Jennifer Palmer

Thank you!

Thank you! Definitely a reflection of the incredible & supportive research environment in the CIMR - the best place to be a PhD student (in my biased opinion 😊)

Wednesday's highlights: a brilliant keynote from Christian Haass about protective roles of microglia in AD, Sarah Tabrizi sharing the AMT-130 topline results in HD (what an incredible result) and a truly moving talk by Charles Sabine about his experiences with Huntington's.

Belated #Connectome day 2 post as there was too much fantastic science and great fun to post at the time! Highlights on Tuesday include an incredible keynote by Erin Schuman, Rory Cellan-Jones discussing his experiences and giving us scientists a good grilling, and a wonderful conference dinner!

@ukdri.ac.uk #Connectome day 1 highlight: a fantastic keynote by Prof Malcolm Macleod on improving the quality and usefulness of our science, including this example of neural correlates in a dead fish

P.S. the Dr. title is their addition, not mine! My application did state that I am still a PhD student - thesis submitted; viva to come in January.

I'll be following up on some findings from my PhD regarding a potential physiological role of Huntingtin. With the recent incredibly exciting success of Huntingtin-targeting genetic therapies for Huntington's disease, understanding these physiological roles is even more important!

First grant! 🎉
Extremely grateful to the Addenbrooke's Charitable Trust (ACT) for supporting this research. Also very grateful to my supervisor, David Rubinsztein, for his support (including a lot of feedback on my proposal, teaching me how to work out a budget, and letting me stay a bit longer).

Not just a typo I'm afraid! The paper is about the cAMP-CREB axis, but their cAMP measurements are by qPCR (which obviously isn't possible for a small molecule).
It also gets better: the unrelated CAMP isn't even expressed in the cell type they are working with!

Wrote my first PubPeer comment! Disappointed by a 2023 Discover Oncology publication that claims to have measured cyclic AMP by qPCR...

Sleuthing reveals their primers are for the completely unrelated Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide (CAMP). Unfortunately cAMP is the main focus of their paper.

The ARUK stand in the calm before it began, with our activities and 3D printed brains

People hard at work building molecules

Plasticine cells being made

Microscopes with tissue sections

As always, the Big Biology Day at Hills Rd Sixth Form was an absolute blast! A great morning with @alzheimersresearchuk.org and a great afternoon with @thecimr.bsky.social

Great new paper highlighting @jenniferepalmer.bsky.social 's PhD work: www.cimr.cam.ac.uk/research-adv...

Very grateful to all co-authors, including our collaborators Ryan O'Rourke and Alvin Huang. Also extremely grateful to the @ukdri.ac.uk for research funding and support, and the Cambridge Trust, @royalsocietynz.bsky.social and Rutherford foundation for supporting my PhD

We already knew that autophagosome closure and release are coordinated (see Puri et al 2023) but we didn't understand how. Our work highlights the importance of studying disease-associated proteins - both to understand disease and to learn more about the physiological regulation of key processes.

We also found that BIN1 interacts with the ESCRT-III complex at phagophores prior to their closure. This prevents the release of open phagophores by DNM2. Once membrane closure is complete, ESCRT-III disassembles, releasing BIN1 and enabling DNM2-mediated release of the closed autophagosome

Thus, we propose that one way BIN1 might affect the risk of Alzheimer's disease is by impairing microglial autophagy. Mechanistically, the autophagy impairment is due to the inhibition of a DNM2-dependent scission step that releases newly formed autophagosomes from the recycling endosome.

So, how does increased microglial BIN1 increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease? We find that BIN1 inhibits autophagy. Previous research has linked microglial autophagy impairment to exacerbated neurodegeneration through altered phagocytosis and cytokine secretion.

Genetic variants in a myeloid-specific enhancer for BIN1 increase BIN1 expression in microglia, but not in other brain cells. Existing work links BIN1 to tau, endocytosis, and synaptic vesicle processes. But, the microglial-expressed isoforms lack the CLAP domain required for endocytic functions

Coordination of autophagosome closure and release by the Alzheimer’s disease-associated protein BIN1 Autophagy is a pathway that removes damaged or superfluous cellular components. Palmer et al. show that microglial upregulation of BIN1, which is associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disea...

The first research article from my PhD is out now in @cp-cellreports.bsky.social
Read on to hear about how increased BIN1 in microglia impairs autophagy, and a physiological function for BIN1 in coordinating the closure and release of newly-formed autophagosomes
www.cell.com/cell-reports...

The life and times of Francis Crick, or does it matter who does science? | Royal Society Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar 2024 Prize Lecture delivered by Professor Matthew Cobb

royalsociety.org/science-even...

What a fantastic day at #CambridgeFestival!!

@thecimr.bsky.social contributed again to this years Cambridge Festival at the Biomedical Campus. Thanks to all amazing colleagues from @thecimr.bsky.social, @cambridgeuni.bsky.social making this event run!!

More here: www.lautenschlager-lab.com/blog

Great fun today!

FLAG Researcher Spotlight: Jenni Palmer — Aotearoa Brain Project - Kaupapa Roro o Aotearoa Please tell us who you are, your institution and your title Kia ora, ko Jenni tōku ingoa. I'm Jenni, I'm from Whangaparāoa (North of Auckland) and I'm now based at the University of Cambridge, ...

An interview for the @aotearoabrainproj.bsky.social by my previous classmate (and now Dr!!!) Lily Bentall. One of the standouts about the NZ neuroscience community to me is how connected and supportive it is - awesome mahi from the ABP! www.aotearoabrainproject.nz/news/flag-re...

Neuronal autophagy in the control of synapse function In this review, Karpova et al. summarize and discuss the current understanding of how neurons have adopted autophagy to serve the needs of very long-living and highly polarized cells with thousands of...

Great review on neuronal autophagy and synapses: www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

Colourful microscope image of malaria parasites infecting human red blood cells. Rayner lab

Con-focal microscope image of glutamatergic neurons with axons labelled in yellow/ orange and somatodendritic compartments in blue. Nixon-Abell lab at CIMR

Hello! Although we are still in the other place, this will become our main social media feed. We're part of the University of Cambridge Clinical School
Cell biology, molecular mechanisms of human disease

Great day at #RAREfest24 talking with people living with rare diseases, their families, other scientists, and artists (and playing with microscopes and clay of course!). My favourite things from today: these artworks about Prion disease by Emily Jolley, and the feelings of hope shared by many

That's embarrassing 🤣 thank you!

Would love to join!

🧠Re-sharing this as the list is growing. 🌲
Let me know if I've left you out - or if you think I should add someone! 🧠

go.bsky.app/S6FfsTp

All - Bluesky Directory A curated collection of all things relating to the Blue Sky social media platform.

Cell bio & autophagy here 👋 there are a few cell biology-related starter packs, but I agree, it takes time and effort to build community here! The starter pack searchable list (blueskydirectory.com/starter-pack...) is helpful