Kasper was invited by NIMH to co-chair the Data Workgroup of the Convergent Neuroscience Consortium with Gene Yeo. The group will coordinate efforts to collect, harmonize, and share key data types (ranging from multi-omics to imaging, electrophysiology, etc.) generated by members of the consortium.

The Lage group attends the virtual NIMH Convergent Neuroscience and National Cooperative Reprogrammed Cell Research Groups (NCRCRG) meeting with presentations by @gretapinta and @yuhanhsu and a session on psychiatric data analysis and modeling moderated by Kasper and others.

Kasper was interviewed in a Nature News article that discussed the cluster of SARS-CoV-2 mutations found in farmed mink and people in Denmark. Current data suggest that the mink mutations do not allow the virus to spread more easily or make symptoms more severe in people. However, culling the animals is probably necessary as uncontrolled spread in mink could eventually lead to dangerous mutations.

The Lage team posted its preprint of an algorithm to identify cancer dependencies directly from tumor genome data with validation using targeted CRISPR screens. Great work by @hornheiko @CFagre @anikagupta18 and a wonderful collaboration with @broadinstitute @jamesTneal: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.27.270520v1

Kasper joins Tune Pers (@tunepers) at @UCPH_BRIDGE postdocs and @Metabolcenter to discuss cell-type-specific proteomes and agnostic genetically-guided tools to map mechanisms underlying complex traits and diseases.

Kasper joins Sally John, director of translational biology at Biogen, for  a conversation about Translational Genetics in Neuroscience, hosted by the Harvard Brain Initiative and the Arlotta Lab.

Frederik Lassen moves to Oxford, UK, to start a PhD program at the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics. He will continue collaborating with the Lage Lab and we wish him the best of luck in his new scientific endeavors!

Joshua Ching joins the Lage group as part of MIT’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). He will bring a much appreciated data analysis component to our efforts and will collaborate with senior members in the group. Welcome to the Lage team, Joshua!

Yu-Han and colleagues combined untargeted metabolomics with genetics to identify metabolites that may be causes or effects of obesity. They further grouped these metabolites into pathways to highlight how distinct biological mechanisms may be involved in obesity. Their findings demonstrate the strong potential of using untargeted metabolomics and genetically informed causal inference (Mendelian randomization) to uncover causal biological connections between metabolites and various human diseases, especially as larger datasets with both genotype and metabolite profiling data become available in the future. Congratulations on the great work, Yu-Han!

Kasper joins the Danish national discussion about transparency & openness of the COVID19 models & data in an important effort led by the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, to better communicate COVID19-related information to the public.