Crosstalk between tissue mechanics and BMP4 signaling regulates symmetry breaking in human gastrula models

We have an exciting PhD position in our lab to explore phototropin receptor diversity in Begonia. If you’re interested in plant photobiology and receptor signalling, we’d love to hear from you! Deadline for expressions of interest: 20 December 2025.

We had a blast tonight at the ‘Curious about the Crick’ event showcasing the science in our lab. Lots of enthusiasm and so many interesting questions. Was awesome to share this with my wonderful lab from brainstorming to communicating the science we love. Thank you to @crick.ac.uk for having us

The Crick PhD program is open and there are amazing projects including our lab's. I couldn't recommend enough joining the program: brilliant community and excellent training and mentorship. Specific project with us will be decided based on your interests. Apply here www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...

new preprint: Ubiquitin is a protein modification linked with degradation but known to regulate other functions. Over 100k ubiquitination sites have been discovered and here we (@julianvangerwen.bsky.social + others) try to prioritize those most critical to the cell www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Many of you know, we lost Béla Novák this year. John Tyson, Francis Barr & I tried to capture his wonderful character & great mind so that those that didn't know him can see what a fantastic person he was. Thanks to @jcellsci.bsky.social for publishing. journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Opening my lab @crick.ac.uk two years ago has been a privilege, a delight and ultimately the most transformative experience of my sciencific career. Discovery science without boundaries, inspiring colleagues and infinite possibilities. Come join us!

2026 PhD recruitment is now open. As well as our main PhD recruitment, which is open to all, we are pleased to be offering scholarships for candidates of Black or mixed Black heritage. Learn more and apply on our website: www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...

Very sad news, John Gurdon has died. A developmental biologist's developmental biologist, Nobel prize winner His work is the foundation of much of today's dev & stem cell bio. An inspiration to many, including me. Always asking questions & wanting the answers www.magd.cam.ac.uk/news/profess...

Outstanding talk today at #CABDseminars by Silvia Santos @santoslab.bsky.social! Silvia showcased the latest work understanding the deciding cellular signals during early human development. Silvia was hosted by Fernando Casares. Thanks for coming Silvia!

Congratulations Isabela from the Dev Bio MSc program @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social for finishing successfully your viva! Was an absolute pleasure to train you and have you in the lab! Beautiful work on cell cycle and fate and never ending enthusiasm! Best of luck with your next adventure!

EEE meeting is BACK! Early Embryogenesis & Epigenetics conference in Berlin 02/2026. Checkout great program and over 12 slots for (not so) short talks for submitted abstracts!. Early registration now open - w.molgen.mpg.de/embryo2026

Farewell dinner for @oliveringe.bsky.social with our wonderful Santos lab family. Ollie was our 1st Crick PhD student! Lots to celebrate and many fun memories. We are so grateful to have had Ollie in the lab and cannot wait to see what’s next for him in the Morris lab at Harvard! Best of luck,Ollie!

The goal of a PhD is not to learn some facts or read a few papers or learn a bunch of techniques. The goal of a PhD is to learn independence, problem solving, how to finish things you start, resilience, & gain the ability to adapt & think creatively. Learning these things is hard.

It was fun to look back over a decade of 'From Stem Cells to Human Development' meetings at @dev-journal.bsky.social. This is one of the projects I most enjoyed during my time at the journal - and I really hope we helped to catalyse and support a community... journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

I could not have summarised our article better than @katherine-brown.bsky.social!! Please see below and keep reading if you are interested in human embryo research policy. It was such a pleasure to write this piece with Susana, Mina and Catello.

This is Mirjam, Santos Lab’ PhD student presenting her work at the EMBL meeting on Developmental Metabolism 🫶. Conference was incredible and Mirjam had an amazing time!

2/3 Special thank you to my supervisor Silvia, her continued mentorship and support throughout the PhD and onto my next step. 🙏

1/3 After 6+ years at @crick.ac.uk I split my last cells and hung up my lab coat! Thank you to the brilliant community from fellow PhDs/Postdocs, LOAs, STPs, academic training team and to all past/present @santoslab.bsky.social members. My Crick journey would not have been the same without you all!

Our ✨ latest work ✨ is out today! Led by our incredibly talented PhD student @oliveringe.bsky.social and with @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social and many @crick.ac.uk friends and collaborators. Very grateful to all involved, and excited about this story. check out Ollie’s post www.cell.com/developmenta...

A redox switch in p21-CDK feedback during G2 phase controls the proliferation-cell cycle exit decision

🤩 Very excited to share our new work! We have derived euploid and aneuploid trophoblast organoids and extra-embryonic mesoderm cell lines from early human embryos. In doing so, we have characterised the tissue requirements for their specification. If you want to know more, continue reading….

Want to acquire #ExM images like this and help us understand the true extent of cytoskeletal diversity across the tree of life? This position might be for you! embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j... With @dudinlab.bsky.social @embl.org @biology-unige.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social

Welcome Cayley to the Santos Lab! Cayley is going to spend a year in the lab as part of her undergraduate degree! Cayley is interested in the interplay between cell cycle and fate

A Summer reading recommendation: new primer in @dev-journal.bsky.social explains how dynamical systems theory unlocks the logic of developmental patterning Everything from bistable switches & oscillators to phase portraits & more with Python code to explore journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

EMBL Cell Biology and Biophysics department is searching for a new director. A major position to lead this field in Europe and beyond. embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...

Check out this awesome work from @vayyappan.bsky.social… Embryo Economics! :)

Please pread the word. We have just launched the Hubrecht International PhD Program (HIPP). Are you looking for a PhD position in molecular and developmental biology or related subject in an international, very supportive and collaborative environment? Then apply to the HIPP!! 👇

I was interviewed recently by @stemcellpodcast.com I witter on about morphogens, notochord, @dev-journal.bsky.social & how biology is becoming a data science Thanks @stemcellpodcast.com for talking to me stemcellpodcast.com/ep-299-spina...

🚨Symposium alert! 🚨 Next edition of our biennial stem cell symposium is 4th Dec 2025 - focus on metabolism and development. Sponsored by @bsdb.bsky.social. Great lineup of speakers, hosted @mrc-lms.bsky.social in London. Registration is open. www.symposia.org.uk/courses/stem...

A big mission of @crick.ac.uk is to bring Science to everyone. Thank you chris agathangelou and Clare green for your help with making our latest work on a new stem cell model of the human amnion accessible to all 🙏

A little interview with my postdoctoral advisor Jim Ferrell about his life. Timely as we prepare to celebrate his 70th birthday with a Ferrell -Lab-family symposium youtu.be/ov9YMkmzUAg?...

Always lovely to be in Vienna - wonderful visit yesterday at ISTA. Grateful to everybody who met me and shared their work - it is really a privilege to have a day of amazing science hearing what people are passionate about and learn new things. Thank you so much @kichevalab.bsky.social for having me

Nature research paper: Spatiotemporal orchestration of mitosis by cyclin-dependent kinase https://go.nature.com/444lRhe

🥰 Self-supervised, label-free 3D cell imaging is here Congrats to Cyril on this very cool first, first author publication 🏆! This started when he was a bachelor's student (and he's now completing his masters!). And many thanks to my other awesome co-authors🙏 elifesciences.org/articles/99848

⚠️ I am really excited to share the work of Anastasios Balaskas, an excellent PhD candidate in the lab, with the wider world. Tasos made a significant advance: generating a stem cell-based embryo model that contains both posterior and anterior neural tissues of the late-stage gastrulating embryo.

If you are going to sunny California to the Salk Cell Cycle meeting don't miss @eliascopin.bsky.social's talk! Elias is our cell cycle and cell fate enthusiast and his presenting new exciting results. Come and say hi! I wish i was there too - it is going to be a fantastic meeting!!

Welcome to the lab Isabela De Almeida Rossi, masters student from Reproductive and Development Biology MSc at Imperial College London. Isabela is interested in the interplay between cell cycle and cell fate and is using 2D and 3D stem cell models of early human development in her project.

Santos Lab barbecue at Borzo’s! Wonderful food 😍 and company #qscblab

Unraveling mitochondrial influence on mammalian pluripotency via enforced mitophagy: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

New work on dynamics of morphogen signaling: Cells decode BMP gradient via temporal integration of signaling level, not instantaneous thresholds. While GRN gates response to provide additional spatial input Morphogen signalling dynamics + GRN for tissue patterning www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

📣 New review! Dynamical systems and low-dimensional geometric structures in phase space help rationalize how embryos develop form and function, from large datasets. We focus on morphogenesis, cell differentiation, and their interconnection. @alex-plum.bsky.social sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Big welcome to new postdoc Javier de Haro Arbona @fjavierdha.bsky.social, developmental biologist at heart and coming from Sarah Bray’s lab in Cambridge! Javier has been very interested in how signals are decoded and fate decisions encoded. We are lucky to have him join our lab!

Big welcome to the lab to physicist turned quantitative biologist Beth Westbrook @bethwestbrook.bsky.social! Beth did her PhD in Jonathan Chubb’s lab at UCL and has been very interested in how fate transitions are coordinated. We are lucky she joined our lab for her postdoc!

Thank you very much @stemcellpodcast.com for highlighting our work (24:00-32:00) @crick.ac.uk

Women make up only 16% of corresponding authors who submit to Nature, a new Springer Nature analysis revealed. This is not enough - there are 30-40% #womeninSTEM We want to change it, through targeted editorial policies & outreach. But change will take everyone! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

New findings in Science demonstrate that successful mitosis may draw on more mechanisms than commonly assumed. Learn more in this #SciencePerspective: scim.ag/4dFbqnp

What a privilege to hear talks celebrating the career and impact our colleague François Guillemot had in his trainees, collaborators and colleagues @crick.ac.uk A much deserved celebration. Congratulations Francois and Siew-Lan and thank you for being awesome (+ awesome neighbours) Happy retirement