It was quite a day here. Got word that the liver IRF3 paper helmed by Suraj Patel will be published in the next issue of Science Translational Medicine and our single nucleus atlas of human and mouse adipose, led by Margo Emont, went live at Nature!
So proud of Emont et al (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04518-2). It was truly a huge TEAM effort, from those waking up early to consent subjects and surgeons providing samples, to the lab team who figured out how to turn those samples into data, and to Margo and the bioinformaticians who figured out how to get beyond vague descriptions of the data to uncover exciting new biology.
Taking nothing away from Margo, who’s receiving the plaudits she deserves, I want to take a moment to single out a group of research assistants who don’t get enough credit because they’re stuck somewhere between Emont, M and Rosen, E, just part of et al. But figuring out how to go from adipose tissue to happy nuclei that were suitable for droplet-based rt-PCR was no small feat. What had been so easy in brain samples was frustratingly difficult, and took Tenen, D., Pant, D., Veregge, M., and Essene, A. two solid years of painful struggle to overcome. Despite my “It only took 2 years because you suuuuucked” rejoinders, this paper is all about the talent, hard work, persistence, organization, and attention to detail that Danielle, Deepti, Molly, and Adam brought to bear to overcome the many hurdles and false starts.
A much deserved cheers to them. Couldn’t be more proud to say I got to work with you guys.