1/5 Telomerase has long been linked to chromosome maintenance in eukaryotes. Now, we show that telomerase-like activity is also present in bacteria, shedding new light on its ancient origins. Excited to share that our work on DRT10 is now out in @Nature! nature.com/articles/s41586-0…

Restoring hearing in people with a rare form of deafness go.nature.com/4jxJjvc

ANNOUNCING THE 2026 WOLF PRIZE LAUREATE IN MEDICINE The 2026 Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded to Charles S. Zuker of Columbia University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “for revolutionizing our understanding of taste, the last of our senses to be elucidated.” Sweet. Sour. Bitter. Salty. Umami: Zuker’s research revealed the cells and receptors responsible for each of the five basic tastes - and showed how those signals are encoded and represented in the brain. His experiments went even further: by rewiring taste receptors in mice, his team demonstrated that what makes something feel “sweet” or “bitter” is not simply the receptor itself, but the specific neural pathway activated between the tongue and the brain. By defining how chemical signals on the tongue are translated into perception and behavior, Zuker transformed taste from one of the least understood sensory systems into one of the best mapped in modern neuroscience. Congratulations to Charles S. Zuker, 2026 Wolf Prize Laureate in Medicine.

Thrilled to be one of the 25 winners for the @NIH #TRDNT Challenge (Phase 1). 🏆 🏆🏆We will develop an all-in-one #RNA trans-splicing platform for highly efficient and programmable exon editing. We hope to expand the list of druggable target genes that are challenging with current technologies. Kudos to the leading postdoc in the lab Ye Wang for what we have achieved so far! I am very excited about what to expect moving forward! @ColumbiaSysBio @ColumbiaPS @Columbia #RNA #PrecisionMedicine nih.gov/challenges/targeting…

Online today @ScienceMagazine Noncoding transcription controls the developmental dynamics of long-range gene regulation | Science science.org/doi/10.1126/scie…

I'm thrilled to share that I'll join Columbia University in Jan 2027 as an Assistant Professor in @ColumbiaGenDev & @CSCIColumbia ! A long-held dream; I'm grateful for my mentors and colleagues. We'll study microbiota-ENS interactions & we’re hiring! theaydinlab.com/?ref=1