All Lab News
Congratulations to Mari Williams on Passing Her Candidacy Exam!
Mari Williams Advances to Candidacy!
Leanne Liaw Receives Two Awards
Congratulations to Leanne Liaw, an MS student in the Telese Lab, on receiving the 2026 UC San Diego Student Centeredness Award and the 2026 SfN Trainee Professional Development Award!
Dr. Telese Speaks at the FASEB Neuronal Experience-Regulated Transcription Meeting
Francesca Telese presented a talk on transcription initiation in experience-regulated gene expression at the FASEB conference on Neuronal Experience-Regulated Transcription.
New paper in Genes, Brain and Behavior
In our new study published in Genes, Brain, and Behavior, we find that a gene called Reelin does not change how much drug animals take, but it does change how strongly specific brain circuits respond to the drug.
Telese Lab Receives NIH U01 Renewal to Map the Molecular Basis of Drug Addiction
The lab received an NIH/NIDA U01 renewal to use single-cell multiomics and spatial transcriptomics to map molecular changes in addiction circuits and link them to human genetic risk for opioid use disorder.
Telese Lab Awarded NIH R01 to Study Metabolic-Epigenetic Mechanisms of Fentanyl Neurotoxicity
The lab received an NIH R01 to test whether targeting brain energy metabolism can protect against long-term cognitive deficits in fentanyl overdose survivors.
Welcome to the team, Tiffany!
We're excited to welcome Tiffany Chin as a new graduate student. Tiffany joins us from the Biology Program and is supported by the Pathways in Biological Sciences T32 program.
Our preprint “Transcription initiation profiling defines the regulatory logic of astrocyte gene regulation” is on bioRxiv
Kudos to Ashley Kumar and team, including our collaborators from Benner and Heinz labs at UCSD
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.03.722406v1
Manuscript Accepted in BMC Genomics
Manuscript accepted in BMC Genomics titled “Novel candidate genes for vestibular function identified through GWAS in the hybrid mouse diversity panel”. Francesca Telese is a co-author.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12864-026-12810-y
Our preprint “Reln haploinsufficiency enhances fentanyl-induced locomotion and striatal activity without affecting opioid reinforcement and relapse-like behavior” is on bioRxiv
Kudos to Carl Litif and team for characterizing the behavioral effects of the opioid fentanyl in a mouse model of Reelin haploinsufficiency
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.21.707172v3
Manuscript Accepted in Otology & Neurotology
Manuscript accepted in Otology and Neurotology titled “Whole Genome Sequencing of Sporadic Vestibular Schwannoma Reveals Novel Genetic Changes”. Ashley Kumar and Francesca Telese are co-authors.
Manuscript Accepted in Nature Protocols
Manuscript accepted in Nature Protocols titled “Profiling active RNA polymerase II transcription start sites from total RNA by capped small RNA sequencing (csRNA-seq)”. Patricia Montilla-Perez and Francesca Telese are co-authors.