
Postdoctoral researcher in the @SashaZhernakova Lab at University Medical Center Groningen. Former PhD student with @EvelienAdri at @TheQuadram 🦠
Joined July 2024
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Almost 13 years ago (feeling very old), I started my journey at university as a naive and optimistic 19 year old… it has been a long, topsy-turvy road but I can now finally cap it all off as Dr. Docherty 🧪 👨🎓
Thank you to everyone that has supported me throughout!!
James Docherty retweeted
CHAMPIONS AGAIN!
🏆 Celtic are crowned Champions of Scotland for the FIFTH season in a row!
Huge congratulations to Martin O’Neill and the Bhoys
#Champion5 | #CelticFC🍀🏆
James Docherty retweeted
🚨 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁!
I'm excited to share our new manuscript exploring the gut virome during pregnancy and early life in the Lifelines NEXT cohort.
@GroMicrobiome @researchumcg
🔗 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁:
doi.org/10.64898/2026.03.05.…
Excited to share my first @biorxivpreprint since joining the @SashaZhernakova lab!
We investigate prophage dynamics and stability in Bifidobacterium longum subspecies (including the novel BL. nexti) across the first year of life in LLNEXT infants. 🦠🧬
biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…
James Docherty retweeted
New online! Predicting phage–host specificity dlvr.it/TQwh61
James Docherty retweeted
To turn spatial data into a 3D object, check our protocol (open source, napari plug-in). @GuignardLab @adrianobolondi @IBDMmarseille
For example, if you have spatial RNA-seq as sections, you can align them automatically to analyse directly in 3D.
bio-protocol.org/e5607
James Docherty retweeted
Happy to share that my postdoctoral work is now out in @ScienceMagazine. We show that the RNA-programmable bridge recombinase ISCro4 can insert, delete, or invert multi-kilobase DNA fragments at defined genomic sites in human cells.
Study link: science.org/doi/10.1126/scie…
CRISPR-Cas has transformed genome editing, but many diseases involve diverse patient-specific mutations within the same gene. A mutation-agnostic alternative is to insert a healthy gene copy at a defined genomic locus, but gene-sized, site-specific insertions remain a major challenge.
Main findings of our work:
(1) ISCro4 is highly active in human cells and can be delivered by plasmid or all-RNA formats
(2) Proof-of-concept programmable multi-kb insertions, deletions, and inversions
(3) Structural insights into the basis of enhanced ISCro4 activity
(4) Specificity and off-target characterisation
(5) A framework to support future development and adoption of bridge recombinases
The work was made possible through a close collaboration between the Jinek Lab, @schwanklab, and @jcornlab. I am deeply grateful to all of my co-authors for the team spirit, hard work, and dedication that went into this publication: @talasandris, Javier Fernández Carrera, @nicopmat, Lilly van de Venn, Charles Yeh, @p_kulcsar, @marquark, @YanikWeber, @SaskiaGerecke, Isabelle Harvey-Seutcheu, Dominic Mailänder, @MorPfl, and @ChrisChanez89. Special thanks to my supervisor, Prof. Martin Jinek, for his outstanding mentorship, and to Prof. Gerald Schwank and Prof. Jacob Corn for their generous support throughout. Finally, I would like to thank everyone in the Jinek lab for creating a supportive work environment, and @EMBO for funding my postdoctoral work.
In parallel, independent work led by @ntperry13, @SKonermann and @pdhsu also reported ISCro4 activity in human cells, reinforcing the robustness and momentum of this direction.
Please reach out if you would like to test the system or discuss potential applications. Relevant plasmids are now available via @Addgene.
James Docherty retweeted
One week left to apply for the postdoc position at MRC-LMB in Cambridge. Join our team for an exciting project on transcription-coupled splicing to understand human gene regulation 🧬
#postdoc #cryoEM #biochemistry
🚨Postdoc opportunity🚨Our lab at MRC-LMB Cambridge is recruting a postdoc to study transcription-coupled splicing using cryoEM and endogenous isolation! 🔬 🧬
Please feel free to get in touch directly #postdoc #cryoEM #biochemistry
Apply here by 11 Feb
nature.com/naturecareers/job…
James Docherty retweeted
Announcing our preprint: Predicting evolutionary rate as a pretraining task improves genome language model representations: biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…
Genome language models (gLMs) have the potential to further understanding of regulatory genomics without requiring labeled data...
James Docherty retweeted
Our paper is out today in Nature Physics! 🎉 doi.org/10.1038/s41567-025-0…
It was highlighted by Brown News: brown.edu/news/2026-01-26/ce…
Huge thanks to my amazing co-authors @hyuntae_jeong and @carles_falco, and deepest gratitude to my mentor @ianywonglab
for leading this journey. 🧵
James Docherty retweeted
🔬 We’re hiring again!
Looking for 1 #PhD student to join the #MSCA-DN TRANSCEND network 🧬
Project on unconventional #Tcells in #MultipleSclerosis with research exchanges in
🇩🇰 Eyer’s lab, Aarhus
🇳🇴 @victorgreiff’s lab, Oslo
⏳ Deadline: Feb 28
👉 euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/4…
James Docherty retweeted
Exciting PhD positions on plant immunity and engineering plant disease resistance with an excellent supervisor @JiorgosKourelis. Strongly recommend.👇
📢 2 PhD Positions - Plant Immune Receptor Bioengineering at Imperial College London
🌱 Start: Oct 2026
📅 Deadline: 10 Feb 2026
🇬🇧 UK/settled status only
💰 Fully funded (48 months)
ℹ️ shorturl.at/po61I
#PlantImmunity #PlantPathology
🙏 Share with interested candidates!
James Docherty retweeted
🔊 Job Opportunity: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Bacterial Evolution.
Looking to recruit a postdoc to join a UKRI FLF-funded project on antibiotic resistance evolution in the microbiome 🦠
3 years funding, deadline 26th Jan, please share!
hrwebapp.qub.ac.uk/tlive_web…
James Docherty retweeted
When planning your bulk RNAseq experiments for 2026, make sure they're not under-powered. If they are, >50% of your positives will be false, and you'll miss >50% of truly perturbed genes.
nature.com/articles/s41467-0…
James Docherty retweeted
In our most recent publication in @NatureProtocols, we outline detailed methods for performing CRISPR screens in human neural #organoids and #assembloids.
The integration of these screening approaches with human models is becoming increasingly powerful for uncovering human biology and gaining mechanistic insights into disease.
This is the 4th article in our series of detailed protocols describing the generation of regionalized neural organoids and of assembloids, and their transplantation, and it serves as a foundation for our hands-on course in our Stanford @BrOrganogenesis.
Work led by XiangLing Meng (now running her own lab at Baylor) with Noah Reiss!
James Docherty retweeted
Infinitely grateful as well for the guidance and support from Drs. @tassimes, @GardnerPhD and Marcia Stefanick — thank you all!
James Docherty retweeted
Excited to share our new study on antifungal drug tolerance in the human fungal pathogen Candida albicans.
This work highlights a link between between drug tolerance and cytoplasmic fluidity.
Short summary👇(1/10)
biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…
#Science #Microbiology #CellBiology
James Docherty retweeted
Very happy to see our work published! Thank to the editor and the reviewers for all the very helpful comments!
👇🏼 Summary of the preprint version
xitter.cf/antonio_serr90/status/…
Out Now! Decreased cytoplasmic crowding via inhibition of ribosome biogenesis can trigger Candida albicans filamentous growth bit.ly/4q7rqUd #CandidaAlbicans #FilamentousGrowth #RibosomeBiogenesis





























