Hunter Shain
UCSF, Department of Dermatology. Part of HTAN. Cancer, genomics, melanoma, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, dermatology, somatic mutations, tumor evolution, spatial transcriptomics, single-cell
- Grants should have page limits on letters of support. If you need more than 3 pages (1 page per letter x 3 letters), then maybe you should not be leading the grant.
- I am just reading this paper, and it is absolutely wild. Tumor cells acquire mutations in mitochondria, and then transfer them to T-cells, and the mutant mitochondria drives dysfunction in the T-cells?! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Recent review from HTAN. Linghua Wang with a timely review on spatial omic technologies Cancer Cell. www.cell.com/cancer-cell/...
- A new perspective is out by Kai Tan and Lichun Ma from the Human Tumor Atlas Network discussing the emerging concept of the cellular neighborhood. www.nature.com/articles/s43...
- Keaton Wagler with the best college basketball game of the year and ESPN doesn’t even have a picture.
- Reposted by Hunter ShainA new preprint from the lab, with postdoc @deboraycb.bsky.social and collaborators @aidaandres.bsky.social and Tim Connallon: “Characterising the detectable and invisible fractions of genomic loci under balancing selection” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- Thinking about the soft money problem in science. My institution will send 100 emails to faculty list serves guilt tripping someone to volunteer to teach before offering a dime of compensation.
- Reading the Mike Lauer interview. A very informative take from an insider on the state of NIH. www.statecraft.pub/p/whats-wron...
- Reposted by Hunter ShainLikewise, Congressman Cole from Oklahoma is the chair of the overall House Appropriations committee. If you can, reach out to his office as well. It is noteworthy that OMB is willing to veto a bill over a minor-seeming NIH operational issue. This makes me think this is part of a bigger plan...
- The Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis trade looked bad from the get-go for the Mavericks, and it is aging even worse.
- I think I have reached the point in my career where I have reviewed more grants than I have had grants reviewed.
- This is probably overkill, but when reviewing grants, I randomize the order in which I read them. I worry that order matters. E.g. for the first grant, you do not have an overall sense of the quality and possibly err on the side of an average score.
- We (U.S. citizens) literally pay the tariffs. I bought something from Etsy from an international seller. UPS guy came to my door holding the package and gave me two options. 1. Write a check to UPS for the tariff or 2. refuse delivery and send it back.
- Reposted by Hunter ShainGreat to see research on tanning bed and cancer risk from @bishaltandukar.bsky.social @shainlab.bsky.social on today’s @ucsanfrancisco.bsky.social Town Hall www.ucsf.edu/news/2025/12... #UCSFCancerProud
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- Proud to share our new paper in Science Advances. We show that indoor tanning beds cause widespread mutational damage across the skin to increase melanoma risk, especially in body sites that rarely see sunlight. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #Melanoma #SkinCancer
- Hitting 1800 elo in style with a smothered mate!
- What drives the earliest steps of skin cancer development? In keratinocyte cancers, the first selected mutations almost always hit TP53 and NOTCH genes—plus occasional hits in chromatin remodeling genes or the Hippo pathway.
- You might expect these early mutations to make cells grow faster. Surprisingly… they don’t. Mutant clones are no larger than clones without pathogenic mutations. (This echoes classic findings from Martincorena et al., Science 2015.)
- I remain stunned by this finding -- melanocytes have 5x more mutations than keratinocytes, despite the fact that the cells are next to each other in the basal layer of the epidermis, [theoretically] experiencing the same doses of UV radiation.
- I am thrilled to share the latest manuscript from the Shain lab, describing the genetic changes that transform a keratinocyte into cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (and everything in between). www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Special thanks to @bishaltandukar.bsky.social @delahnydeivendran.bsky.social who led the study. Also thanks for funding from: the Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN), NCI, DOD, @melanomaresearch.bsky.social
- Too small!
- Reposted by Hunter ShainToday at 4pm: Cancer Center Friday Seminar | Ashley Kiemen, PhD, Johns Hopkins Inst for NanoBioTechnology "Integration of histology and multiplex imaging for targeted understanding of pancreatic cancer progression" cancer.ucsf.edu/seminars Host: @shainlab.bsky.social @ucsanfrancisco.bsky.social
- Nancy Pelosi is retiring after decades of service. I still remember when I received my first R01, and she sent me a congratulatory letter!
- 1/ Should you get feedback on your grant proposals? Sure — but do it right. And take positive feedback with a grain of salt. 🧂
- What is your favorite gene expression deconvolution software?
- Hey @bontahill.bsky.social , who are you rooting for? Stanford or FSU?
- Reposted by Hunter ShainA summary of training, fellowship, and career development awards Fiscal year 2025 (compared to fiscal year 2024) 1/12
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- A bundle of interesting papers just dropped on Nature. Collectively, they describe the somatic mutational landscapes normal tissues.
- Reposted by Hunter Shain🚨 New paper alert! Sex and smoking bias in the selection of somatic mutations in human bladder www.nature.com/articles/s41... by @raquelbmi.bsky.social, @ferriol.bsky.social et al (in collaboration with Rosana Risques lab in @uwmedicine.bsky.social)
- Dear collaborator, I am writing to confirm support for your grant. Before I write one sentence describing my tiny role on your project, please read 3 paragraphs about how awesome your grant is, which I definitely wrote myself.
- What a satisfying mate!
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- I felt it #moderate
- Earthquake! Bay Area
