@allshire-lab
Professor, University of Edinburgh. Science: epigenetics, variegation, heterochromatin, heteroresistance, resistance, bet hedging, fungal biology & pathogens. Pets: Airedale Terriers. Duolingo: 🇫🇷 level 61. Opinions here are my own
UKRI ”We expect to have fully transitioned to the new model by the start of the 2027 & 28 financial year.” Worrying - so how long is the pause? More logical to continue current funding model while developing new one! Researchers with key skills will be forced out of science while funding is paused
Hot off the press - a letter from the Exec Chair of @ukri.org explaining his plans and in particular the financial position of STFC. It notes curiosity driven research is protected and will make up around half of UKRI spend over the coming period
www.ukri.org/news/open-le...
www.ukri.org/news/open-le... So let’s fiddle while researchers, whose funding is paused, get burned because their current funding is in its last 12 months. Lack of clarity & transparency creates uncertainty. Researchers need to plan ahead, they can’t without application deadlines to work towards
Thanks to all involved in both labs for making this happen - well done!
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
Our latest now online at EMBO Journal. Read if you are interested in how epimutations mediate antifungal resistance & how this might result in heteroresistance in human & cereal crop fungal pathogens. Big Thx & congrats to Andreas Fellas, Pin Tong & Alison Pidoux
AI is good at needling people, had me in stitches following this thread!
A lot of interest in QED Science as an automated review system linked to preprint servers. All we need now is funding level for authors to be somehow linked to the overall score provided by the AI and we can do away with grant writing and grant reviewing and panels. Cut the bureaucracy in science!
A big car park where the Darwin Building at King’s Building, University of Edinburgh used to be
The Darwin Building aka The Darwin Tower aka The Dept of Molecular Biology at the King’s Building campus @edinburghbiology.bsky.social
@edinburgh-uni.bsky.social has been demolished - @ link above was incorrect
The Darwin Building @edinburghup.bsky.social which housed the UK’s first Dept of Molecular Biology is no more! Many notable scientists worked their & passed through: 1968-2018. We look forward to a suitable replacement that promotes excellent biological research allowing many more key discoveries.
Sneaky cheats aren’t they…. @edinburghairport.bsky.social manipulating arrival time so they don’t look soooo bad!
No scheduled to land 06:26 as below. Regardless - should be ready for incoming planes and not make passengers wait unnecessarily. Never seen this at any other capital city airport
Yes 30 minutes waiting on plane cos @edinburghairport.bsky.social can get it together to open customs hall before 07:00. Why schedule flights to land if you can’t deal with them. Complete stupid!
Not a good look to all those international visitors or potential business partners!! It’s 2025 FFS!!
@edinburghairport.bsky.social What are you playing at? Delta 122 flight from Boston lands 06:30 Passengers have to wait on plane cos Customs hall does not open until 07:00 - Ridiculous get your act together FFS!!
New powerful article up in the New York Times on cancelled and delayed grants
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Looking forward to my visit to ibfg.usal-csic.es in Salamanca today. Thanks to Alfonso Fernandez Alvarez for inviting me.
NB: the UK - including Scotland - is an ERC partner, English speaking and has an exceptionally strong discovery research base.
Congratulations to our colleague Prof Donal O’Carroll FRS, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, on his election as a fellow of the Royal Society of London (the UK nation academy of sciences) - very well deserved.
Of course, I should have said Absolutely staggering!!
And now for something completely different: my nephew Arthur Allshire (1st yr PhD student @bair.berkeley.edu) and co just released his first paper: Videomimic - Visual imitation enables contextual humanoid control. He is now working on sobering up the robot! www.videomimic.net
Gov.UK now needs to be proactive in making it attractive for disaffected scientists to move to the UK. Advantages: English speaking & exceptionally strong research base. An opportunity to drive future economic growth - act now or miss out! arstechnica.com/science/2025...
Pros: English speaking, strong research base. Cons: visa/health costs & broke universities. If, like EU, UK is to benefit by attracting disaffected talented scientists from other countries Gov.UK will need to make moving here attractive & affordable! Many non-OxBridge Universities can’t recruit.
Happy 65th to Paul Hewson (aka Bono @U2) as usual mine follows soon after yours - funny that. ‘It’s a beautiful day’ enjoy!
Looks like a fantastic AI tool for predicting protein sequences that will aggregate/form prions. Key was testing >100,000 in vivo using a neat assay in yeast/S. cerevisiae
Looks like a fantastic AI tool for predicting protein sequences that will aggregate/form prions. Key was testing >100,000 in vivo using a neat assay in yeast/S. cerevisiae
Register for the excellent Epigenetics Gordon Research Conference Barcelona 10-15 Aug25. Theme: Epigenetic Variation: Mechanisms & Impact Across Systems. **FUNDING AVAILABLE to support attendance** ~15 talks to be chosen from submitted abstracts, so upload yours ASAP:
www.grc.org/epigenetics-...
Congratulations to Wendy Bickmore on her election as an International Member of the US National Academy of Sciences www.nasonline.org
Congratulations to Bill Earnshaw, my colleague and lab next door, on his election as a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences www.nasonline.org