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 ⬇️

Fresh from the press💥 We asked what happens when you evolve gene regulatory networks computationally at scale. Do general principles of GRN evolution jump out? Is the process predictable? Read on to find out @prxlife.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk @ucl-ipls.bsky.social 👉 journals.aps.org/prxlife/abst...

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!

Can a single cell learn? Even without a brain, some microbes show simple forms of cognition. Can this basal cognition be engineered? Check our new paper with @jordiplam.bsky.social on the minimal synthetic circuits & their cognitive limits. @drmichaellevin.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Beautiful work led by @oliveringe.bsky.social. It was great fun to be involved with this project. See Ollie’s paper and thread 👇

Our latest: We developed a chemo-optogenetic system for precise spatiotemporal control of morphogen production. Using dual light + small molecule control of Sonic Hedgehog production, we recapitulated neural tube patterning in vitro & measured spread of Shh 🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Our new paper is out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! Using 3D reconstructions and volume measurements in Drosophila wing primordia, we show that growth can be uncoupled from cell proliferation and uncover a new time window for growth arrest. With @leopoldlab.bsky.social www.cell.com/current-biol...

How the functional architecture of the zebrafish heart is shaped during development 📹 @tobyandrews.bsky.social et al @rashmi-priya.bsky.social lab @crick.ac.uk in @cellpress.bsky.social Developmental Cell ➡️ bpod.org.uk/archive/2025...

Thrilled to share the first story from my postdoc! 🎉 A wonderful experiment + simulations collaboration. In the Drosophila wing, we find that 3D cell shapes affect signalling range and fine-tune developmental patterning www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Thread below ⬇️

Apply by Friday! 👇

Beautiful work from @tobyandrews.bsky.social @rashmi-priya.bsky.social. It was a joy to collaborate on the modelling here. Check out Toby’s paper and thread 👇

8 days left to submit an abstract!

Thrilled to bits to see our latest work online in Dev Cell! 🥳 We wanted to know how cells build functional organs with precision🫀🫁📏 Here we show how coupling of cell shape and organ function fine tunes the form and contractile power of the developing #zebrafish heart 1/n tinyurl.com/cell-stretch

New KITP Program! #MORPHO26 Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants Dates: 7/20/2026 - 8/20/2026

We wrote this introductory review on how concepts from dynamical systems can help us understand developmental biology, hope it’s useful to somebody! It was a lot of fun to put together, and great to collaborate with brilliant colleagues across theory and experiments

We’re excited to announce that Naomi Moris @nmoris.bsky.social will join us in Oct Don’t forget to register before the 15th August for a chance to give a short talk Talk submissions can be received only after confirmation of registration (link 👇) so sign up ASAP if you’re interested in presenting

Beautiful work from @isazhang.bsky.social @joadelas.bsky.social @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social. An honour to have played a small part

1/ Mapping synaptic connectivity between individual neurons is extremely laborious. We developed BRISC, a new method that makes it possible to map inputs onto 100s of neurons in the same animal in a matter of weeks! Led by Alex Becalick and @antblot.bsky.social. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨Job alert in theory/math devbio 🚨 I’m currently advertising postdoc positions to join my group. We’re building reaction-diffusion models to understand some of the crazy things embryos can do. We are based in a beautiful part of Scotland :). Please share! www.abdnjobs.co.uk/vacancy/rese...

Just published: The cis-regulatory logic integrating spatial and temporal patterning in the vertebrate neural tube A global temporal chromatin program, operating across the CNS, directs binding of specific spatial TFs & hence when/where neurons & glia are born authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Measuring properties of individual cells in relation to their neighbors in 3D tissues is challenging. @cellysally.bsky.social &co develop a computational toolkit to facilitate this, analyzing developmental patterning in mouse, chick & #Drosophila #embryo @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4lQMeNu

🚨 Second preprint of the week! We uncover the multiscale dynamics of active viscoelastic buckling in epithelia. We harness these mechanical instabilities for synthetic morphogenesis. Led by @onenimesa.bsky.social 🙌. Theory by Marino Arroyo etal. @ibecbarcelona.eu www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Can using synthetic approaches to build biology help teach us the design principles of how embryos build themselves? 👷‍♀️🔧 If this is a question that interests you, come and share your thoughts at this Royal Society Workshop on Generative Biology royalsociety.org/science-even...

📣 New paper out! How do thousands of cells shape the emergent geometry of the avian embryo? We identify distinct, independently controllable mechanisms that contribute to embryo size and shape. @alex-plum.bsky.social @bensteventon.bsky.social @Guillermo Serrano Najera www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚀🚀 I'm starting my own lab @ HKU ! ! The lab will be investigating how cells build complex tissues — with a focus on tissue boundaries, niche establishment, and many open questions sparked by our recent work on trunk-organoids rdcu.be/eqsho 🫡🫡

🚨 theory/math devbio preprint alert!!! 🚨 Led by my v. talented PhD student, Daniel Muzatko, we’ve found some rather general and intriguing constraints on reaction-diffusion systems that allow them to self-organize developmental patterns: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Dynamic Landscape Analysis of Cell Fate Decisions: Predictive Models of Neural Development From Single-Cell Data https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.28.656648v1

Somitic Change Drives Changes in Vertebral Regionalisation in African Cichlids Despite Strong Canalisation of Somite Number https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.23.655800v1

📣 Preprint alert! We developed a framework to uncover Coherent Structures in flows on dynamic surfaces—revealing dynamic attractors, repellers and deformation directions in nematic vesicles, pancreatic spheroids, and beating zebrafish hearts. @sreejithsanthosh.bsky.social biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited about the new work from Z. Dunajova & S. Tasciyan (with the Sixt lab @ISTA) - how the mechanical heterogeneity of the environment can be (by itself!) a driver of tumor cell dissemination! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Combination of in vitro exp, simulations and KPZ stat phys!👇🧵1/n

New paper out in @pnas.org We followed cells migrating along signalling gradients in 3D, and found they collectively behave as a living droplet - a self-propelling fluid that grows. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Delighted that our work on positional memory is now published. We asked how axolotl cells 'know' which part of the limb to regenerate after injury. www.nature.com/articles/s41... A joy to work with super team Sarah Plattner, Yuka Sugiura, Francisco Falcon and Elly Tanaka. 🧵1/14

It was a lot of fun to speak at YEN this week @yen-network.bsky.social. It is such an honour to be awarded the Sammy Lee Medal for my work on engineering CREs

Beautiful work from @santoslab.bsky.social A 3D model of human amnion from hESCs These recapitulate amniotic sac development, revealing GATA3 as key amniogenesis driver & autoregulatory BMP/Wnt feedback loops And check out the size of them in the video www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Successfully defended my thesis on predictable engineering of CREs yesterday. An end of an era. Thank you @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social. And my examiners @wbickmor.bsky.social @kabirhusain.bsky.social

Latest from the lab! @callumbucklow.bsky.social's beautiful paper on the dynamics of morphological evolution using African cichlids & showing that evolution repeats itself. Congrats Callum and co-authors. Check out the tutorial below.

We're excited to publish our latest study led by Bryony Leeke @bryonyleeke.bsky.social and Wazeer Varsally, now out in @nature.com 🍾This study focusses on the epigenome of marsupial embryos 🦘 mapping DNA methylation in embryo development to specific embryo events www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵

Read about Meng's experience, and join the preLights community today. www.biologists.com/stories/an-i... #preLights #Community #Research #Biology #Science #Journal #Writing #Communication

ICYMI

You can still register to attend the YEN 2025 Conference for FREE! You can join online or in person at the Crick Institute in London on Monday 19th May. Check the comments for student/postdoc talks!

Can using synthetic approaches to build biology help teach us the design principles of how embryos build themselves? 👷‍♀️🔧 If this is a question that interests you, come and share your thoughts at this Royal Society Workshop on Generative Biology www.royalsoc.ac.uk/science-even...

Check out our new research in @royalsocietypublishing.org's Open Biology! We experimentally induce a transition from chemical to mechanical patterning in the chicken embryo 🐣🔬 @lanevol.bsky.social 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Early-career researchers can apply for a funded place at our Workshop 'New Technologies for Studying and Reprogramming Development' organised by Alex Dunn, @zevgartner.bsky.social , @adrianjacobo.bsky.social and Matthew Kutys. 📆Apply by 23 May biologists.com/workshops/no... #BiologistsWorkshops

We are excited to announce our 2025 Schmidt Science Fellows! 32 early career researchers, nominated by the world’s leading research universities, who will take an interdisciplinary approach to advancing discovery schmidtsciencefellows.org/news/2025-fe...

I’m thrilled to share I’ve been selected as a 2025 Schmidt Science Fellow @schmidtfellows.bsky.social Looking forward to starting my next research adventure, investigating how organs and organisms measure and regulate their sizes 🐟🧠🫁🫀 www.crick.ac.uk/news/2025-04...

Shared Roots and Divergent Paths in the Chick Spinal Cord 🐣 Continuing the poster interviews from the 3rd Crick Beddington Symposium, in this latest post, @alexneaverson.bsky.social chatted with @giulia-boezio.bsky.social about her #LineageTracing work in chick embryos. #theNodeCorrespondents

Science under siege: protecting scientific progress in turbulent times journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Excited to share my latest work with @joadelas.bsky.social and @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social Predictable Engineering of Signal-Dependent Cis-Regulatory Elements www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/11

And for what a great ending: runner up poster prize for @jcornwallscoones.bsky.social Stay tuned for his work soon!