zack chiang
@z_chiang
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microscopy x omics
Cambridge, MA
Joined September 2012
What do you do when grants are cancelled, faculty searches are frozen, and the ability to do the science you believe in is slipping out of reach? . I wrote an essay. On efforts to solve aging with reprogramming, the primacy of the epigenome, and the path to rewriting our future:
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spent my final month in academia trying to dream big -- here are my wild ideas on the biological future of humanity. (link below)
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RT @celinehalioua: The first pivotal, FDA-enabling clinical trial of a longevity drug is now fully enrolled. We will monitor these dogs for….
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still true.
Let's stop telling AI researchers that biology is hard - the naivety is infuriating, yes, but ultimately we need more people working on our hard problems. Most will learn this lesson the hard way, some will fall in love with the complexity, a few might make actual breakthroughs.
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I will die on the hill that unsubstantiated hype > no hype. if the tech bros figure out how hard bio actually is we're going to have no funding for the next decade 💀.
We desperately need to take all the people in SF who talk about accelerating biology but have only ever done math or CS and have them do a six month rotation in a wet lab.
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tfw your question gets asked on the @dwarkesh_sp @geochurch podcast 🥹
@dwarkesh_sp @geochurch Why has the fall in DNA sequencing costs had so few tangible benefits despite outpacing Moore's law?.
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really enjoyed this essay, it captures a lot of the issues that broadly plague science and puts them in simple terms. these issues are only amplified in biology where the timescales are far longer and the rewards less evenly distributed
## The case for more ambition. i wrote about how AI researchers should ask bigger and simpler questions, and publish fewer papers:
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can someone please train a deep learning weather model to explain why it rains every freakin' weekend in boston.
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RT @CarolineComenho: Super excited that Expansion In Situ Genome Sequencing (ExIGS) is out now in @ScienceMagazine ! . Check out the paper….
science.org
Microscopy and genomics are used to characterize cell function, but approaches to connect the two types of information are lacking, particularly at subnuclear resolution. Here, we describe expansion...
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RT @broadinstitute: A new combination technique enables DNA sequencing and high-resolution imaging in intact cells — offering new insights….
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RT @ajaylabade31: Thrilled to announce that our work on Expansion In Situ Genome Sequencing (ExIGS) is now published in @ScienceMagazine!.E….
science.org
Microscopy and genomics are used to characterize cell function, but approaches to connect the two types of information are lacking, particularly at subnuclear resolution. Here, we describe expansion...
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Paper: Explanation of the science:.
science.org
Microscopy and genomics are used to characterize cell function, but approaches to connect the two types of information are lacking, particularly at subnuclear resolution. Here, we describe expansion...
7 years ago, I met a junior fellow named @JD_Buenrostro who blew me away with a vision of futuristic genomic technologies. Today, we (@ajaylabade31, @carolinecomenho) are excited to share our first steps into that future: Expansion in situ genome sequencing. 1/
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I’ll conclude by saying I'm exceptionally grateful for the support to spend 7 years building this technology with amazing collaborators (many of whom came here from other countries). I can only hope others will have access to similar opportunities in the future.
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What you won’t hear about are all the postdocs cut adrift, the international students choosing other shores, and the neglected crazy ideas that may have made the world a brighter place. And lest you think this won’t happen to you: it is already happening everywhere
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I’m happy Harvard is fighting back, and I'm inspired by professors like @baym, @davidasinclair, @RouskinLab, and others who have been raising the alarm on what’s happening here. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg . .
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Is it guaranteed that pushing this work forward would make a huge impact? Of course not!. But a healthy research ecosystem must place smart bets on scientists with crazy, commercially uncertain ideas, because a few of those bets might end up pushing us all forward.
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Last year, we were ecstatic to receive a R01 grant to continue this work. We scored in the top 2% of a nationwide call for new genomic technologies. That grant was a part of the >$2 billion in federal funding to Harvard recently cancelled under political pretenses
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Ever since I began my PhD at Harvard, I’ve been inspired by Sydney Brenner's maxim that new technologies drive progress in science. But today, support for this type of technology development (and basic science itself) is under attack.
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This project started as nothing more than a crazy idea: that we could directly sequence genomes inside the nucleus. It would never fly anywhere but academia, where we spent 7 painstaking years making it a reality
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The peer-reviewed version of expansion in situ genome sequencing is now out in Science!. The news is bittersweet – when we first revealed this last September, I never guessed it would be my final paper in academia, but a lot has changed. A few parting thoughts:
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