Kind of wild to think about… Less than 2 years ago: just me, sitting in an empty lab 😅 Now: every bench is full, people everywhere, ideas flying, organized chaos in the best way. And shoutout to grad students @sakshiverma.bsky.social and Sheikh Faisal winning poster awards along the way!

Feels good to be back at the bench sectioning tissue. AND I didn't even break anything!

Interested in contact-mediated intercellular communication? ✅ out this review postdoc @christinaadaly.bsky.social and I co-authored with Shiyu Liu and Chiara Zurzolo! 🧪 #cytonemes #tunnelingnanotubes #migrasomes

Goals!!! 🇨🇦 🍁 ⚽️🎉

Big day in the lab yesterday! First time presentations for Faisal giving a poster and Sakshi giving a talk at CCMB Research day! They crushed it!

Spent the weekend visiting family and reconnecting with the locals! 🐻

Its always fun watching the logging sports competition back home for the May long weekend.

Ellie is overwhelmed by this evenings neighborhood nature show. Extra mad at us because we won't let her out to go after all the critters.

Breast cancer brain metastases don’t just invade the brain, they rewire it! Our new review covers how metastatic breast cancer cells hijack neurotransmitters, synapses, astrocytes, and calcium signaling, to thrive in the brain. Possibly through #Cytonemes and #TNTs ! www.mdpi.com/3849806

The 69th CSMB meeting in Banff has been fantastic so far! Great science, and great researchers. The most concerning thing is keeping a safe distance from the local wildlife!

🔦🔬Imaging spotlight: Minimally invasive live tissue clearing with SeeDB-Live In this paper highlight, Shigenori Inagaki & Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social share their tips & tricks on implementing SeeDB-Live. focalplane.biologists.com/2026/04/01/i...

I hope today's results are not an April Fools joke! 😅

It's 2pm on a Monday and I already feel 3 days behind on emails this week.

Cells use proteins like morphogens to talk to each other in order to build and maintain 3D tissue structures. But how do these morphogens reach distant cells when they are all packed together? We think long #cytonemes play a big role in shaping how cells talk to one another for growth.

Following on from her beautiful featured image post on FocalPlane, Christina Daly @christinaadaly.bsky.social shares her top tips for imaging cytonemes. @labogden.bsky.social. focalplane.biologists.com/2026/01/19/c...

It's #FluorescenceFriday , while the original image of cancer cells interacting by cytonemes is already great. I had a little fun with some filters!

Amazing imaging by a former lab mate!

Me, first day back in the office responding to emails after the holiday break. Work is really cutting into my nap routine.

A great end of term presentation by co-op student Christina Bernados, followed by lab lunch to celebrate! We're looking forward to having you back this summer, to keep investgating cytonemes and Notch signaling!

The FPbase spectra viewer just had it's biggest software refactor in 6 years. It *should* be largely invisible to the end user (hopefully just faster and less buggy). Please let me know if you find any issues as you use it! www.fpbase.org/spectra/

NSERC submitted! Time for a celebratory beer and a nap!

As spooky season is upon us 🎃, we have cells that look like spider webs for #FluorescenceFriday 🧪🔬

This is a great lab, doing incredibly exciting research! 🧪🔬

[stands up soapbox] I know AI has its benefits, but the current general implementations of LLMs is breaking referencing and reviews in research, and I hate it! 😫 Not to mention the internet as a whole. Kurzgesagt, again gives a great example of the problem. youtu.be/_zfN9wnPvU0?...

We are pleased to share that CHRIM is seeking our next CEO/Scientific Director! If you want to join a unique environment where collaboration sparks innovation, see the full job posting here: tinyurl.com/3dkcsdmh Please feel free to share this job posting with your networks!

Great work by Sheikh Faisal Asadullah Mahdi, showing us his work on cytonemes in brain cancers at the Prairie Cancer Consortium today!

After seeing @miguelcmestre.bsky.social @lancasterlab.bsky.social @jamesdmanton.bsky.social 's paper this week on deep and accessible ExM imaging with cerebral organoids, I think it's a good time to repost this Starter Pack of Expansion Microscopy people! go.bsky.app/Qxks9WD

Great talk from @hc327.bsky.social at the 7th annual CCP Phenogenomics Conference! Dr Chen shows how rare disease foundations can really facilitate fantastic scientific progress directly helping patient families!

FlyBase needs your help! We ask that European labs continue to contribute to Cambridge, UK FlyBase, whereas US and other non-European labs can contribute to US FlyBase. For more information and how to donate: wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase...

The lab keeps growing, as we wrap up the end of a great summer of research for summer student Shelby and welcome our new Masters student Sakshi!

I still can't get over how cool cells can be reaching out and interacting with one another! This depth shaded membrane marker gives us an idea of how dynamic these extensions can be! #FluorescenceFriday 🔬🧪

This doe looks so unimpressed with having me snap a pic while dealing with 3 hungry fawns.

Im procrastinating locking myself in my office for grant writing this afternoon. Im having way more fun on the 🔬 for #FluorescenceFriday

Happy Friday! It's always stressful the first time trying to mount coverslips, but huzzah! No broken coverslips for summer student Shelby Houston, thanks to great guidance by technician Shakila Sultana!

Hey 🧪🔬🧑‍🔬Does anyone have an opinion on a preferred vibratome for tissue sectioning? I'm looking at options. I've used several Leica models in the past, all great, but other companies seem to be great for the price.

Gotta love coming home to Nelson to be able to go play in the snow in June.

Fantastic talk from Gurpreet Moroak from @estherverheyen.bsky.social group! Giant larvae at the Canadian Developmental Biology conference!

Here we have Eric Hall, University of Manitoba talking about "Uncovering cytoneme regulated signaling events in spinal cord development". Fun fact, Dr. Hall did their undergrad here at UBCO in Kelowna, the 2025 Canadian Developmental Biology Conference venue! #CDBC2025 @socdevbio.bsky.social

🚨 BMG publication alert! 🚨 Congratulations to Danielle Pascual, ‪@marcogliese.bsky.social‬ and the rest of the BMG team on their latest publication - Excess Wnt in neurological disease Read more here: portlandpress.com/biochemj/art...

Excited to share my latest paper from @stjuderesearch.bsky.social , where we leverage patient derived cortical organoids to study UBA5 associated neurodevelopmental disorders.

Massive congratulations to @hc327.bsky.social and the all the Mefford lab @hcmefford.bsky.social !!! Patient-derived models of UBA5-associated encephalopathy identify defects in neurodevelopment and highlight potential therapeutic avenues, is now out! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Have you ever wondered how GPCRs co-occupying the primary cilium might engage in cross talk? @stjuderesearch.bsky.social Graduate Student Christina Wang 👩‍🔬 wrote a BioEssay hypothesizing 5 testable models for ciliary receptor cross talk ✅ it out 🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...

For #FluorescenceFriday 🔬 we have an endothelial cell 🔵 with #cytonemes carrying vesicles (bright cyan dots) to deposit signaling proteins on distant receiving cells. 🟣= actin Image by Morgan Hiebert

Manitoba scientists decry provincial funding cuts to research after Kinew overture to U.S. academics www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Its FINALLY here! The first #FluorescenceFriday 🧪🔬out of the Hall lab! We're still in the process of optimizing different fixatives to look for cytonemes and cellular extensions, but a fantastic first time imaging them from Morgan Hiebert!

Cheers to you on this St. Patrick's Day #MicroscopyMonday! These happy cells were imaged by former postdoc @erichall.bsky.social - now an Assistant Prof @umanitoba.bsky.social 🔬 🧪

🧪🧑‍🔬 We are actively recruiting graduate students in the lab right now at UM! If you are, or know a student looking to do cool research involving cell signaling, development, and 🔬, please share with your networks. For more information, checkout the link below. rfhs.myjboard.io/jobs/1054626...

I'd like to share a new preprint from the lab. Work spearheaded by Lead Researcher Shariq Ansari and Lab Manager Miriam Dillard links compromised allosteric regulation of the GPCR Smoothened to cardiopulmonary mispatterning. #DevBio 🧪 👩‍🔬 🫁 🫀 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Very cool work showing Notch cytonemes in the neural tube! Check out, "Cellular signalling protrusions enable dynamic distant contacts in spinal cord neurogenesis" journals.biologists.com/bio/article/...

🧪🧑‍🔬 We are actively recruiting graduate students in the lab right now at UM! If you are, or know a student looking to do cool research involving cell signaling, development, and 🔬, please share with your networks. For more information, checkout the link below. rfhs.myjboard.io/jobs/1054626...