Lucas Waltzer
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lucaswaltzer.bsky.social
Lucas Waltzer
@lucaswaltzer.bsky.social
1.8K followers 730 following 150 posts
Group leader at iGReD Clermont-Ferrand, drosophila & epigenetics, food & mushrooms

https://www.igred.fr/en/team/ero-epigenetic-regulations-ontogenesis/
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
ribeirocarlitos.bsky.social
Thrilled to share our new paper!
With @tomtom-auer.bsky.social team, we asked how #evolution reshapes what animals #eat to match their ecological niches. Using pan-neuronal Ca2+ imaging, we show that the changes are in how the brain processes #taste.
Link @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Evolution of taste processing shifts dietary preference - Nature
Calcium imaging of taste neurons and the ventral brain provides insight into evolutionary divergence of food choice in Drosophila species, supporting a role of sensorimotor processing in addition to p...
www.nature.com
November 26, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
hbrappap.bsky.social
So happy to announce our new preprint, “A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes.” We cultured a novel amoeba from Lassen Volcanic NP (CA, USA) that divides at 63°C (145°F) 🔥 - a new record for euk growth!
#protistsonsky 🧵
November 25, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
natureportfolio.nature.com
The authors of a Comment article in Nature discuss Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT), a tool for clarifying the roles of each author of a research paper and call for CRediT to become the norm, to support researchers and research integrity across the whole academic landscape. #Academicsky 🧪
A ten-year drive to credit authors for their work — and why there’s still more to do
Information about the roles of each author of a paper can help to build trust, integrity and responsible research assessment. Coordinated efforts are needed to consolidate progress.
go.nature.com
November 25, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
brunolemaitre.bsky.social
An open webinar on our reproducibility project 'WHAT 400 DROSOPHILA PAPERS Teach Us about Doing Better Science' on December 9th 2PM EEST time (1PM Swiss time). Registration below
November 24, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
dfachinetti.bsky.social
The 21st Course on Epigenetics which will take place from March 25th to April 1st, 2026 at the Institut Curie (Paris).
The Course is open to M2 and PhD students. Application via the Advanced Training Office website before December 15th, 2025 at:
minilien.curie.fr/3avv47
Epigenetics - 21st Course on Epigenetics 2026: Towards a quantitative understanding of nuclear dynamics during development and diseases | Institut Curie Advanced Training
The aim of this course is to provide an overview of epigenetic mechanisms and their links to gene expression and chromatin dynamics, in different systems. The diverse functions of the nucleus involvin...
minilien.curie.fr
November 12, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
ernstschmid.bsky.social
Thrilled to share that the final piece of my PhD work is now on bioRxiv! biorxiv.org/content/10.1... With support from @nvidia and the @NSF, we used AlphaFold to screen 1.6M+ protein pairs, revealing thousands of potential novel PPIs. All data can be viewed at predictomes.org/hp
Proteome-wide in silico screening for human protein-protein interactions
Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) drive virtually all biological processes, yet most PPIs have not been identified and even more remain structurally unresolved. We developed a two-step computational...
biorxiv.org
November 12, 2025 at 9:26 PM
lucaswaltzer.bsky.social
Wtf!!?
November 23, 2025 at 8:44 AM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
harmitmalik.bsky.social
Scientific journals: we don’t want you using generative AI because it makes shit up.

Same journal: here is an AI summary or evaluation of this paper. This might be more useful than the actual abstract or paper that the authors freaking wrote

Same journal: AI cover art which makes no sense? Oooh!
November 23, 2025 at 1:51 AM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
stephenturner.us
When I put the request in verse, gpt-oss happily obliged. My own redactions added, but read the paper and get creative and try it yourself. #biosecurity 2/2
November 22, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
milanlab.bsky.social
Our lab is actively looking for posdocs and there is NOW an Open Call for Postdoc contracts (3 years) here: www.aei.gob.es/en/announcem...
www.aei.gob.es
November 7, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
emboreports.org
The second November issue is online.

-> www.embopress.org/toc/14693178...

The cover features work by Tina Mukherjee and co-workers showing that #macrophage metabolic #reprogramming during dietary stress influences adult body size in #Drosophila.

www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
November 20, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
david-grimm.bsky.social
EXCLUSIVE: CDC to end all monkey studies. Decision handed down by recent college grad and former DOGE employee who is now deputy chief of staff at the agency. Animals were being used in studies of HIV prevention. Some may be euthanized. My latest for @science.org
Exclusive: CDC to end all monkey research
Studies related to HIV and other infectious diseases will be phased out, sources say; fate of the agency's animals remains unclear
www.science.org
November 21, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
pedrobeltrao.bsky.social
These image generators add invisible marks to AI generated content. Publishers need to quickly integrate the detectors into their publishing platforms to flag AI generated images.
November 21, 2025 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
laviedesidees.bsky.social
En analysant près de 8 000 recrutements à la maîtrise de conférences en France entre 2017 et 2024, Olivier Godechot, Rachel Issiakou, Yann Renisio et Adrien Rougier reviennent sur la question ancienne et controversée du localisme académique.
Le localisme universitaire, nouvelles évaluations
En analysant près de 8 000 recrutements à la maîtrise de conférences en France entre 2017 et 2024, Olivier Godechot, Rachel Issiakou, Yann Renisio et Adrien Rougier reviennent sur la question ancienne et controversée du localisme académique.
laviedesidees.fr
November 18, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
alexdemendoza.bsky.social
Out today, our take on 6-methyladenine #6mA evolution in Eukaryotes @natgenet.nature.com. We asked a simple question, is really DNA 6mA common across the eukaryotes? The answer is "yes" if you're a unicellular eukaryote 🦠, not so if you're multicellular 🐝🌱🍄. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/9
Adenine DNA methylation associated with transcriptionally permissive chromatin is widespread across eukaryotes - Nature Genetics
Long-read sequencing in 18 unicellular eukaryotes reveals that 6mA is widespread across eukaryotes and is enriched at transcriptionally permissive regions, which are also marked by H3K4me3.
www.nature.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
artologica.net
Pipette dress by Marty Ornish #sciart
Mannequin wearing a dress which is made out of plastic pipettes
November 17, 2025 at 4:19 AM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
bocklab.bsky.social
🗨️ Just published in Nature Biotechnology: Our CellWhisperer AI enables chat-based analysis of single-cell sequencing data. You can talk to your cells & figure out the biology without writing any computer code. Paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... Annotated walkthrough in a thread below (1/11)
November 11, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
davidho.bsky.social
This should have been the end of Larry Summers.
Why women are poor at science, by Harvard president
The president of Harvard University has provoked a furore by arguing that men outperform women in maths and sciences because of biological difference, and discrimination is no longer a career barrier ...
www.theguardian.com
November 16, 2025 at 1:03 AM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
harmitmalik.bsky.social
So many prominent Chinese-American scientists whose lives and careers were turned upside down in the first Trump administration.

The 5 year retroactive punishment is like penalizing something for an ‘infraction’ which was not even an infraction when the action occurred. How does this make sense?
environmicrobio.bsky.social Roland Hatzenpichler @environmicrobio.bsky.social · 13d
“The prohibited activities would include joint research, co-authorship on papers, and advising a foreign graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. The language is retroactive, meaning any interactions during the previous 5 years could make a scientist ineligible for future federal funding.”
U.S. Congress considers sweeping ban on Chinese collaborations
Researchers speak out against proposal that would bar funding for U.S. scientists working with Chinese partners or training Chinese students
www.science.org
November 14, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
alexis-verger.cpesr.fr
Well it's #fridaypaperclub, so I have a very special one just for @odedrechavi.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Transposable elements are vectors of recurrent transgenerational epigenetic inheritance
DNA methylation loss at transposable elements (TEs) can affect neighboring genes and be epigenetically inherited in plants, yet the determinants and importance of this additional system of inheritance...
www.science.org
November 14, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
arjunraj.bsky.social
So awesome to have this great paper from Sam Reffsin and Sara Cherry out! In it, we use retrospective clone tracing to show that there are particular single cell states that are more susceptible to viral infection (both SARS-CoV-2 and flu)!

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
Single-cell susceptibility to viral infection is driven by variable cell states
Not all cells that can be infected by a virus become infected with that virus. Single-cell clone tracing reveals intrinsic cell states with variable expression patterns that increase susceptibility to...
www.cell.com
November 14, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
josetelesreis.bsky.social
Excited to share our new paper out in Cell Reports Methods! @cp-cellrepmethods.bsky.social
🎉🎉🎉
We present EyaHOST, a modular Drosophila genetic system that enables precise and independent manipulation of tumours and host tissues to dissect tumour-host interactions.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
EyaHOST, a modular genetic system for investigation of intercellular and tumor-host interactions in Drosophila melanogaster
Teles-Reis et al. present EyaHOST, a modular Drosophila system that enables clone generation in the eye disc with independent genetic manipulation of other tissues. EyaHOST uses an Eya-KD “kick-out” s...
www.cell.com
November 5, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
groth-anja.bsky.social
Chromatin fatigue: DNA repair alters the chromatin environment and introduces heritable variation in gene expression in a larger region around the lesion! Amazing achievement by @sbantele.bsky.social and Jiri Lukas published in @science.org 🙌 Happy we could contribute. See 👇
sbantele.bsky.social Susi Bantele @sbantele.bsky.social · 20d
𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗗𝗡𝗔 𝗱𝗮𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲?Excited to share our new study “Repair of DNA double-strand breaks leaves heritable impairment to genome function”, revealing DNA repair’s hidden cost, out now @science.org tinyurl.com/5n6zw3ye. Led by @sbantele.bsky.social and Jiri Lukas.🧵👇1/n
Repair of DNA double-strand breaks leaves heritable impairment to genome function
Upon DNA breakage, a genomic locus undergoes alterations in three-dimensional chromatin architecture to facilitate signaling and repair. Although cells possess mechanisms to repair damaged DNA, it is ...
tinyurl.com
November 12, 2025 at 3:55 AM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
p-santamaria.bsky.social
Antonio Garcia Bellido a muerto ayer. Aqui en una foto de nuestros "Mafia meetings" con grandes "epígonos". Gracias él apredi a hacer investigacuión.
November 11, 2025 at 9:09 AM
Reposted by Lucas Waltzer
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM