Doaa Megahed

Data & people wrangler @HarvardChanSPH|@safonline_org. Misfit. World citizen born 🇪🇬. Pacifist. Educator. Life-long learner. Science and healthcare for ALL!

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

We can kiss our federal funding goodbye, but take pride in being part of an institution that stands on the right side of history today! Time to forge alliances with funders and donors with a mission that aligns with ours.

[Harvard University @Harvard]

“No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.” - President Alan Garber https://t.co/6cQQpcJVTd

[المنتدى العربي العلمي @safonline_org]

يسعد المنتدى العربي العلمي (ساف) الإعلان عن مسابقة جديدة بالتعاون مع Dr @AliHShaib , Dr @RizzoliSilvio  in the Department of Neurophysiology, University of Goettingen 

📌للتقدم والمزيد من التفاصيل: 
https://t.co/ZDJDsEY4ZI

📌لمعرفة المزيد عن المؤتمر: 
https://t.co/qkoNnsSxfA

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

My thought on Why the 2024 Nobel in Chemistry is so significant for innovators in the Biotech/Techbio space. https://t.co/MjezRHMcBT

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

Musings on the recent SpringerNature IPO. Will Big Tech scoop it up? Enjoy with a grain of salt and heaps of speculation. https://t.co/MXh83xLr19

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

@mayank_mchugh Looking the part!

[المنتدى العربي العلمي @safonline_org]

SAF’s 3rd Life Sciences Conference 1-2 November 2024 is an opportunity for researchers, journalists, policy makers and investors in the MENA region to engage and learn from a diversity of Arab researchers and innovators
To register, follow the link: https://t.co/GGnJOZyJC3

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

Few researchers have touched the many facets of biology the way Marc Kirschner has. 👇he reminds us of the many ways science can be done. Something we should be 🎉ing. If you don't know who he his...google him.

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

Intriguing analysis!!! We should all stop and think about these results and their implications for a bit.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

In this new paper we calculate the unequal exchange of labour between the global North and global South. The results are quite staggering. You'll want to look at this... 🧵

https://t.co/fEbCmRZuyJ

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

Fully agree with this. Science is incremental, and there are many ways to do science. The approach the authors took in case of this paper is just one of many. I say be grateful the data and these vignettes are now out for for many others to benefit from.

[Manolis Kellis @manoliskellis]

To the colleagues and friends who find our paper overwhelming, and instead prefer to write and read more manageable papers with more focused messages:
I respect your perspective and your approach to science greatly, and find it invaluable, of course. Both broad and focused papers are needed in science, and we can't all write exactly the same type of paper, and we can't all be the same. Some papers/authors lay the 'landscape', other papers/authors dive deeply into the 'portraits' of specific genes and pathways.
Instead of simply dismissing our work as "TL;DR" and moving on, I encourage you to consider the value of not just releasing data, but also guiding the reader in how the data can be studied, as supporting points for detailed papers that dive into specific insights and facets.
As a genomicist, I have sought to contribute resource papers to the community across different fields (epigenomics, comparative genomics, single-cell, GWAS interpretation). Thousands of scientists have found our papers valuable through the years, and I already see the same excitement for this paper and resource from hundreds of scientists that responded overwhelmingly positively both to the resource and to the specific insights and hypotheses raised, both publicly and privately.
Following up on each of these hypotheses will take years and dedicated PhD and postdoc projects (and ultimately preclinical and therapeutic projects in industry), which are simply impossible tasks in the first landscape paper releasing the resource.
If one agrees that there is value in generating such massive datasets (and I'm happy to have this debate as well), I see three paths for publication:
(a) Simply upload the massive dataset on a website and let others figure it out (with appropriate privacy protections); or
(b) Wait 5-10 years for all the pathways and discoveries to be fully fleshed out in one giant paper or a series of papers as a 'package'; or
(c) Somewhere in the middle, namely releasing the data, providing illustrations of the types of analyses that can be carried out and the insights and tantalizing hypotheses they reveal, and carrying out initial experimental validations to provide validation support for some of our highlighted findings, with the understanding that fully pursuing any one of these insights will take many years and dedicated efforts by 'portrait' scientists.
With approach (c), which we tried to take, the large number of figures and panels in such 'landscape' papers seeks to guide the reader for how to explore the complexity of the dataset and the questions that can be answered. Each of these figures will take time to study, understand, reflect on, improve on, and hopefully each and all together will play a role in seeding ideas and insights, and pushing the field forward.
It is normal for such massive papers and resources to take days, weeks, months, and sometimes years to fully understand, and to fully extract maximum value from. It was a herculean task by the reviewers and editors, as it was of course for the authors, to go through every figure, every panel, and every result.
Of course there will be some mistakes that slipped through that process, and these will be corrected and improved up, with better methods, newer pipelines, and fresh perspectives, in science's self-correcting entreprise. We will learn from our mistakes, and from mistakes of others, and our next papers will hopefully be better, clearer, and more useful, though they will never be perfect, but hopefully sufficiently good to let others build on them and surpass them.
For those readers genuinely overwhelmed by the number of figures and panels in such papers, think of them as a good book with many chapters and many pages, not a YouTube short. Each paragraph, parenthesis, panel, supplementary figure, can hide potential hints and secrets that the authors themselves may have missed, and tools like the ChatGPT Consensus app can help elucidate, and dive deeply into specific hypotheses for hours of exploration. Ultimately, the best part of the paper begins *after* its publication, as countless students, postdocs, and group leaders dive into the findings, and weave their own stories from the threads each paper puts out.
So happy exploring and weaving, and may this paper generate more questions and hypotheses that we could have even imagined. With love to all -Manolis

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

Important given that this might soon creep into healthcare delivery. Starting now preempts bigger issues down the line. Applaud your vision @linakhanFTC 👏!

[Lina Khan @linamkhan]

1. Firms harvest a trove of Americans’ personal data, from your browsing history to your biometrics. Now firms could be using this data to target you with an individualized price.

Today @FTC launched an inquiry into these surveillance pricing tactics.

https://t.co/G4uc8lHWOV

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

@RecursionPharma @Nature Ha! I always thought this was a likely possibility. Unfortunate for many that it is true, but it speaks to the power of your platform. Incredible work!

[Recursion @RecursionPharma]

Using AI to find & correct a CRISPR bias. In a recent paper in @Nature Genetics, researchers at Recursion revealed a critical finding: #CRISPR editing of genes was leading to a proximity bias in other parts of the genome. In other words, knockouts showed unexpected similarities to unrelated genes on the same chromosome.

The finding has significant implications for #drug development and #AI modeling. @ImranSHaque, SVP of AI and Digital Sciences at Recursion, explains. 🧵

[Anne Carpenter, PhD @DrAnneCarpenter]

US citizens or permanent residents from an under-represented group!

You can contact any NIH-funded researcher you admire & suggest applying for this supplement to join their lab! High school thru postdoc/faculty. Many, like me, are happy to host!

Pls RT
https://t.co/B1wUL4jTrB

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

@mayank_mchugh @williamandmary So happy and proud of you! @williamandmary have no idea how lucky they are!!!

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

Nature and other SpringerNature editors are striking! Clearly, I taught them well.

Read more below and sign the linked letter supporting better working conditions for editorial staff. 👇

https://t.co/sjPWZOOHPE

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

Intriguing - though I wonder where the data comes from.

[Xavi Ruiz @xruiztru]

Germany: one country, two societies.

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

No one is above the law...that is what we should aspire to as civilized nations of the modern world👇. Enforcement though...questionable.

[Int'l Criminal Court @IntlCrimCourt]

#ICC Prosecutor @KarimKhanQC announces applications for arrest warrants in relation to Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant in the context of the situation in the State of #Palestine ⤵️
https://t.co/WqDZecXFZq

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

A great listen on scientific taste, choosing problems, and the art of collaboration. Aviv Regev is an incredible inspiration for the modern scientist ✨👩‍🔬.
https://t.co/6agxg8WjpJ

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

Amen!

[Doaa Megahed @DouaaMugahid]

Whoop! Whoop!

[Ṣẹ̀yẹ Abímbọ́lá @seyeabimbola]

Watch what happens as @gatesfoundation stops paying article publishing fees, shifts to peer reviewed preprints, & advocates for “low-cost digital publishing platforms”.

I predicted this 5 years ago!

Advancing Equity and Innovation in Research Publishing https://t.co/SeIZD3i4bC