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Gaurav Varshney

@varshneylab

Assoc. Prof. Interested in CRISPR, Zebrafish, Disease Modeling, Rare Diseases, and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. The opinions expressed here are my own.

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06.09.2023
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Latest posts by Gaurav Varshney @varshneylab

Hiring and promotion committees should reconsider treating editorial/reviewing services as an achievement, as this expectation is leading journals to exploit this uncompensated editorial/reviewing labor.

07.03.2026 18:16 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Recently, I stepped down as associate editor for two journals. It is very hard to recruit reviewers, and securing two takes a lot of time, which is unfair to the community waiting to hear the outcome. Journals profit from our time but do not want to address this issue.

07.03.2026 18:16 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Cleaning freezers before I move to a new place. Found these plates from @burgesslab.bsky.social, these plates made my career, hard to throw them now.

06.03.2026 19:40 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Conspiracy against Pis!

19.02.2026 20:31 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Is Ensembl dead? Never worked for me for the last few months.

19.02.2026 17:58 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 1
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A powerful new technology developed at OMRF could dramatically speed up the process of diagnosing rare genetic diseases.

Read more: omrf.org/2026/02/03/o...

03.02.2026 14:51 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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High-efficiency TadA cytosine base editors for precise modelling of human disease variants Nature Biomedical Engineering, Published online: 28 January 2026; doi:10.1038/s41551-025-01607-1A suite of TadA-derived cytosine base editors was optimized to improve efficiency, reduce sequence bias, expand PAM compatibility and minimize artefacts, enabling precise genetic interrogation of variants of uncertain significance (VUS) in zebrafish.

High-efficiency TadA cytosine base editors for precise modelling of human disease variants

31.01.2026 00:58 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks Shawn! You trained me well.

28.01.2026 16:38 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

TCBE-Umax delivers:
βœ“ 2x higher efficiency
βœ“ Works across diverse sequence contexts
βœ“ Minimal indels
βœ“ Expanded PAM options for hard-to-target sites
Grateful to ORIP/NIH and the Presbyterian Health Foundation for supporting this work.

28.01.2026 13:20 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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High-efficiency TadA cytosine base editors for precise modelling of human disease variants - Nature Biomedical Engineering A suite of TadA-derived cytosine base editors was optimized to improve efficiency, reduce sequence bias, expand PAM compatibility and minimize artefacts, enabling precise genetic interrogation of vari...

Our paper on TCBE-Umax is out in @natbiomedeng.nature.com!
We developed these high-efficiency cytosine base editors for zebrafish, enabling rapid functional testing of disease variants. This work is led by a talented scientist, Wei Qin.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

28.01.2026 13:20 πŸ‘ 16 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 2

Folks, it is finally out! Our paper on T2T assemblies of the zebrafish genome is on BioRxiv:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

17.11.2025 23:22 πŸ‘ 68 πŸ” 30 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3
Structures of DNA and morpholino oligonucleotides. R and R' denote continuation of the oligomer chain in the 5' or 3' direction, respectively. Credit to Corey & Abrams (2001) Genome Biology.

Structures of DNA and morpholino oligonucleotides. R and R' denote continuation of the oligomer chain in the 5' or 3' direction, respectively. Credit to Corey & Abrams (2001) Genome Biology.

Published October 25 years ago, β€œEffective targeted gene β€˜knockdown’ in zebrafish” by Nasevicius & Ekker detail use of antisense morpholino-modified oligonucelotides or #morpholinos that inhibit translation. This landmark spurred a revolution in targeted gene knockdown in vivo. #ZebrafishFunFacts πŸ§ͺ

11.10.2025 11:44 πŸ‘ 25 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1

While I'm sad our cover submission wasn't selected for our recent human duplication paper, check out the super cool illustration created with @lazaroillustration.bsky.social ! Certainly, you will be seeing Dennis lab members running around with "fishman" t-shirts at future meetings, inspired by Ohno

25.09.2025 20:19 πŸ‘ 33 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 1

Does anyone have #zebrafish LC3 reporter lines and would be willing to share them with us? #askzebrafish

06.09.2025 16:08 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
JBQAYU000000000.1 Danio rerio :: NCBI

#zebrafish genome update, our T2T assembly of the inbred strain of AB (M-AB) generated by my buddy Nori Sakai has now been released at NCBI and will be a second reference genome for zebrafish (GRCz12ab):

15.08.2025 16:17 πŸ‘ 41 πŸ” 17 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 1

Best wishes!

06.08.2025 23:55 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I do it at least 2-3 times a day!

06.08.2025 15:53 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Even if you do it from a phone, it will not be cleared elsewhere!

05.08.2025 15:45 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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02.08.2025 15:31 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Congratulations!

01.08.2025 16:33 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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CRISPR-based functional genomics tools in vertebrate models - Experimental & Molecular Medicine Recent advances in DNA sequencing have allowed scientists to gather vast amounts of genetic data, but understanding what those sequences actually do requires additional tools that allow scientists to ...

CRISPR technologies have transformed genetic research since their adaptation for genome editing in 2012. @burgesslab.bsky.social and I summarize key functional genomics tools being used in vertebrate models. www.nature.com/articles/s12...

31.07.2025 11:05 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Congratulations, Megan! As always inspiring work.

22.07.2025 02:25 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

By engineering TadA-based cytosine base editors with enhanced PAM flexibility and reduced off-targets, we overcome key limitations of existing CBEs, including poor editing at CC and GC motifs.

21.07.2025 14:58 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Rationally Designed TadA‐Derived Cytosine Editors Enable Context‐Independent Zebrafish Genome Editing A next-generation cytosine base editor (zTadCBE) and other variants are developed by combining the high-efficiency (TadCBEa) and low-indel (TadCBEMax) architectures, followed by the introduction of z....

Our paper on TadA-based cytosine base editors is now online in Advanced Science. We introduce zTadCBEsβ€”a next-generation CRISPR base editor optimized for zebrafish.
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

21.07.2025 14:58 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Congratulations!

18.07.2025 03:01 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
tol2kit for kwan lab

🚨🚨🚨 Tol2kit announcement! We have rebuilt the wiki that was corrupted a few months ago! We’re in the process of also linking it to the original address. Please visit us here:
tol2kitkwan.genetics.utah.edu
Thank you for your patience!!
#zebrafish #transgenesis #plasmids #sharing

07.07.2025 18:01 πŸ‘ 43 πŸ” 19 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Dear #izfc2025 participants, if anyone of you are interested in how transcription control defines mRNA fate and translation in zebrafish development, there are/will be several PhD and postdoctoral positions (funded by the Wellcome Trust) for this research. Please find me if interested.

11.07.2025 21:28 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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The winners of the 2025 George Streisinger Award are the Course Directors of the Zebrafish Development and Genetics course at MBL, for their tremendous contributions to our amazing community for >25 years! #izfc2025

11.07.2025 22:40 πŸ‘ 24 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

The new impact factors are out: Development – 3.6, Developmental Cell – 8.7. Why the steady decline in two of Dev Bio's flagship journals?

18.06.2025 20:43 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

What! That's where I worked. So many fond memories. 😭

15.06.2025 17:08 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0