@arielframe
BSc Biology || PhD Neuroscience || Postdoc with Andrew Lin @andrewclin.bsky.social at University of Sheffield @sheffielduni.bsky.social || Drosophila, aging, learning and memory, neurobiology. Host: linktr.ee/quitecurious bit.ly/ArielFrame_GoogleScholar
Quick plug for our new resource, the Drosophila Species Stock Exchange. This is a database and mailing list that documents species currently in culture and the labs holding them. If you want to know more or sign up then please get in touch. See attached for more info and please share!
Conflicting adaptations in an inhibitory feedback circuit
#Drosophila
Graphical abstract: mouse brain neuron releases oxytocin that binds astrocyte receptors causing Aldh1a1 expression which triggers retinoids acid release which feeds back to the original neuron to trigger more oxytocin production in a feed forward loop.
This cool new preprint shows how hypothalamic astrocytes use oxytocin signalling to control social behaviour. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Credit to @thetransmitter.bsky.social for bringing this to my attention www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/ast...
Perhaps that could all be gained through better sleep. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt
I guess technobabble has a way of slipping in some grains of truth now and then. Maybe one day mitochondria actually could be targeted to help with sleep…
I love these micropublications. Great way to disseminate small but impactful findings. This #drosophila study shows glutamate neurons w/ reduced ATP production related #mitochondria protein causes more day #sleep at young and after #aging. Could this explain lifespan extension (Keppley et al. 2018)?
Thank you so much for generating these lines! Exciting new tools for #drosophila optogenetic activation of the Gal4 UAS system! Drosophilists rejoice: here’s the list of lines->
Very cool #drosophila study! The potential uses for this technology are endless!
For all #Drosophila #neuroskyence researchers that have explained to someone, yes #insects have #brains: Here is @scottishwaddell.bsky.social & Annie Park's excellent argument for four 'cognitive primitives' underlying fundamental brain function conserved from humans to flies. tiny.cc/4cog
I’ve really been enjoying this podcast since it started a few months ago: The Rest is Science. tiny.cc/restsci
Professor Hannah Fry and VSauce's Michael Stevens are amazing at #sciencecommunication Highly recommend! Even better: partners with a good cause @cancerresearchuk.org
This is a superb explanation of why we age from an evolutionary perspective, packed full of fun animal examples!
It makes clear that evolution *did* optimise for lifespan (why wouldn’t it?), and that implies intervening in aging might not be that hard…
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Cambridge seeks a Postdoctoral Researcher to develop amyloid filament methods using cryo EM to study tau neurodegeneration. Closing date: 4th January
www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/job/postdoct...
Cool finding! @rutterlab.bsky.social do you think the effect of MPC expression on cell size may also be impacted by gain/loss of lactate function? This study comes to mind: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Lactate regulates cell cycle by remodelling the anaphase promoting complex | Nature
@nature.com asked me to write an op-ed on the perspective of the AI reviewing process, prompted by the recent partnership between @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social and @qedscience.bsky.social
Hope my perspective adds value to the conversation.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Reviewer is told to try shutdown AI algorithmic perfection with unendorsements. This system gets the benefit of AI catching issues with the manuscript the reviewer may not have otherwise and the human has an opportunity to propose ideas outside the mean, which the AI is unlikely to. Only loss: speed
Interesting! Very astute identification of two problems: regression to the mean and algorithmic perfectionism. Potential solution: have AI propose a list of questions, have human reviewer check off the ones they endorse, cancel those they unendorse, then make a list of their own if they have more.
Encased in a blanket of blubber that is nearly half a metre thick, the 80,000-kilogram bowhead whale does not, at first glance, seem a natural poster child for health and longevity
go.nature.com/4qTyrcz
Ozempic, MRI machines and flat screen televisions all emerged out of fundamental research decades earlier — the very types of study being slashed by the US government
go.nature.com/47hn0n5
Advertisement for PhD studentship involving a host-pathogen panel, RNA sequencing, and functional genetics. The aim is to use fly species to learn how immune responses evolve.
PhD studentshipship available through @swbiodtp.bsky.social! This project will take advantage of an incredible RNAseq dataset we are generating using 40 species and multiple infection types to learn how immune systems evolve.
For more info, see: bit.ly/43zNa20
#Drosophila #Immunity
Two weeks left to apply for a PhD position in my laboratory at #Glasgow.
The project focuses on #Ageing, #Mitochondria, and #Drosophila, with emphasis on Complex I (CI) function.
Fees are fully covered for applicants eligible for UK Home Student status.
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
New preprint. ATF4 activation is thought to lead to longer lifespans. However, our study shows that suppression rather than activation extends lifespan in the fly. New Qs: how we can target ATF4 or its downstream targets to gain targeted longevity benefits.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Only thing I can think of at the moment is maybe you could use the tubP-FRT-GAL80-FRT we have in Andrew Lin’s lab in combination with a CNS-expressing FLP. I found an Nsyb>FLP flybase.org/reports/FBti... but, I don’t FLP 100% always cuts FRT. so, not sure how to get around that.
Exciting news for #drosophila #connectomics and #neuroscience enthusiasts: the Drosophila male central nervous system connectome is now live for exploration. Find out more at the landing page hosted by our Janelia FlyEM collaborators www.janelia.org/project-team....
This November, I am raising money for prostate #cancer research in Canada @ccsresearch.bsky.social by getting people to pay me to have a goofy looking face. Join in on the Movember fun and support a good cause, join the team or make a donation. Any amount makes a difference!
tiny.cc/MapleMovember
Fantastic little read! Time to dust off my system 2 thinking and engage in some realistic time budgeting! Educational and informative for #drosophila researchers and actually any experimentalists!
“Even if you don’t think precautionary measures are warranted, it’s still really important for scientists to report what they have and haven’t done to insects in the course of their experiments..-..If you kill an animal in a certain way, that may affect the expression of certain genes.”- Craig Perl
First episode is out! I spoke with Professor James Marshall @sheffielduni.bsky.social @opteran.bsky.social about his research on modelling the #brain of #bees and implications for #ai . Take a listen! #neuroscience #sciencecommunication
Excited to share our latest work - expressing the bacterial sodium channel in fly Kenyon cells surprisingly *decreases* their excitability, thanks partly to decreased endogenous sodium channels. This prevents learning and decreases odor-evoked calcium influx doi.org/10.1113/JP28...
Dear Fly Community, In May 2025, the NIH terminated all grant funding to Harvard University, including the NHGRI grant that supported FlyBase. This grant also funded FlyBase teams at Indiana University (IU) and the University of Cambridge (UK), and as a result, their subawards were also canceled. The Cambridge team has secured support for one to two years through generous donations from the European fly community, emergency funding from the Wellcome Trust, and support from the University of Cambridge. At IU, funding has been secured for one year thanks to reserve funds from Thom Kaufman and a supplement from ORIP/NIH to the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center (BDSC). Unfortunately, the situation at Harvard is far more critical. Harvard University had supported FlyBase staff since May but recently denied a request for extended bridge funding. As a result, all eight employees (four full-time and four part-time) were abruptly laid off, with termination dates ranging from August to mid-October depending on their positions. In addition, our curator at the University of New Mexico will leave her position at the end of August. This decision came as a shock, and we are urgently pursuing all possible funding options. To put the need into perspective: although FlyBase is free to use, it is not free to make. It takes large teams of people and millions of dollars a year to create FlyBase to support fly research (the last NHGRI grant supported us with more than 2 million USD per annum). To help sustain FlyBase operations, we have been reaching out to you to ask for your support. We have set up a donation site in Cambridge, UK, to which European labs have and can continue to contribute, and a new donation site at IU to which labs in the US and the rest of the world can contribute. We urge researchers to work with their grant administrators to contribute to FlyBase via these sites if at all possible, as more of the money will go to FlyBase. However, we appreciate that some fu…
https://wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase:Contribute_to_FlyBase Our immediate goals are: 1. To maintain core curation activities and keep the FlyBase website online 2. To complete integration with the Alliance of Genome Resources (The Alliance). Integration with the Alliance is essential for FlyBase’s long-term sustainability. For nearly a decade, NHGRI/NIH has supported the unification of Model Organism Databases (MODs) into the Alliance, which we aim to achieve by 2028. Therefore, securing bridge funding to sustain FlyBase over the next three years is crucial for successful integration and the long-term access to FlyBase data. At present, our remaining funds will allow us to keep the FlyBase website online for approximately one more year. Beyond that, its future is uncertain unless new funding is secured. We will, of course, continue pursuing additional grant opportunities as they arise. Given the uncertainty of future NIH or alternative funding sources, we are relying on the Fly community for support. Your contributions will directly help us retain the staff needed to complete this transition and to secure ongoing fly data curation into the Alliance beyond 2028. We at FlyBase are incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support from the community during this challenging time. Your encouragement has strengthened our resolve and underscores how vital this resource remains to Drosophila research worldwide. Sincerely, The FlyBase Team
The community of Drosophila researchers is amazing, mutually supportive and collaborative. Right now a key resource for our community, @flybase.bsky.social , is threatened by the cancellation of its NIH grant and is seeking community help in raising short term funds 1/n 🧪 please share
Hear me out: Could FlyBase relocate somewhere with a more secure relationship with funding? Could they relocate to #Canada?
