Issue 3
Alpha¹ Editorial
Transient contractility attenuation reprograms epithelial cells into a protrusion-driven state that drives tissue fluidization
Jammed epithelial cells get a quirky blebbistatin chill pill on their contractility, flipping them into protrusion-happy movers that fluidize the tissue like a molecular rave turning stiff crowds into flowing, ERK-rewired party animals with boosted traction.
Shared by Tsuyoshi Hirashima (@hirashima0203) with mesmerizing live-imaging video; it sparked questions and congrats from mechanobiology and cell migration researchers
X-Cell: Scaling Causal Perturbation Prediction Across Diverse Cellular Contexts via Diffusion Language Models
Xaira’s massive 4.9B-parameter “virtual cell” acts like a diffusion-language fortune teller, zero-shot predicting gene expression chaos from CRISPR hits across unseen cell types using a whopping 25M+ perturbed transcriptomes in pure LLM power-law style.
Announced by Bo Wang (@BoWang87) as part of Xaira’s virtual cell efforts, building on a highly engaged earlier thread; it pulled likes and comments from AI-bio folks hyping the causal scaling and upcoming data/model release
Cross-species single-cell atlases chart progression, therapy-driven remodelling and immune evasion in pancreatic cancer
In a massive 1.6-million-cell nanoscale PDAC spy novel, human and mouse tumors swap notes on progression and radiotherapy's sneaky EMT-persistent villainy, with orthotopic models hilariously stealing the show as the most faithful mimics while rare double-positive T cells crash the immune party.
Shared by pancreatic cancer expert Anirban Maitra (@Aiims1742) calling it an "incredible resource" and computational biologist Fabian Theis (@fabian_theis) highlighting conserved core programs and model benchmarking; drew praise from the broader cancer and single-cell community for its therapy-resistance insights
Genome-scale functional mapping of the mammalian whole brain with in vivo Perturb-seq
A 7.7-million-cell brain heist where 1,947 disease genes get CRISPR-mugged in living mice, revealing cell-type-specific plot twists—like NMDA subunits throwing opposing transcriptional tantrums—while turning the whole mouse brain into a living "virtual cell" atlas for neuro quirks.
Shared by neurotech researcher Xin Jin (@xinjin) with strong engagement from the Perturb-seq and neuroscience communities for its scale and disease-gene insights; highlighted by PerturbAI launch coverage as a major in vivo atlas
Tabula Sapiens reveals the non-coding RNA landscape across 22 human organs and tissues
The Tabula Sapiens sequel goes rogue on non-coding RNAs via total RNA-seq, exposing cell-type-specific tRNA drama, nuclear-cytoplasmic hide-and-seek, and senescence plot twists that make protein-coding genes look like the boring straight men in the transcriptome comedy.
Posted by molecular biologist Alejandro Montenegro (@aemonten) and picked up for expanding the human cell atlas into non-coding territory; sparked interest among single-cell and RNA biologists for subcellular localization and cell-cycle findings
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