Vagheesh Narasimhan
@vagheesh
Leading a group focused on AI + Genomics. Assistant Professor in the Departments of Integrative Biology | Statistics and Data Science @UTAustin
Humans are the only bipedal great apes, due to the evolution of our unique skeletal form. What genomic regions underlie such change? Our cover article in @sciencemagazine led by @EucharistKun and in collab. with @tarjs is now out! science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
By combining data from full-body x-ray images and associated genomic data from more than 30,000 UK Biobank participants, researchers have provided new insights into the evolution of the human skeletal form. Learn more this week in Science: scim.ag/3qw
Pleasure to co-edit this issue of Current Opinion on human genetic origins with @jsteinlab with support from @ELS_Genetics : sciencedirect.com/special-issue/…
Growing up I was never a human evolution guy. I liked reptiles! But a @NatGeo article changed my view on things and I became obsessed. This is an amazing article that’s equally exciting nationalgeographic.com/history/articl…
Our new paper on ancient DNA to address the spread of Uralic languages now out in @nature (we started working on this in 2018). Many interesting results, including a sample from ~16k years ago Yakutia that can be modeled as an unadmixed Native American. nature.com/articles/s4158…
Based on the new DNA evidence now from Harbin, as well as Xiahe, it's now almost certain that the samples in the yellow box are all Denisovan. It's very exciting that we finally get to study the morphology of these samples in light of their relationship to us and Neanderthals.
Incredible! Dragon man is a Denisovan. Major congratulations Qiaomei Fu cell.com/cell/fulltext/…
Incredibly proud that our paper on the #palaeoproteomics analysis of the Penghu mandible, led by @tsutatsuta.bsky.social and in collaboration with Chun-Hsiang Chang, @E_Cappellini and co, is out now in @ScienceMagazine! doi.org/10.1126/scienc…
Thrilled to share that the first project from my PhD is now published in Science (@ScienceMagazine)! 🎉 We studied the genetic architecture of and evolutionary constraints on the human pelvic form. Read more: science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
Ready for the most powerful foundation model for medical images/videos? 🚨 Just dropped: MedSAM2 The next-gen foundation model for 3D medical image & video segmentation — built on top of SAM 2.1. • Project site: medsam2.github.io • Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2504.03600 Why…
Want a to make genetic maps from sperm/pollen/gametes? Now there is an easy way, based on Hi-C sequencing. Thanks to Richard Durbin and Ed Green for the idea and a great group of co-authors for contributions.
Hi-reComb: constructing recombination maps from bulk gamete Hi-C sequencing biorxiv.org/content/10.110… #biorxiv_genetic
How did humans develop unique traits despite sharing nearly identical genomes with other primates like chimpanzees? Together with Han Yang (@HanYang_Henry), our new study on human accelerated regions (HARs) sheds light on this question @ nature.com/articles/s4158…. 1/12
Whenever I'm feeling a little out of it scientifically or think I need huge sample sizes to say anything meaningful, I often re-read Green et al, Science, 2010. It's a truly otherworldly paper and of course duly won the Nobel Prize. The supplement is just🔥science.org/doi/abs/10.112…
The duality principle in biology: A single human zygote contains all the information you need to develop into an adult human and at the same time contains within it, the evolutionary history of our species. x.com/AlexTISYoung/s…
Interesting article from @WiringTheBrain that develops variational auto encoders (VAEs) as a metaphor for the relationship between genome and organism, with the genome corresponding to the compressed representation. I like the 'generative model' metaphor better than the…
ONE OF THE MOST FASCINATING COMPETITIONS in current #AI research is the battle between Transformers and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) [1], which both have powerful applications in medical imaging [2,3], or predicting the stock market [4], or, of course, LLMs such as ChatGPT,…
New paper in @ScienceMagazine shows tiger distribution in India increased by 30% in the last two decades. It now supports more than 75% of the global tigers across 138200 sq. km. sharing space with 60 million people. science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
This tigress has reclaimed the ancient fort within Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve and made it her home. Protection, prey, peace, and prosperity have been key factors in the tiger recovery within India, according to a new Science study. Learn more in this week's issue:…
Out today in Cell: a comprehensive map of Human Accelerated Region gene targets in human and chimpanzee neural stem cells. Thread: cell.com/cell/fulltext/… authors.elsevier.com/a/1kWzdL7PXuDki
Really thrilled for this launch. Our team solved some extremely challenging problems in orchestrating data across various storage and compute networks while delivering a product consistent with a Web2 experience. Job’s not finished - it’s just the start.
The Next-Gen Data Warehouse is here. Chakra is now available in Public Preview.
A great article about a great paper, featuring @UTAustin's very own @kmahowald! quantamagazine.org/can-ai-models-…
Excited to share the paper: Huntington's disease is a DNA process for almost all of a cell's life. Inherited HD alleles are innocuous, just unstable – CAG repeats slowy expand throughout life. We call it a "ticking DNA clock". cell.com/cell/fulltext/…
AI is completely insane! (From the lab of this years winner of the Nobel prize) nature.com/articles/s4158…
