Emily Wong
em6wong.bsky.social
Emily Wong
@em6wong.bsky.social
New work from our lab: a simple motif-based model can distinguish between distal cell type specific regulatory elements with extremely high accuracy - in all metazoans including plants.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Motif-based models accurately predict cell type-specific distal regulatory elements - Nature Communications
Decoding cell identity from DNA alone is a challenge. Here, the authors demonstrate that counting transcription factor motifs in regulatory DNA can forecast cell-type specificity outperforming deep-le...
www.nature.com
November 25, 2025 at 3:54 AM
Reposted by Emily Wong
Major new direction in the lab: hacking human cell biology with pathogen effectors (eORFs) - amazing collaboration with @miketilapia.bsky.social lab. Huge congrats to first authors Tomas & He & all co-authors! Check out the pre-print on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
November 18, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by Emily Wong
The power of Preprints. Our preprint "DNA Methylation Ageing Atlas Across 17 Human Tissues'
www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7...

is a subject of a news piece in
@nature.com

How ageing changes our genes — huge epigenetic atlas gives clearest picture yet nature.com/articles/d41...
How ageing changes our genes — huge epigenetic atlas gives clearest picture yet
A map of DNA methylation changes in human organs could help researchers to discover more targets for anti-ageing therapies.
nature.com
September 2, 2025 at 11:19 PM
Reposted by Emily Wong
The Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) funds medical research in Australia. Only half the funds have been released. If you're an Australian and able to vote please use the form below to email your local MP to release the full amount of the MRFF
aamri.org.au/mrff/
Half the Funding. Half the Future. - AAMRI
The Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) was designed to deliver $1 billion each year in new, lifesaving funding for medical research. We know through financial modelling that the full amount can be re...
aamri.org.au
November 16, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Reposted by Emily Wong
📣 Paper alert!

I am delighted that our paper exploring the impact of Neanderthal-derived variants on the activity of a disease-associated craniofacial enhancer has been published in Development today!
journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...
November 10, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Emily Wong
In praise of fundamental research
Our editorial this week argues that I n these financially straitened times, funders must recognize that great discoveries often arise from work that was looking for something completely different
🧪
@nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
From MRI to Ozempic: breakthroughs that show why fundamental research must be protected
In these financially straitened times, funders must recognize that great discoveries often arise from work that was looking for something completely different.
www.nature.com
October 30, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Reposted by Emily Wong
Cracking the code of the non-coding genome via allele-specific genomics?
Can we link non-coding elements—like lncRNAs and enhancers—to their protein-coding target genes, and in doing so, connect overlapping non-coding disease variants to their protein-coding counterparts?
October 24, 2025 at 2:44 AM
Reposted by Emily Wong
Come join us in Geneva for everything epigenetics and gene regulation. It will be a great meeting! Please repost!
www.keystonesymposia.org/conferences/...
Epigenetics and Gene Regulation in Health and Disease: Linking Basic Mechanisms with Therapeutic Opportunities | Keystone Symposia
Join us at the Keystone Symposia on Epigenetics and Gene Regulation in Health and Disease: Linking Basic Mechanisms with Therapeutic Opportunities, March 2026, in Geneva, with field leaders!
www.keystonesymposia.org
October 17, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Emily Wong
We're now recruiting early career group leaders at the Crick to lead ambitious research programmes and explore bold scientific questions.

Hear our Director, Edith Heard, explain why the Crick is a unique place for curiosity-driven research.

Apply now ➡️ www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...
October 9, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Reposted by Emily Wong
Vertebrate Genome Evolution. Annual Symposium of the @louisjeantetfdn.bsky.social Foundation in Geneva. Free access on site and on line. Great speakers for a super interesting topic. #SvantePaabo #HenrikKaessmann organisers 🙏 See you there! @biology-unige.bsky.social @genevunige.bsky.social
October 3, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Reposted by Emily Wong
I'm very pleased to announce the official publication of our lab's paper "DNA mutagenesis driven by transcription factor competition with mismatch repair" in today's issue of Cell! www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...
DNA mutagenesis driven by transcription factor competition with mismatch repair
Competition between transcription factors and mismatch repair machinery drives localized hypermutation at regulatory elements, with implications for cancer and genome evolution.
www.cell.com
October 2, 2025 at 11:37 PM
Reposted by Emily Wong
Ever wondered how robust cellular identity is to external perturbations? Here we disrupt cellular environmnent in vivo and in vitro, and find cell population specific sensitivities. Environment sculpts development yes, but not all cells are made of the same wood. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Cell-extrinsic controls over neocortical neuron fate and diversity
Cell-extrinsic cues are key for neocortical cell identity and diversity.
www.science.org
September 19, 2025 at 6:04 AM
Reposted by Emily Wong
I'm really happy to announce that my two main postdoctoral works have been published in the same issue of Developmental Cell! First, the final form of the mouse cortical organoid protocol (tinyurl.com/bddfmx8n), which I recently presented at Development presents (tinyurl.com/36udcpme) and…
tinyurl.com
August 27, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Congrats to Tommy and team, especially to PhD student Veronika Petrova who led the work on our end. Great to see it out! @victorchang.edu.au
A mouse organoid platform for modeling cerebral cortex development and cis-regulatory evolution in vitro: Developmental Cell www.cell.com/developmenta...
August 28, 2025 at 3:38 AM
Reposted by Emily Wong
Textbooks: “Enhancers are just a bunch of TFBSs”

But how do they REALLY work?

New paper with many contributors here @berkeleylab.lbl.gov, @anshulkundaje.bsky.social, @anusri.bsky.social

A 🧵 (1/n)

Free access link: rdcu.be/erD22
June 18, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Reposted by Emily Wong
Non-profit journals are on the critical list.

The cause: academics obsession with the Nature brand, coupled with the APC $ model.

Some will argue it doesn’t matter (“all as bad as each other”). But the fact is undeniable and it’s good guys who put money back into science like COB who are losing..
Thanks @mitodynamics.bsky.social for the fun interview and for saying it like it is:

“…JCS and other community journals are being crushed by the mega profit-making journals, which just seem to proliferate and spit out new journals by the day…we must all make an effort to move away from this…”
In our Special Issue: Cell Biology of Mitochondria we interview Guest Editor Heidi McBride @mitodynamics.bsky.social Heidi discusses her career path, the past, present & future of #mitochondria research & her role as guest editor at JCS.
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
#JCSMitoSI
May 23, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Emily Wong
A group leader position is open at Peter Mac in Melbourne, Australia!
Join us! Applications until May 5.
👇👇

www.nature.com/naturecareer...
Group Leader - Melbourne (Suburb), Greater Melbourne (Inner) (AU) job with Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre | 12837590
Peter Mac is recruiting a Group Leader to increase the capacity and efficiency of our “discovery to translation” cancer research pipeline.
www.nature.com
March 21, 2025 at 9:13 PM