Thank you for your interest in our seminar series! We use a variety of different session formats but, in general, trainees can plan for a ~15 min talk + 5min Q/A and PIs can plan for a ~25min talk +...

Learn how a clinical trial for a new type of immunotherapy called TCR therapy benefited a patient with synovial sarcoma.

Intrinsically disordered proteins and peptides play key roles in biology, but a lack of defined structures and high variability in sequence and conformational preferences have made targeting such syst...

The brain’s response to injury includes the activation of intrinsic microglia and the influx of leukocytes, collectively constituting neuroinflammation, the “flame” of the brain. Although details diff...

Thank you for your interest in our seminar series! We use a variety of different session formats but, in general, trainees can plan for a ~15 min talk + 5min Q/A and PIs can plan for a ~25min talk +...

Please refer to the How to Apply for a Job (for External Candidates) job aid for instructions on how to apply. If you are an active McGill employee (ie: currently in an active contract or position at ...

Xiong et al. report that short-term, high-fat diet exposure rapidly alters the gut microbial and immune environment, disrupting tissue homeostasis. IL-22 production by group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3s) is impaired, compromising gut barrier integrity. Saturated fatty acids intrinsically suppress ILC3 function, reducing their ability to control gut inflammation.

Martyn and Montgomery et al. present Variant-EFFECTS, a high-throughput technology developed to precisely measure the effects of CRISPR-mediated edits on gene expression. Variant-EFFECTS is reproducib...

Engineered nucleocytosolic vehicles for loading of programmable editors (ENVLPE) with enhanced CRISPR ribonucleoprotein (RNP) loading and stabilization enable the efficient delivery of gene-editing ef...

Tree-of-life scale genotype-habitat association reveals conserved gene modules across thousands of gut microbial species and identifies previously undescribed factors that modulate microbial colonizat...

A major challenge in human evolutionary biology is to pinpoint genetic differences that underlie human-specific traits, such as increased neuron number and differences in cognitive behaviors. We used human-chimpanzee tetraploid cells to distinguish gene expression changes due to cis -acting sequence variants that change local gene regulation, from trans expression changes due to species differences in the cellular environment. In neural progenitor cells, examination of both cis and trans changes – combined with CRISPR inhibition and transcription factor motif analyses – identified cis -acting, species-specific gene regulatory changes, including to TNIK , FOSL2 , and MAZ , with widespread trans effects on neurogenesis-related gene programs. In excitatory neurons, we identified POU3F2 as a key cis -regulated gene with trans effects on synaptic gene expression and neuronal firing. This study identifies cis -acting genomic changes that cause cascading trans gene regulatory effects to contribute to human neural specializations, and provides a general framework for discovering genetic differences underlying human traits. ### Competing Interest Statement C.A.W. is on the SAB of Bioskyrb Genomics (cash, equity) and Mosaica Therapeutics (cash, equity), and is an advisor to Maze Therapeutics (equity), but these have no relevance to this work. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

After birth, sensory inputs to neurons trigger the induction of activity-dependent genes (ADGs) that mediate many aspects of neuronal maturation and plasticity. To identify human-specific ADGs, we cha...

A major challenge in human evolutionary biology is to pinpoint genetic differences that underlie human-specific traits, such as increased neuron number and differences in cognitive behaviors. We used ...