Reposted by Mineto OtaRomain 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 Mineto OtaHarmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 21/04/2026A herculean effort by many, but esp. the first three authors: Ujjwal Rathore, Eli Dugan, and Hunter Thornton working in the Krogan and Marson labs, with a veritable army of collaborators from HARC (harc.ucsf.edu) and beyond. Press release: gladstone.org/news/scienti... (inc. paper link)gladstone.orgScientists Map How HIV Hijacks Human Cells—and How Cells Can Fight BackA new genetic roadmap reveals hundreds of hidden players in HIV infection, including two proteins that stop HIV in its tracks. 04819
Reposted by Mineto OtaHuisheng (Julie) Zhu @huishengzhu.bsky.social · 30/03/2026Why do schizophrenia GWAS signals look so flat across the genome? In our recent preprint, we explored why psychiatric disorders — and, more broadly, brain-related traits involving the central nervous system — appear to have unusual genetic architectures. 🧵1/n 49142
Reposted by Mineto OtaJonathan Pritchard @jkpritch.bsky.social · 05/01/2026I'm just delighted to announce our new preprint on genome-scale perturb-seq in CD4+ T cells. We learned both general lessons about the power of perturb-seq, and specific lessons about T cell biology. Led by amazing postdocs Emma Dann and Ronghui Zhu, with my wonderful collaborator Alex Marson. 05827
Reposted by Mineto OtaNikhil Milind @nikhilmilind.dev · 06/01/2026How well does TWAS estimate a gene’s direction of effect on a trait? We think of this as an important stress-test for the accuracy of TWAS. In a new pre-print, we find that TWAS gets the sign wrong around 20-30% of the time! doi.org/10.64898/202... 1/ndoi.orgHigh false sign rates in transcriptome-wide association studiesTranscriptome-wide association studies (TWAS) are widely used to identify genes involved in complex traits and to infer the direction of gene effects on traits. However, despite their popularity, it r... 26626
Reposted by Mineto OtaEmma Dann @emmamarydann.bsky.social · 05/01/2026Together with @ronghuizhu.bsky.social, we are thrilled to present our new perturb-seq study of 22M primary CD4+ T cells, across donors and timepoints – the result of a decade-long collaboration between the Marson @marsonlab.bsky.social and Pritchard @jkpritch.bsky.social labs 🧵 tinyurl.com/gwt2025tinyurl.comGenome-scale perturb-seq in primary human CD4+ T cells maps context-specific regulators of T cell programs and human immune traitsGene regulatory networks encode the fundamental logic of cellular functions, but systematic network mapping remains challenging, especially in cell states relevant to human biology and disease. Here, ... 26529
Reposted by Mineto OtaJonathan Pritchard @jkpritch.bsky.social · 13/12/2025Our latest preprint revisits the classic model of mutation-selection balance. Do human recessive genes fit Haldane's 100-year old model? This work is by the wonderful @jonj-udd.bsky.social, and co-mentored by @jeffspence.github.io www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...biorxiv.orgAllele Frequencies at Recessive Disease Genes are Mainly Determined by Pleiotropic Effects in HeterozygotesThe classic theory of mutation-selection balance predicts the equilibrium frequency of genetic variation under negative selection. The model predicts a simple relationship between the total frequency ... 412554
Reposted by Mineto OtaJonathan Pritchard @jkpritch.bsky.social · 11/12/2025GWAS has been an incredible discovery tool for human genetics: it regularly identifies *causal* links from 1000s of SNPs to any given trait. But mechanistic interpretation is usually difficult. Our latest work on causal models for this is out yesterday: www.nature.com/articles/s41... A short🧵:nature.comCausal modelling of gene effects from regulators to programs to traits - NatureApproaches combining genetic association and Perturb-seq data that link genetic variants to functional programs to traits are described. 318682
Mineto Ota @minetoota.bsky.social · 11/12/2025After time in the Bay Area, I’ve started a new role as Lecturer in the Department of Allergy and Rheumatology at the University of Tokyo. We’re the group of clinicians who see patients with autoimmune diseases, while researching new treatments and patient stratification. (continued) 173
Mineto Ota @minetoota.bsky.social · 11/12/2025Thank you Alex! Excited to see our paper published in @nature.com ! Huge thanks to @jeffspence.github.io , @tkyzeng.bsky.social , @emmamarydann.bsky.social, @nikhilmilind.dev, @marsonlab.bsky.social, @jkpritch.bsky.social, and all the members of the Pritchard and Marson labs for your enormous help!rdcu.beCausal modelling of gene effects from regulators to programs to traitsNature - Approaches combining genetic association and Perturb-seq data that link genetic variants to functional programs to traits are described. 02813
Reposted by Mineto OtaMatthew Aguirre @aguirre404.bsky.social · 22/08/2025Thrilled to share the second half of my PhD work here! We show how data on expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) relates to the structure of gene regulatory networks (GRN). Much of the GRN / eQTL picture is unmapped, but what we do have says a lot… (1/) doi.org/10.1101/2025... 68028
Reposted by Mineto OtaJeff Spence @jeffspence.github.io · 02/06/2025I'm excited to announce that I'll be starting a lab at UCSF in the @ihgatucsf.bsky.social and @ucsf-epibiostat.bsky.social in July. We'll work at the intersection of statistical genetics, population genetics, and machine learning. 3214324
Reposted by Mineto OtaJonathan Pritchard @jkpritch.bsky.social · 01/06/2025I have an opportunity to hire a staff scientist for my lab. Looking for someone with outstanding skillset in ML/statistics, genomics applications; interest in mentoring, strong publication record, PD experience required. Email CV to me+cc my assistant (see 'contact' on my website). Ad to follow. 384108
Reposted by Mineto OtaJeff Spence @jeffspence.github.io · 28/03/2025A really nice paper by @drghawkes.bsky.social et al. argues that rare and common genetic associations converge on the same genes. While this seems at odds with our recent work about how burden tests and GWAS prioritize different genes, our results agree (🧬🧪🧵 1/6) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...biorxiv.orgWhole-genome sequencing analysis of anthropometric traits in 672,976 individuals reveals convergence between rare and common genetic associationsGenetic association studies have mostly focussed on common variants from genotyping arrays or rare protein-coding variants from exome sequencing. Here, we used whole-genome sequence (WGS) data in 672,... 65922
Reposted by Mineto OtaSahin Naqvi @sahinnaqvi.bsky.social · 27/02/2025Excited to share the peer-reviewed version of our paper on predicting the chromatin response to TF dosage using transfer learning www.cell.com/cell-genomic...cell.comTransfer learning reveals sequence determinants of the quantitative response to transcription factor dosageNaqvi et al. reveal how DNA sequence determines the chromatin response to transcription factor (TF) dosage changes. By combining deep learning and chemical genetics, they uncover specific sequence fea... 13710
Reposted by Mineto OtaAnshul Kundaje @anshulkundaje.bsky.social · 21/02/2025Disease diagnostics using machine learning of B cell and T cell receptor sequences www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... TL;DR: BCRs ARE ALL YOU NEED! (Well actually .... keep reading) 1/science.orgDisease diagnostics using machine learning of B cell and T cell receptor sequencesClinical diagnosis typically incorporates physical examination, patient history, various laboratory tests, and imaging studies but makes limited use of the human immune system’s own record of antigen ... 69725
Reposted by Mineto OtaMagdalena Skipper @magdalenaskipper.bsky.social · 12/02/2025Japan can be a science heavyweight once more — if it rethinks funding Research leaders call for an end to substantial underfunding of interdisciplinary research in Japan. On my current visit to 🇯🇵 I can see the country is ready for a change #japan #academicSky 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...nature.comJapan can be a science heavyweight once more — if it rethinks fundingThe nation must lose its tight focus on individual disciplines if it is to keep pace with the evolving requirements of scientific enquiry. 04916
Reposted by Mineto OtaJonathan Pritchard @jkpritch.bsky.social · 27/01/2025I posted a couple days ago about our new paper on building causal graphs from genetic associations + Perturb-seq. Here I want to expand on the value of using DIRECTIONAL information contained in LoF burden tests.🧵 [work led by @minetoota.bsky.social ] bsky.app/profile/jkpr... 16114
Reposted by Mineto OtaAnshul Kundaje @anshulkundaje.bsky.social · 26/01/2025Beautifully elegant work on integrating LoF, GWAS & Perturb-seq data to build causal paths from regulators to genes / programs to phenotype. And it didn't require a foundational virtual cell model (well almost ... gene & protein embeddings r used in GeneBayes)! 😜 1396
Reposted by Mineto OtaCedric Boeckx @cedricboeckx.bsky.social · 26/01/2025Great new study from @jkpritch.bsky.social’s lab, led by @minetoota.bsky.social, combining ‘quantitative estimates of gene-trait relationships from loss-of-function burden tests with gene-regulatory connections inferred from Perturb-seq experiments in relevant cell types’ 👇 053
Reposted by Mineto OtaEmma Dann @emmamarydann.bsky.social · 26/01/2025@minetoota.bsky.social set the groundwork for many ongoing projects in @jkpritch.bsky.social and Marson lab. Great to see this out! 0103
Reposted by Mineto OtaEric Fauman (he/him) @ericfauman.bsky.social · 24/01/2025Really nice work. And they chose one of my favorite traits to model: mean corpuscular hemoglobin. Allows me to reuse one of my figures from a few weeks ago on a gene as old as eukaryotes, mitoferrin, which is needed to move iron into mitochondria. @jkpritch.bsky.social 1124
Mineto Ota @minetoota.bsky.social · 26/01/2025Thank you Jonathan for these fantastic threads about our recent work! We dove into how we can model the gene regulatory architecture of complex traits with 1) Gene effects from LoF burden tests and 2) Perturb-seq. 1206
Reposted by Mineto OtaJeff Spence @jeffspence.github.io · 17/12/2024Why do association studies prioritize trait-specific variants??? A quick thread about the importance of thinking about all traits at once 👇 1/6 (🧪🧬) 24924
Reposted by Mineto OtaJeff Spence @jeffspence.github.io · 17/12/2024What do GWAS and rare variant burden tests discover, and why? Do these studies find the most IMPORTANT genes? If not, how DO they rank genes? Here we present a surprising result: these studies actually test for SPECIFICITY! A 🧵on what this means... (🧪🧬) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...biorxiv.orgSpecificity, length, and luck: How genes are prioritized by rare and common variant association studiesStandard genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and rare variant burden tests are essential tools for identifying trait-relevant genes. Although these methods are conceptually similar, we show by anal... 420695
Reposted by Mineto OtaJonathan Pritchard @jkpritch.bsky.social · 11/12/2024Beautiful work led by Maya Arce from Marson lab reveals a fascinating story about rewiring of a critical gene regulatory circuit in different T cell types: T effectors and Tregs www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comCentral control of dynamic gene circuits governs T cell rest and activation - NatureResting and activated T cell states are established by context-specific regulators and dynamic gene circuits. 04111