Jacob Corn
Genome editing, functional genomics, and cells figuring out how to eat themselves without dying. Professor of Genome Biology at ETH Zürich.
- Dunedin welcomed me to my sabbatical at @universityofotago.bsky.social with @peterfineran.bsky.social with style.
- Sometimes I'm excited to read a paper and every paragraph blows me away. And sometimes I'm just as excited and every paragraph leaves me wondering if the referees were sleeping on the job. Today it was one of the latter.
- Reposted by Jacob CornERC Plus Grants • No career limit, current ERCs are not eligible • Major challenge, transformative research • Up to 7 million euros, up to 7 years • 30 grants per year, 2 years, only once per lifetime • Same application format, plus vision statement • Deadline in September 2026, 2 stage evaluation
- What controls expansion & contraction of DNA repeats (e.g. Huntington's)? We were thrilled to collaborate w/ the lab of Marta Olejniczak to find out. Check out the cool screen from @sebasiegner.bsky.social and @matthiasmuhar.bsky.social that reads out repeat sequence. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- I’m very grateful to @ethz.ch @vseth.ethz.ch.web.brid.gy for a Golden Owl award. People who know me know that I respectfully decline science awards. But recognition directly by students hits different!
- Congratulations to @sebasiegner.bsky.social who defended his PhD on Friday! His name will be on 6-7 papers by the time he leaves the lab, including a co-first Nature paper. What a superstar! Keep an eye out for his postdoc application 😉
- I recently received an AI-generated referee report. Almost all suggested experiments were already main figures & referee admitted using AI when asked by the editor. But they claimed they only used AI to write. No way. Editors, what do you do in this case? Referees, at least read the paper!
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- Reposted by Jacob Corn957 proposals were submitted in the latest round of ERC Synergy applications. They expect to fund 50 which means around 5% success rate. This is really not sustainable and a lot of people are likely avoiding doing this knowing how poor the chances are. erc.europa.eu/news-events/...
- Congrats to Moritz Schlapansky, who successfully defended his PhD thesis on Friday! You can read his work on "scOUT-seq" profiling of single cell transcriptomes + editing outcomes in millions of cells and living mice at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- In 2026 I'm taking a sabbatical in @peterfineran.bsky.social lab @universityofotago.bsky.social. I'm looking forward to learning a lot from Peter's lab and excited to get back to my prokaryotic/viral roots! Also planning to some trips to the rest of the Pacific and Asia. So much to look forward to!
- Sometimes #Cas9 is too dang big. But mini Cas proteins are bad at both NHEJ & HDR. PhD student Fedor Gorbenko used mammalian cell evolution for *HDR* to make REALLY super #Cas12f1 and #TnpB. As good as or better than Cas9! Base editors included! www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2025.10.27.684765v1
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- Ever noticed that #CRISPR editing results differ between cells? Awesome PhD student Moritz Schlapansky developed "scOUT-seq" to measure single cell transcriptomes + editing. 1.2 million cells, 74 cell types, living 🐭. Cell subtypes differ wildly from bulk average! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Long time no see, everyone! Things have been a bit more busy than ususal, hence the radio silence. But stay tuned for some fun news in the next few days.
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- Do you want to know about the invisible secrets of #HDR during #CRISPR genome editing? Check out our preprint at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... New methods, crazy biology, and theft from the genome! From PhD student @charlesyeh.bsky.social
- New #preprint from the lab! Do you want to see the invisible? So did we! When DNA genomes get broken, cells somehow find related sequences to fix the break. But how do they find it? We developed a way to look at sequence *search*, not just sequence usage. doi.org/10.1101/2025...
- Cells are filled with toxic stuff that damages healthy proteins. Is that garbage just left to rot on the curb? No way! Ubiquitin ligases have evolved to recognize chemical damage and clean it up! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Thanks to amazing collaborators in the Schulman, Jinek, and Jessberger labs. And most of all to Jeff Bode's lab, who has been with this every step of the way. @micharapelab.bsky.social wrote a News and Views that explains our work far better than I ever could. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
