Delighted to share our new preprint: "Evolution of moss leaf-like organs through variations in deeply conserved developmental principles." Led by Ph.D. student Wenye Lin from my lab @irbv.bsky.social , in collab. with Yoan Coudert (ENS Lyon) and Richard Smith (JIC). www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Amazing work by amazing colleagues!

Highlights @pnas.org , Thank you, Jian Xu (@tuliproot in X) Your excellent text makes the ideas far more accessible than we managed in the paper. @akanshaganguly.bsky.social , @plantophagy.bsky.social @IISERPune, @ANRFIndia, @DBTIndia www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Now on the Cover @pnas.org News, Delightful to see @akanshaganguly.bsky.social Journey from stress to regeneration, from leaf to root featured on cover. Akansha, you made it, very well done, congratulations.

Highly recommended, excellent work with a great PI… apply soon

I am organizing a concurrent session “Cellular reprogramming and organ regeneration” at #ICAR2026 together with @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social! Submit your abstract by Feb 22 (for oral) and share your exciting science with us🌿 icar2026.sg

"But teaching helps you to be a better scientist. We tend to become overspecialized, and teaching forces you to return to fundamentals, understand them thoroughly, and communicate them clearly." Cyril is always right, right? 💚

Our new paper! @PNASNews, 1/17 Healing isn’t about eliminating stress- it’s about regulating it. doi.org/10.1073/pnas... Work led by @akanshaganguly.bsky.social reveals how plants carefully manage wound-induced stress (ROS) at the cellular level to activate organ regeneration.

Very nice work from @nikhlil-mishra.bsky.social from Carl- Philip Heisenberg lab. How shape itself drives robust development? In zebrafish, embryo geometry breaks symmetry, orchestrates cell cycles, and patterns genome activation. Egg shape sets the rhythm of life!

Feb 1 deadline approaching for our @kitp-ucsb.bsky.social QBio summer course on Physical Principles of Morphogenesis in Plants and Animals. @streichan.bsky.social @maurazimmermann.bsky.social @maizel-lab.org @yusuke-mori.bsky.social @akankshi.bsky.social @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social

Fun to get to highlight Minya's @minyaaa.bsky.social new paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social authors.elsevier.com/a/1mCCK3QW8S...

Aspiring PhD candidates: do not miss this opportunity to join a great mentor and awesome project!!! Bonus: it is in Amsterdam

Glad to have this finally published: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... lots of new data since the #preprint. If you are into selective #autophagy, #evolution, #proteostasis Please have a look!

New preprint! SOSEKI polarity proteins are mechanoresponsive integrators linking growth and tissue mechanics during lateral root formation. Their polarity marks growth boundaries and reorganises in response to mechanical alterations —reshaping how we think about axis formation. tinyurl.com/28p7af2w

We found that cytokinin-induced LBDs drive radial (secondary) growth in Arabidopsis root by reshaping primary cell wall pectin, in part through four pectate-lyase-like genes. Huge congrats to the fantastic postdocs who led this work: Lingling Ye and Xin Wang. 1/x www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plants are constantly under attack in nature But what determines whether they choose to defend themselves or heal their tissue? Charles Melnyk is conducting groundbreaking molecular research to understand their strategies #research #science #plantscience @charlesmelnyk.bsky.social shorturl.at/1jZ5W

“The ZAT14 family promotes cell death and regulates expansins to affect xylem formation and salt tolerance in Arabidopsis”. Now out in @theplantcell.bsky.social led by Ming Feng and colleagues. A 🌱 thread 👇 1/x academic.oup.com/plcell/advan...

By combining molecular genetics with cell-ablation experiments, we found that vascular cambium stem cells and xylem-identity cells form an interchangeable unit, a stem cell niche. Meticulous work by @xixizhang9001.bsky.social, Ondrej Smetana, Jing Zhang & Xiaoyu Wang 1/x www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Here’s an example showing how you can reproduce a classic Scheres-type RAM stem-cell ablation experiment using Bax.

Very nice work from @apmahonen.bsky.social lab.. when vascular cambial stem cells are lost, neighbouring xylem cells, divide to replace them Auxin transport drive this remarkable positioning of stem cells in vascular cambium during development and regeneration. www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

How are the intervals of periodic pattern formation regulated during plant morphogenesis? Our latest study now published in @natcomms.nature.com proposes that the mutual inhibition between EPFL2 and auxin modulates the periodicity🌿 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

What a glorious day--waking up to see this lovely preprint that does it all--a comprehensive scRNAseq atlas of leaf development, hints at the txn of new cell types, and great hypotheses about how GRNs may differ among related TFs (and in other news, some hope for American Democracy)

Excited to announce our paper is out! Congrats to @pauformosa.bsky.social, @gweissbart.bsky.social, Frances Clark, and Xihang Wang on this fun and beautiful story. We answered a question about the randomness of giant cell spacing that I have had for at least 15 years.

Our work on mapping the dynamics of phospholipids during lateral root formation is now published in @jxbotany.bsky.social We show that PI(4,5)P₂ plays a key role: targeted reduction in pericycle promotes LR development. → academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-...

Timely review by Javi and Noel.

Our lab studies how animals regenerate their body, e.g. how crustaceans regenerate broken legs. One of our aims is to understand if regeneration re-uses the gene networks that built the legs in the first place. Arthur Monternier, an artist in our team, captured the question in this cartoon.

Join us in one of the most supportive and collaborative departments, led by an equally supportive chair!

What are these? You are looking at embryos of a sea squirt. Each of the 'soap bubbles' is a living cell, about a fourtieth of a millimetre in size. The outlines of the cells are visible thanks to fluorescent markers identified by Hitoyoshi Yasuo @hitoyas.bsky.social see doi.org/10.1101/2024... 🧵

The “Art of Longevity” — is it by any chance left-handed DNA?

These are embryos of a jellyfish, made up of cells that are about a fiftieth of a millimetre in size. Their outlines are visible thanks to fluorescent markers identified by Sarah Asaf and @clytia-vlfr.bsky.social see doi.org/10.1101/2024... 🧵

Understanding #microtubule dynamics: The synergy of technology, theory, and experiment. New Perspective from Richard McIntosh @colorado.edu: rupress.org/jcb/article/... #Cytoskeleton #Biophysics #Microtubules

Nice! How do your conclusions regarding paralog expression divergence compare to the ones from the recent Solanum paralog paper? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Latest from ours: www.cell.com/cell-reports... This is two stories in one: a case study/cautionary tale on developing genetic tools in new organisms, and the first hint at a gene regulatory network for choanoflagellate multicellular development (which turn out to involve a Hippo/YAP/ECM loop!) A 🧵

Webinar on Quantitative Approaches to Cellular Aspects of Plant Ion Homeostasis on Thursday October 16th: 3-4pm BST www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

It's official! We are moving to Stowers! Very exciting opportunity to expand our studies of insect-plant interactions. We have many opportunities available in biochemistry, development, behavior, genetics, evolution, genomics, AI, and even pest control. Interested in any of these things? Reach out!

How do plants regenerate after wounding? Our new work shows that HSFA1 transcription factors are among the earliest wound-activated regulators of cellular reprogramming in plants!

I really like the series of profiles @newphyt.bsky.social is currently publishing. The new one is on @stanfordstomata.bsky.social: nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #PlantScience #PlantLuminaries

Humbled to be a part of Indian Science Academies, @ IAScBng, @nasi_academy, and Now @insa_academy Such moments remind me how fortunate I am to work with talented lab members (past and present), collaborators, colleagues and mentors all along. Thank you for this opportunity 🙏

I'm looking forward to chairing this webinar. Congrats to the Dissemination of Arabidopsis Knowledge awardees!

Congrats to the Arabidopsis Lifetime Achievement Awardees!

Development does not happen in isolation! Material properties, geometry, stiffness, fluid flows...can all steer how development unfolds. If you’re exploring these kinds of questions, we’d love to see your work @dev-journal.bsky.social More info below ⬇️

If you are leading a team, you have a responsibility to be a “pragmatic optimist”. Otherwise, you risk being disloyal to the amazing young people you work with. #FridayThoughts

Career Feature @nature.com : ‘Lipstick on a pig’: how to fight back against a peer-review bully. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Today's the last day to apply for the Plant Cell Assistant Features Editor (AFE) program, usually postdocs or senior PhD students! It's a fantastic opportunity, a great learning experience & a lot of fun too. If you aren't quite ready, in June 2026 Plant Physiology will open its own call for AFEs 👍

Join us at the Plant Science Research Institute of the University of Montreal to develop your research group in Plant Molecular Genetics: www.nature.com/naturecareer...

I'm making a collage of Arabidopsis habitats for a seminar. If you have photos to share, such as these iconic ones from @mexpositoalonso.bsky.social & @coevolution.bsky.social, please send to [email protected]. Please let me also know how to attribute them. 🙏🙏🙏🙏

🌱 What happens when lateral root primordia (LRPs) fail to emerge? Using our new lineage tracing tool LRTracker, Xin discovered that arrested LRPs don’t just disappear—they gradually switch fate and become part of the cambium, contributing to secondary growth.1/x www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

David Baltimore, giant of molecular biology, has died.