George Chen

I'm immensely grateful to Dan Geschwind and all the members of the Geschwind lab who have been valuable collaborators and colleagues over the past seven years. Special thank you to my past funding: @NIH, @SimonsFdn, @UCLAstemcell, @eaglesautism

I'm excited to share that I am starting my own lab at Children's Hospital Los Angeles! My lab will focus on modeling neurodevelopmental disorders using brain organoids to understand the impacts on development and to develop therapeutic interventions.

@ScottGustin Like when they tried to move all of WDI to Florida haphazardly, this strategy of ignoring the value of institutional knowledge does not bode well for the future of the company.

I don’t care how a company is restructuring. If it leads to losing talent like this, it’s a bad plan. Full stop.

@ScottGustin Insane to me that they did not use the in-universe name Harryhausen's. "Mike and Sulley's Flavors of Asia" sounds like a placeholder name.

NEW: Here’s a first look at Mike and Sulley's Flavors of Asia restaurant on the Disney Adventure.

@PeterSciretta The bar is so, so low. And yet, I have no faith that he will, sadly.

If Josh D’Amaro wants to win over all the Disney parks fans, his first action as CEO he should announce the removal of the park reservation system ☺️

This week, we report in @Nature our effort to identify molecular convergence and divergence in #autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using human stem cell models. In this collaborative study with Dan Geschwind's lab, spanning almost a decade, we derived 96 hiPS cell lines representing 8 genetic forms of ASD, idiopathic patients, and 20 controls, and after rigorous quality control differentiated 70 lines in more than 150 experiments into human cortical #organoids for 100 days. Interestingly, early time points harbored the largest mutation-specific changes, but distinct mutations converged on shared transcriptional changes as development progressed. This is just the beginning: we will need larger cohorts and more advanced cultures that capture cell diversity and interactions, such as #assembloids. Still, this initial study illustrates how risk associated with genetically defined forms of ASD can propagate through transcriptional regulation, leading to convergent and divergent signaling defects. This work was spearheaded by the heroic efforts of Aaron Gordon and Se-Jin Yoon, together with Lucy Bicks!

@DLPReport How did this get approved for distribution? Even as a scratch track this is unacceptable. Embarrassing.

The merchandise video voice over is clearly AI, a monotone voice struggling to say Rapunzel. Please stop.

Modern GWAS can identify 1000s of significant hits but it can be hard to turn this into biological insight. I'm excited to share our new work combining genetic associations and Perturb-seq to build interpretable causal graphs, out today in @Nature:

WESTCOT CENTER THREAD 🌐 Lots of new never-before-seen pieces of concept art from Disney's cancelled idea for a second theme park next to Disneyland, WestCot Center, have been revealed as part of an upcoming auction by @JuliensAuctions! Join me as we look at all of them!

After years of unanswered questions, a rare NR4A2 gene mutation gave Franklin Henry and his family clarity, and sparked new research into the genetic roots of #autism. Now, he's helping @UCLAHealth researchers better understand how the brain develops. uclahealth.org/news/article/r…

Story out today from @UCLAHealth on one of my projects in @GeschwindLab studying rare neurodevelopmental disorders using patient stem cells and brain organoids. UCLA #ResearchPowersProgress uclahealth.org/news/article/r…

New preprint from our lab led by an amazing team, @ckvuong and Alexis Weber, were we employ single-cell multi-omics in the developing brain to uncover mechanisms of Down syndrome. #brain #singlecell #multiomics #DownSyndrome biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

@ScottGustin I hope that's true, but the Buena Vista Street poster leaves much to be desired. Besides the bats and hands, the composition is just weird. Why are the guests just standing with hands in their pockets? Why are the villains inconsistent in their sizing?

FWIW - I confirmed the artwork is entirely original and that AI was not used at any stage of the creative process. 👍

"Dear @SenMullin, Capito, @SenBillCassidy, Collins, Cornyn..[6 others]" "These hastily-executed NIH contract cuts will damage medical research for diseases like cancer&dementia... It would be taking the side of cancer to do nothing to stop [the cuts]" Letter sent to R Senators:

@SouthwestAir Hedge funds ruin everything: cnbc.com/2025/03/11/sou…

Wow, @SouthwestAir killing all the reasons they were my preferred budget airline all in one go. The free checked bags were great for families, no expiration flight credits for the budget conscious. Way to get rid of all the good things that distinguished your company.

@ScottGustin Offering a promotional ticket during peak season seems to be a way of finally admitting that they’ve gone too far with the current pricing model.

Disneyland revealed a new Disneyland Anniversary Ticket offer: - Tickets valid May 16 to Aug. 14 - 3-day ticket as low as $120/day - 4-day ticket as low as $100/day - Tickets can be used on nonconsecutive days - On sale starting March 11

@ZLabe So sorry Zack, this is absolutely ridiculous.

After nearly two weeks of overwhelming uncertainty, today it happened. I was fired from my dream of working at NOAA. I'm so sorry to everyone also affected. My job was to strengthen NOAA's use of machine learning and AI for subseasonal-to-decadal weather and climate prediction

I don't particularly follow the Superb Owl, but as one team currently supports my research on developing therapies for individuals with profound autism, GO BIRDS!

Seminar refreshments