a great opportunity!
010
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
UConn Computational Biology Core @cbcuconn.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Join us Sept 22-24 for a Virtual Genome Assembly Workshop! 🧬 Learn sequencing, assembly & QC—all from your laptop. 📅 10 AM - 2 PM EST 💻 Live on MS Teams + recordings 💰 $600 ($500 UConn affiliates) Register: bioinformatics.uconn.edu/cbc-workshops/ #GenomeAssembly #Bioinformatics #Workshop
011
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Philippe Batut @philippebatut.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
🧬🔬 Why are enhancers transcribed and how does that impact gene regulation? I’m really excited to share our new paper in @science.org showing that noncoding RNAs control the timing of gene activation in embryos. With Mike Levine #ScienceResearch @columbiamed.bsky.social A few highlights below... 🧵👇
science.org
Noncoding transcription controls the developmental dynamics of long-range gene regulation
The genomic regions regulating gene expression are often themselves transcribed into a variety of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs). However, the regulatory roles of this noncoding transcription remain largely ...
5233115
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Nick Stroustrup @nstroustrup.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Did you know that the cells of old animals contain much less mRNA than the cells of young ones? Let me share with you some results from an ongoing project in the lab, where we are finding that a progressive depletion of total mRNA abundance is a crucial part of aging 1/22
620983
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Nozomu Yachie @nzmyachie.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Maybe it’s time to say goodbye to UMAP and other low-dimensional embeddings (at least in many single-cell analyses). We developed MILK to encode single-cell populations into tree representations at unprecedented scales. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Here’s what MILK is: 🧵
14425
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Emma Dann @emmamarydann.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Our work on systematic perturb-seq of primary human T cells is now out in Cell 🎉 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... It's been a privilege to work with @ronghuizhu.bsky.social between @jkpritch.bsky.social @marsonlab.bsky.social labs, with a dream-team of co-authors ❤️ Highlights in preprint thread👇
cell.com
Genome-scale perturb-seq in primary human CD4+ T cells maps context-specific regulators of T cell programs and human immune traits
A dynamic atlas of gene regulation was generated by perturbing every expressed gene across 22 million primary human CD4+ T cells under resting conditions and following re-stimulation. The resulting ma...
14620
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Jesse Engreitz @jengreitz.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Excited for a major milestone in our efforts to map enhancers and interpret variants in the human genome: The E2G Portal! e2g.stanford.edu This collates our predictions of enhancer-gene regulatory interactions across >1,600 cell types and tissues. Uses cases 👇 1/
39242
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Jack Bateman @jbateman01.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Single-cell 3D genome imaging shows super-enhancer hubs are rare, nonspecific, and neither necessary nor sufficient for transcriptional bursting 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...
0116
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
UConn Computational Biology Core @cbcuconn.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Join us Aug. 25-27 for a Virtual RNA-seq Analysis Workshop! 🧬Learn QC, alignment, differential expression, and enrichment using a reference genome. 🕙 10 AM – 2 PM ET 💻 MS Teams + recordings 💰 $600 ($500 UConn) Register: bioinformatics.uconn.edu/cbc-workshops/ #RNAseq #Bioinformatics #Workshop
011
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Jesse Engreitz @jengreitz.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Update: scE2G is now online at Nature Genetics! Since the preprint, we added a new benchmark on a fully held-out CRISPR dataset. scE2G continues to show state-of-the-art performance, reinforcing that it generalizes well nature.com/articles/s41588-026-02695-8 1/
Held-out CRISPR benchmark: n=189 positives, 4,175 tested pairs from 5 cell types. Weighted AUPRC bar chart with scE2G-Multiome and scE2G-ATAC highest, above Distance to TSS, ABC, and 8 other single-cell methods.
13514
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Matthew Hahn @3rdreviewer.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Very cool pair of papers demonstrating little link between amount of additive genetic variation and amount of nucleotide variation within species: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
journals.plos.org
Levels of additive genetic variation vary substantially between species
Adaptive potential determines how populations respond to environmental change. This study compiles evolvability estimates from over 170 multicellular species, revealing substantial variation across th...
112361
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Lior Pachter @lpachter.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
One of the major pains of academia is having to click through labyrinths of webpages to submit papers. Now, thanks to Joe Rich (and AI), problem solved! His tool is called PaperPush and is available at github.com/pachterlab/p... It's super easy to use! 1/🧵
github.com
GitHub - pachterlab/paperpush
Contribute to pachterlab/paperpush development by creating an account on GitHub.
36430
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
James Ferguson @psy-fer.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
The case study covers rustar-aligner (a re-write of STAR into rust), svb (a streamvbyte+VBZ/EX-ZD codec for signal compression), and kuva (scientific plotting library in rust github.com/scverse/rust... github.com/Psy-Fer/svb github.com/Psy-Fer/kuva
github.com
GitHub - scverse/rustar-aligner: A rust implementation of STAR
A rust implementation of STAR. Contribute to scverse/rustar-aligner development by creating an account on GitHub.
073
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Mahul Chakraborty @mahulchak.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Beyond providing insight into the centromere paradox, this work demonstrates that complete chromosome reconstruction is now possible from wild-caught flies, opening new opportunities for population, functional, and quantitative genomics in Drosophila. Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
A conserved architectural domain shapes centromere evolution in Drosophila
Centromeres ensure faithful chromosome segregation despite being embedded within rapidly evolving repetitive DNA, a contradiction known as the centromere paradox. While centromere identity is defined ...
0148
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
kottke.org @kottke.org · 23/07/2026
“A beloved, useful, free website, run carefully by a competent, honest person for nearly thirty years, was crushed between two features of the new AI economy.” (AI bots and prediction market dipshits.) [stephenfollows.com]
stephenfollows.com
What just happened to TheNumbers.com should worry us all
If you work in or around the film industry, there is a decent chance you have used the work of The Numbers this month, whether you realise it or not.
09056
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
bioRxiv Genomics @biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
HPRC2: A human pangenome reference with near-complete coverage of common genetic variation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
04024
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
American Statistical Association History of Statistics @hos-asa.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Few statisticians know that Frank Yates, pioneer of experimental design, is responsible for the annoying practice of indicating 3 tiers of statistical significance by stars (*p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001). He soon regretted it and “vehemently opposed its unthinking use”. And here we are.
112954
Kerry Cobb @kerrycobb.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
One week left to sign up for our ChIP/ATAC-seq workshop!
000
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 20/07/2026
Holy shit, we're actually getting there. "UCLA researchers develop low-cost blood test to detect multiple cancers and other diseases from a single sample [—] In tests, MethylScan detected about 63% of cancers across all stages and roughly 55% of early-stage cancers." (from April) #ShareGoodNewsToo
newsroom.ucla.edu
UCLA researchers develop low-cost blood test to detect multiple cancers and other diseases from a single sample
The test could offer a more affordable approach to early disease detection.
22289412537
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Andreas Gschwind @argschwind.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Thrilled to share that our ENCODE enhancer–gene mapping paper is now out in Nature! An encyclopedia of human enhancer–gene regulatory interactions: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Thread 👇 1/
nature.com
An encyclopedia of human enhancer–gene regulatory interactions - Nature
An encyclopedia of more than 92 million enhancer–gene regulatory interactions created as part of the ENCODE4 project provides a valuable resource for future studies of gene regulation and human geneti...
18041
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Binyam Mogessie ቢንያም ሞገሴ @binyammogessie.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
New paper from the @xionglab.bsky.social and Mogessie labs at Yale! We uncover the molecular architecture of mammalian oocyte cytoplasmic lattices (CPLs), revealing GTP-bound tubulin associated with a degradative protein complex. Read the paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...
doi.org
Cytoplasmic lattices store developmentally poised degradative and cytoskeletal complexes in mammalian eggs - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
Li et al. obtain high-resolution, native structures revealing that cytoplasmic lattices in mammalian eggs organize and store degradative and cytoskeletal complexes for early embryonic development.
35423
Kerry Cobb @kerrycobb.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Join us July 28-30 to learn about ChIP-seq and ATAC-seq data analysis! Register at bioinformatics.uconn.edu/cbc-workshops/
Ready to explore chromatin dynamics?

Join us July 28-30, 2026 (10 AM–2 PM EST) for a virtual, hands-on workshop designed for faculty, researchers, and students. Learn to analyze ChIP-Seq and ATAC-Seq datasets, from quality control and peak calling to downstream analysis—right from your laptop!

Live via Zoom + recordings available
$600 ($500 for UConn/UCH affiliates)
 No travel required—just bring your curiosity!
 Register now: https://bioinformatics.uconn.edu/cbc-workshops/
 Questions? Email: cbcsupport@helpspotmail.com
000
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Steven Salzberg @stevensalzberg.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Our new genome annotation method relies almost entirely on transcriptome and alignment evidence, and as a result outperforms pretty much all other de novo pipelines. Check out the just-published paper led by Aleksey Zimin: rdcu.be/frSOg
rdcu.be
Efficient evidence-based genome annotation with EviAnn
Nature Methods - EviAnn surpasses existing genome annotation methods by leveraging gene expression and protein sequence homology evidence to achieve higher accuracy and efficiency.
04420
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Jeremy Hollis’ detective story on centromeric histone chaperones (HJURP/Cal1) is now published after peer review with a few extra goodies. @jeremyahollis.bsky.social @nlehrbach.bsky.social @cbmoens.bsky.social @irinakitop.bsky.social @basicsci.fredhutch.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Remote homology and functional genetics unmask deeply preserved Scm3/HJURP orthologs in metazoans
Animals encode a rapidly evolving, essential cell cycle gene previously thought to be absent.
23012
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Megan Smith @snaildit.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
I’m also recruiting a postdoc to work on an NSF-funded project focused on using machine learning for population genetic inference. Would love to talk to anyone who is interested! (Official ad to come soon).
01115
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Heng Li @lh3lh3.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Minibwa is a hybrid of bwa-mem and minimap2 and the successor of bwa-mem for short-read mapping. ~4X/2.5X as fast as bwa-mem/bwa-mem2 for WGS reads at comparable accuracy. Native support of directional bisulfite-seq. Applicable to long reads. Preprint at arxiv.org/abs/2606.15357
1193109
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Jill Wegrzyn @jillwegrzyn.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Join the Plant Computational Genomics Lab and the Institute for Systems Genomics @uconnresearch.bsky.social ! Currently seeking 2 full-time onsite research assistants, one of whom will be our Molecular Lab Manager. Apply by June 26th. 🌲 🌳 🧬 @uconneeb.bsky.social jobs.hr.uconn.edu/en-us/job/49...
jobs.hr.uconn.edu
UConn Careers | UConn Careers | University of Connecticut
0810
Kerry Cobb @kerrycobb.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
There's still time to sign up for our single cell rna-seq workshop!
010
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Dan Landau @landau.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Exciting breakthrough technology from the lab, now live in @cellcellpress.bsky.social ! Instead of cutting the genome where proteins bind (e.g., Cut&Tag), D&D-seq scars the DNA with a deaminase, allowing single cell genome mapping of TFs and chromatin remodellers!
212851
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
UConn Computational Biology Core @cbcuconn.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Join our Single Cell RNA-seq Workshop on June 23-25! Gain practical skills to analyze and interpret single-cell data. No experience needed! 📅 10 AM – 2 PM ET 💻 MS Teams + recording 💰 $600 ($500 UConn) Register: bioinformatics.uconn.edu/cbc-workshops/ #RNASeq #Bioinformatics
001
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
#SingleCell preprints @prepub-singlecell.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
A multimodal perturbation atlas defines the phenotypic resolution of cellular morphology. #SingleCell 🧪🧬🖥️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
002
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Romain Lopez @biologicalml.org · 01/06/2026
🚀 We are introducing PerturbPair (with Taka Kudo) — a platform that combines parallel Perturb-seq and optical pooled screening (PerturbView) in primary cells to systematically map at massive scale how genetic perturbations reshape cellular states across modalities. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
1279
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
bioRxiv Bioinfo @biorxiv-bioinfo.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Memory-safe high-performance sequence mapping with rammap www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
12613
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Nicolas Robine 🇪🇺🇫🇷🇺🇸 @nicorobine.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Single Cell Genomics Day: A (Virtual) Practical Workshop. June 12, 2026, organized by @nygenome.org's Rahul Satija Free, livestreamed, no registration.
02121
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
bioRxiv Bioinfo @biorxiv-bioinfo.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Benchmarking normalisation methods for differential binding analysis in CUT&RUN www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
083
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Matthew Aguirre @aguirre404.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Happy to share that this is now out in Cell Genomics and a featured paper for Multi-Journal Submission from @cellpress.bsky.social — many thanks to the editorial team + our reviewers! Short recap + some further thoughts on the paper ⬇️ [1/7] www.cell.com/cell-genomic...
23414
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Kevin Bird @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
First real post on the new blog! If you follow human genetics, you've likely of "missing heritability". If you look at twins to estimate heritability, you get values much larger than what molecular genomic methods produce. IQ, for example, goes from 50-80% heritability to 10-15%. Which is right?
512650
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Ipsita Agarwal @ipsitaagarwal.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
I am delighted to share new work with Simon Myers (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...), on how genetic variants that influence binding patterns of PRDM9 and slow down the repair of meiotic double-strand breaks impact mammalian spermatogenesis and fertility. 1/n
biorxiv.org
23324
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Floris Barthel @florisbarthel.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
The human genome's most variable and clinically important regions (centromeres, telomeres, and acrocentric short arms) have been hardest to study at scale. Thrilled to share KaryoScope, our new preprint that brings them within reach. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
KaryoScope karyotype of the HG002 diploid assembly. All 22 autosomes plus X and Y, each shown as paired haplotypes (h1, h2). Each chromosome has a full-length track colored by chromosome of origin, a centromere zoom panel showing satellite composition, and a subtelomere zoom panel. Legends map chromosomes, satellite families, and subtelomeric features to colors.
35623
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Ran Blekhman @blekhman.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Some thoughts on where AI in genomics stands right now, building on a symposium we recently hosted at UChicago. Seven points, ranging from why scaling DNA models hasn't delivered, to why metadata is the real bottleneck, to the weird backlash against AI in academia open.substack.com/pub/blekhman...
open.substack.com
Seven points on the current state of AI in genomics
A grounded take from the messy middle of an AI revolution
46825
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Doudna Lab @doudna-lab.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
New pre-print 📣 “Undruggable” cancer mutations remain very hard to target with current modalities. What if we could instead sense mutant transcripts and convert that recognition into selective cell killing? Check out this work led by postdoc Jingkun Zeng: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
14117
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Christine Mayr @christinemayr.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
If you want to know what 3′UTRs with long conserved sequence stretches do, check out our BioRxiv preprint doi.org/10.64898/202.... They form functional intermolecular 3′UTR-3′UTR interactions that enable co-folding of proteins to rapidly induce transcriptional programs.
513956
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Vijay G. Sankaran @bloodgenes.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
🚨 Excited to share a new paper in Cell! Human genetics led us to HOTSCRAMBL, a HOXA-locus lncRNA that regulates 🩸#stemcell self-renewal and HOXA9 splicing, with implications for AML. Amazing work by @lvchosen1.bsky.social with many others! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
16121
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Erik Sontheimer 🇺🇸💙🇺🇦 @eriksontheimer.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Site-specific, multi-kilobase insertions and over-writes in mammalian cells, without DSBs, HDR, recombinases, integrases, transposases, or active cell cycling? Using fully or predominantly single-stranded DNA donors? 1/15
14926
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
UCDavisPlants @ucdavisplants.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
🌱 From The Plant Cell: Identifying an aberrant RNA trigger reveals why some engineered genes shut down, guiding design of more stable traits in crops. (Richard Michelmore , Blake C Meyers) ▶️ academic.oup.com/plcell/artic... #PlantScience #PlantBiology
academic.oup.com
Identification of a cleaved aberrant RNA associated with the initiation of transgene silencing
Target capture enriched long-read RNA-sequencing uncovers a cleaved aberrant RNA from a ribosome stalling event that is associated with transgene silencing
02818
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Kenneth Loi @kenjmloi.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Excited to share our discovery of a new programmable RNA-guided DNA-targeting system hiding inside bacteriophages that predates CRISPR. We call it VIPR (Viral Interference Programmable Repeat), and it uses an entirely new logic to find its targets. Thread + link below.
7448197
Reposted by Kerry Cobb
Marcos Castro e Silva, PhD 🇧🇷 @macscastro.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
🚨 Check out our new paper in Nature! In our new study, we sequenced 128 high-coverage genomes from Indigenous peoples across Latin America and uncovered their unique genetic diversity and history. 👇🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The evolutionary history and unique genetic diversity of Indigenous Americans - Nature
Analysis of 128 high-coverage Indigenous American genomes shows extensive diversity shaped by several South American dispersals, ancient Australasian admixture, archaic introgression and long-term ada...
15727