Honored to be recognized as a 2025 @isscr.org Public Service Award Honoree for my commitment to the Early Career Advisory Committee! Supporting early-career scientists has been a rewarding journey I am very proud of. Read more about the award and my fellow honorees: invt.io/1lxbo0wcokz

Here’s where we stand: I hope this helps others facing the same issue! Our manuscript formally passed peer review, but we're still tackling the reviewers’ remaining concerns (more on this below). Always open to suggestions: this is how science should work, IMHO. 8/10

Running low on options, we learned of Antonella Fidanza's @elife.bsky.social study using sodium butyrate to enhance a similar dox-inducible system. This strategy finally gave us >90% response in hiPSC-CMs—an effective fix, though relying on an epigenetic modulator isn't always ideal. 7/10

With AAVS1 silencing now widely reported, we turned to the CLYBL locus—touted as a better alternative in @plosone.org a few years back (journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...). Even when using insulators as in the original study, we saw mixed results: a glass half full, half empty, once again. 6/10

As we searched for answers, @johanneszuber.bsky.social kindly pointed us to an elegant @cp-cellrepmethods.bsky.social paper using a UCOE to stabilize TRE3VG (doi.org/10.1016/j.cr...). It improved inducibility in hPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, but was still far from perfect in this hard setting 5/10

For years, I suspected that the alternative dox-inducible promoter T11 might help. But between postdoc on other topics and a pandemic, testing had to wait—until Michelle, a master’s student in my lab, took on the challenge. Turns out I was dead wrong: it was worse than standard TRE3VG in hPSCs! 4/10

This issue has frustrated me for a decade! During my PhD, we found that an otherwise excellent dox-inducible system failed to activate in many hPSC-derived cell types—including my favorite: cardiomyocytes. Fig. S7 from our @dev-journal.bsky.social paper 2/10

journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Struggling with #silencing of doxycycline-inducible transgenes in human pluripotent #stemcell derived lineages? You're not alone! In my very first #skeetorial I break down our latest paper on potential solutions to this common problem. Read on! 1/10

open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/articles/4-2...