MBE is excited to launch our newest Call for Papers on the Major Transitions of Life, covering all aspects of phylogenomic research. 🔗 academic.oup.com/mbe/pages/call-for-papers-on-the-major-transitions-of-life Guest Editors: Davide Pisani Anja Spang #evobio #molbio #phylogenetics

Hox #genes from 40 xenacoelomorph transcriptomes and four #genomes academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...

🚨 We discovered a new mode of Hox gene regulation in annelids! 🪱 A distal enhancer acts as a "global control region", lifting Hox genes from Polycomb repression. This is reminiscent of Hox gene control in vertebrates, but the two modes likely evolved convergently. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Convergent evolution of cluster-wide Hox gene regulation in Bilateria https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.18.725834v1

New funding opportunity from the Symbiosis in Aquatic Systems Initiative. We’re inviting teams of two researchers to pursue ambitious, high-risk projects advancing aquatic symbiosis (marine + freshwater). Open globally. Details + how to apply:  moore.org/SymbiosisRFP #RFP #AquaticSymbiosis

90% of you probably don’t need to read this. But maybe some of you are curious & 10% will feel seen. Or a little less alone. This isn’t about seeking sympathy. It’s about sharing something hard to say out loud; partly to heal, partly in case someone needs to hear it too. (1/3) tinyurl.com/DudinO

First neurons didn’t appear overnight. We trace their roots to ancient secretory cells - showing how lifestyle & behavior shaped the evolution of first synapses.🧠🌊 #Evolution #Neuroscience Our latest in @natrevneuro.nature.com Link: rdcu.be/eMX3E @jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

Pleased to share our study on brachiopod genomes and bilaterian dorsal–ventral patterning, now out in Nature Communications. doi.org/10.1038/s414... We present the first chromosome-level genome of a brachiopod and show that the core patterning mechanism is deeply conserved across bilaterians.

Thrilled to present our comparative study on the evolution of zygotic genome activation (ZGA)!! 🥚🧬 Amazing PhD work of @campobes.bsky.social together with @fedemantica.bsky.social and many collaborators! @melisupf.bsky.social @crg.eu. Thread below 1/15 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

📢 Call for papers - Symbiotic relationships 📢 #BMCBiology Guest Editors: @yjluo.bsky.social @schwarzergnoto.bsky.social Thomas Bosch Dr rer nat, Kiel University Anil Kumar PhD, Chandigarh University Michael Sinvula Lukubwe BA, MSc, University of Namibia link.springer.com/collections/...

Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating). A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)

New paper out in MBE! 🧵 "Genomic Perplexity and the Evolution of Context-Dependent Function" The big idea: genes don't have fixed functions. Function emerges from context - genomic, cellular, environmental. And we can quantify this. academic.oup.com/mbe/article/...

Registration now open for @embo.org workshop on the evolution of biological interactions on April 24 - 27, 2026! Come join us in Taipei, Taiwan to see how interactions shaped the genomes of various organisms and meeting people from across the globe. Info: meetings.embo.org/event/26-bio...

Happy New Year! あけましておめでとうございます！新年快樂！Feliz Año Nuevo! Manigong Bagong Taon! The SymGenoEvo Lab wishes everyone a wonderful New Year!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL OF YOU!🎄✨

#ArtAdventCalendar Gel Electrophoresis in Green and Blue, watercolor, 2023 #sciart

Can't believe my postdoc paper is finally out. Christmas came early this year, holy moly 🎄 Molecular basis for de novo thymus regeneration in a vertebrate, the axolotl | Science Immunology www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This is an INCREDIBLE advance in our understanding of coral diversification. 🪸🎉 Fantastic new work led by @claudiavaga.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very happy to announce that our article in multimodal single cell analyses in planaria is out in Nature Communications @natcomms.nature.com ! Thank you very much to everyone that made this work possible. I am very happy to see it out (: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How do animals with lifelong growth modulate cell #proliferation? @eudaldpascual.bsky.social @ktgarschall.bsky.social @prhsteinmetz.bsky.social show that starvation induces G1/G0 #CellCycle arrest in Vasa2+/Piwi1+ #SeaAnemone cells; cycle re-entry is TOR-dependent @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/48J2o6P

Honor to join the EMBO Young Investigator Network as a Global Investigator! Very grateful to @embo.org for the support in promoting international exchanges. Excited to strengthen collaborations with colleagues across Europe and beyond. www.embo.org/press-releas...

Twelve scientists from Chile, India, Nigeria, Singapore and Taiwan have been selected as new EMBO Global Investigators – Congratulations to the new cohort! 🧪 Read the press release: https://www.embo.org/press-releases/twelve-scientists-become-embo-global-investigators/ #funding #training

Our December issue is now live: www.nature.com/natecolevol/... Featuring research on 🧪 🦏 rhinocerotid dispersal in the mid-Cenozoic 🐟 biodiversity responses to freshwater stressors 🦋 evolution of butterfly eyespots Cover shows a Korean seahorse, from Meyer et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congratulations to the new cohort of 28 EMBO Young Investigators! They are joining an international network of more than 800 life scientists – Welcome! Read the press release here: https://www.embo.org/press-releases/twenty-eight-group-leaders-become-embo-young-investigators/

I'm very excited that our paper on Project Psyche is now published! 🦋🧬 Over the last two years we've built an incredible community & already made huge progress. Read about this & how @projectpsyche.bsky.social will drive exciting and collaborative science here: www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Apply now for EMBO Workshop "Evolving together: From #genomics to biological interactions" in Taipei, Taiwan, 24–27 Apr 2026. Abstract submission/Registration deadline: 20 Jan/28 Feb 2026 meetings.embo.org/event/26-bio... #EMBOEvoGenBio #GeneSky #EvoSky #EcoSky #EMBOevents 🧪

Out today, our take on 6-methyladenine #6mA evolution in Eukaryotes @natgenet.nature.com. We asked a simple question, is really DNA 6mA common across the eukaryotes? The answer is "yes" if you're a unicellular eukaryote 🦠, not so if you're multicellular 🐝🌱🍄. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/9

Our paper on the role of neurons in Nematostella head regeneration is now out at @currentbiology.bsky.social Big thank you to all collaborators, it was a pleasure! Ectopic head regeneration after nervous system ablation in a sea anemone: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

Lophophorates get way too little publicity... Latest issue is out! www.cell.com/issue/S0960-...

Glad to see our phoronid genome study featured on the cover of @currentbiology.bsky.social! It shows how genome structure can be used to test competing hypotheses of nested topology and how derived structural changes provide evidence for monophyly. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Happy to share Jialin's first publication. She did a great job exploring the transition to land in animals. Co-supervised by the great Jordi Paps and me and in collaboration with Davide Pisani and @phil-donoghue.bsky.social

A truly refreshing perspective on an age old debate. Big implications for animal evolution but also useful techniques to address many other remaining phylogenetic questions. Congrats to you both on a wonderful piece of work!

NEW pub in @science.org 🥳 Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life? For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided. We provide new evidence suggesting that... 🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We are happy to share our latest work in @nature.com . We study the genomic and cellular basis of facultative symbiosis in Oculina patagonica - a Mediterranean coral remarkable for its ability to survive long periods without algal symbionts. Led by Shani Levy and @xgrau.bsky.social rdcu.be/eLbaZ

Tissue-specific transcriptomics, comparative genomics and genome editing identify a taxon-specific promoter of a Hox gene that controls eyespot size plasticity and probably contributed to wing eyespot diversity in satyrid butterflies 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My book 'The Tree of Life' is published in the USA and Canada today. Available as book, on kindle and as audio. I would be really grateful for reposts. www.amazon.com/Tree-Life-So... www.amazon.ca/Tree-Life-So...

🗨️ Just published in Nature Biotechnology: Our CellWhisperer AI enables chat-based analysis of single-cell sequencing data. You can talk to your cells & figure out the biology without writing any computer code. Paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... Annotated walkthrough in a thread below (1/11)

Lophophorata is monophyletic! Super excited to see this work out in Current Biology - we sequenced a phoronid genome and used shared chromosome fusions to confirm the monophyly of Lophophorata. A big team effort from the Luo Lab @yjluo.bsky.social! More here: authors.elsevier.com/c/1m3mV3QW8S...

Pleased to share our latest paper led by @tomlewin.bsky.social, now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! We present the first chromosome-level genome of a phoronid and show that shared chromosomal fusions unite phoronids and bryozoans as sister groups. www.cell.com/current-biol...

2025 spirit animal: the upside-down jellyfish 🪼🙃 Find out about their amazing biology here👇 www.cell.com/current-biol... by Noémie Buratto& @elisjthore.bsky.social

New preprint! We unexpectedly discovered that some Caenorhabditis species delete parts of their somatic genome early in development, which fragments their chromosomes and eliminates key germline genes. Multiple lines of evidence suggest this bizarre process was present in the ancestors of C. elegans

Apply Now! Tenure-track Faculty Position in Marine Bioscience at the University of Florida's Whitney Lab. explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

Latest work out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social We find the fly development gene bicoid is much older than previously thought (~20 million yrs older!) 🪰🧬 To pinpoint its origins we tackled the Diptera phylogeny, providing some resolution (many open questions remain). 🔗 tinyurl.com/2vyuevpy

How to swap the foot for a tentacle and vice versa? Find out in our new story featured in @dev-journal.bsky.social uncovering a transcription factor toggle switch behind the identity of Hydra's extremities.

Great pleasure hosting Jochen Rink @mpi-nat.bsky.social in Taipei with @tosuke-s.bsky.social and Tasuku—perfect weather, good hike, and great science chats on Elephant Mountain.

🥳 Congratulations to our postdoc, Dr. Anna Czarkwiani @aniaczark.bsky.social, on receiving the ERC Starting Grant @erc.europa.eu! With €2 million in funding, Anna will explore the biology of gravisensation and uncover insights into related disorders. 🧠 #CMCBnews @tudresden.bsky.social #ERCStG

We're excited to share with everyone a preprint of our manuscript that resolves the cellular origins of the symbiosome in cnidarian-algal symbiosis through proteomics of the symbiosome, RNAi, and CRISPR/Cas9 experiments. ⬇️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Read on below! 1/12 🧵

"Why sequence the #genome of every species? A view from evolutionary biology" Did you catch this amazing new review in our journal by @peterhox.bsky.social? REad it for FREE here now: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... @thembauk.bsky.social #dnasequencing #chromosome #mutation #evolution

A Nobel-winning scientist of great modesty and humour, John Gurdon died on 7 Oct. Not only did he make a discovery that laid the foundations for stem cell research, he also created one of the best environments for research at the Wellcome/CRUK Gurdon Institute wellcome.org/news/sir-joh...

I am very happy to announce that the Echinox Lab will open in the BIOM unit at @obs-banyuls.fr in January 2026!! 🥳 We will use several echinoderm species to study animal body plan evolution. 🔽 Check our brand new lab website if you want to learn more about our future research www.echinox.org