Noah Whiteman

I am honored to have been selected for the Genetics Society of America Medal--thanks to the @GeneticsGSA for all that you do to advance science. I dedicate this award to all of my mentees and collaborators without whom none of the discoveries would have been made!

I wrote about the lack of administrative support for the liberal arts in @nytimes. The standard story we hear is that students don't want it. But a darker reality is that even when it wins big with students and donors it loses with those in power. nytimes.com/2025/07/17/opi…

University of Tulsa students have started a petition to save their Honors College and have asked me to share with my followers here. If you are inclined to support these students in their goal to recover what was lost, you can sign here: change.org/Protect_UTulsa…

GSA Medal recipient @NKWhiteman describes his scientific journey into the world of herbivorous insects and their host plants and how genetic and genome editing tools led to findings in herbivore resistance in plants. Read more: buff.ly/w1GFmwL 2/2🧵

Celebrating a Notice of Award for our genetics training grant (!) and my first barber 💈 cut since 2019…🤗

TODAY🚨 Join us at 2pm EDT to hear from 2025 GSA Medal recipient @NKWhiteman. In this lecture, Whiteman explores how animals & other multicellular eukaryotes have acquired powerful new traits by borrowing genes from viruses & bacteria. Register: buff.ly/fAIKxC2

Please join us on Thursday (sign up below)

New research in #GENETICS provides new insights into the origin and early evolution of de novo genes by leveraging large-scale #transcriptome data from different #Drosophila genotypes. 🪰 Read more: buff.ly/Jwt8jjP

On beautiful Tomales Bay for the annual Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, a true gem of Berkeley. I had the privilege of being a Miller Professor and have been introduced to new concepts in physics, math, astronomy, quantum computing, physics, & immunology.

Thanks Sophien, I had a great time. ALSO I learned that Sophien wrote THIS with Saskia Hogenhout, which documented the FASTEST land animal...a tiger beetle...jstor.org/stable/4009161

Excited to share this piece I wrote for @AsimovPress with all of you on how evolutionary solutions to defense and counter-defense in the form of toxic proteins and peptides have been and could been co-opted by us as new drugs.

Nature is a pharmaceutical innovator. Ziconotide, derived from cone snail venom, treats chronic pain better than opioids. Alpha amanitin, a deadly mushroom toxin, is being used as a targeted cancer therapy. More examples abound. Our latest: TOXIC PROTEINS FOR DRUG DISCOVERY.🔻

Proud of new Dr. Rebecca Tarnopol @trnpl, my 10th (!) PhD student, who gave a spectacular finishing talk (on the role of HGT in the evolution of novelty in animals) today @UCBerkeley. Her proud parents and siblings attended. She said my lab was the “Talmudic” lab. : )

Consider submitting reports of new genome assemblies to G3 (Genome Reports). I am Senior Editor and we provide robust, rapid peer reviews. OA manuscript charges are ~$2400 for GSA members & waived for those from lower income countries academic.oup.com/g3journal/page… @GeneticsGSA

At our Annual Retreat of UC-Berkeley’s Genetic Dissection of Cells and Organisms Predoctoral Training Program, we showcased PhD trainee research and hosted speaker Dominique Bergmann. It is humbling & rewarding to shepherd junior geneticists through our NIH T32 training program.

Today, 166 years ago Alexander von Humboldt died (he was 89 years). He changed the way we think about nature (describing it as a web of life) & predicted climate change. Can't believe it's been 10 years since I published 'Invention of Nature'. It's change my life. In so many ways