Much of the genome is made up of repetitive DNA sequences that trace back to ancient mobile elements. Two new studies from the @marcbuhler.bsky.social group, now published in @cp-molcell.bsky.social, show how cells keep these potentially disruptive sequences under control. www.fmi.ch/news-events/...

If you’re at the FENS Forum, consider to join our symposium: S28 – Flexible Memory Systems: Adaptive and Maladaptive Pathways! Today Hall D at 15:40! Kate Wassum, Mihaela Iordanova, Scott Waddell, and Jan Haaker. @fensorg.bsky.social #FENS2026 fens2026.abstractserver.com/program/#/de...

It’s out!! 🎉 My first PhD paper has been published in Cell 🤩 A huge thank you to amazing co-authors @cschwayer.bsky.social and @davidbrueckner.bsky.social , and to our fantastic mentors @priscaliberali.bsky.social and @ehannezo.bsky.social for their guidance and support throughout this journey!

Yesterday we welcomed Biomedical Sciences Bachelor’s students from @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social to the FMI. They joined an institute intro, a tour of the Turco lab, and research highlights from the Bühler group. They also chatted with our scientists about life in the lab. Thank you for visiting!

It is out 😍 check it out!! Multiscale integration of tissue and chromatin context converts cell heterogeneity into stable intestinal patterning. @cschwayer.bsky.social @silviabarbiero.bsky.social @davidbrueckner.bsky.social @ehannezo.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Excited to share that our work on ‘How the gut gets patterned during regeneration’ is out now cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(26)00696-3 Thanks a lot to @priscaliberali.bsky.social @silviabarbiero.bsky.social @davidbrueckner.bsky.social @ehannezo.bsky.social and all co-authors! 🧵

😎 Our lecture hall was pretty packed. Almost 100 researchers from the TriRhena region and beyond came together for the latest edition of the Gene Regulation Club at MPI-IE. Thanks to everyone involved: @igbmc.bsky.social @fmiscience.bsky.social, @cibss.bsky.social @biologyunifreiburg.bsky.social, …

In this Q&A, @sivaratnakar.bsky.social, a PhD student in @guillaumediss.bsky.social’s group and one of FMI’s PhD reps, reflects on his fascination with the molecular world, his work on protein interactions, and the role of creativity and community in science. www.fmi.ch/news-events/...

📣 EU-LIFE & stakeholders call on EU decision-makers to recognise #MSCA as a core research programme for #FP10. As negotiations on FP10 advance, our message is clear: The MSCA model works. Now it needs the ambition and budget to deliver at the scale Europe requires. 🔗 eu-life.eu/newsroom/pub...

We cooled down the city of Freiburg a bit (currently 23°C) to heat up for the upcoming TriRhena Gene Regulation Club at the MPI-IE. The ½ day symposium starts today at 2PM in the lecture hall – with scientists from @fmiscience.bsky.social, @igbmc.bsky.social & MPI. Looking forward to a 🆒 meeting.

Yesterday we were honored to welcome @novartis.bsky.social CEO Vas Narasimhan to FMI. He met with our director, toured several labs and joined researchers, group leaders & staff for an informal get-together. Thank you for your curiosity, thoughtful questions & interest in our science and community!

Snapshots from the FMI PhD Retreat 2026, which took place last week in Orbey, France 🇫🇷 From flash talks and inspiring discussions to workshops, games, and outdoor activities, the retreat was a great opportunity for PhD students to connect, exchange ideas, and build a stronger sense of community 🤝

Congratulations to FMI senior group leader Jeff Chao and his team for being awarded €2.5 million through the @erc.europa.eu Advanced Grant scheme to study how RNA controls gene expression in living cells, with the goal of uncovering fundamental principles of RNA biology. www.fmi.ch/news-events/...

We’re delighted to welcome @computingcaitie.bsky.social to the FMI next year! Her work will bring an interdisciplinary perspective spanning structural biology, quantitative imaging and computational analysis to our institute, opening exciting new ways to study ciliary structure and dynamics.

Undergraduate or master’s student in the life sciences looking for fully funded PhD programs in Europe? Don’t miss the free @docinsightssymp.bsky.social on Sep 10 at 14:00 CET, featuring 20+ programs across 7 countries, including the FMI International PhD Program. Register: www.doctoralinsights.at

🔓 #OpenAccess — The SNSF is joining the Open Research Europe (ORE) platform. Starting in autumn 2026, all researchers in Switzerland will be able to publish their articles there for free. This represents a milestone for the publishing landscape. Learn more: sohub.io/en5p

The latest story in @eu-life.bsky.social 's #WeAreEULIFE campaign is out! The campaign highlights the shared priorities that unite the 17 EU-LIFE member institutes, including the FMI. Focus this month: #Technology

A new report examines the impact of Switzerland’s participation in the 8th EU framework programme for research and innovation « Horizon 2020 ». Learn more: www.sbfi.admin.ch/en/swiss-par...

We’re excited that the FMI is participating in the Doctoral Insights Symposium for the first time! Registration is now open — don’t miss this opportunity to explore top PhD programs in life sciences.

Sharing this great example of scientific outreach. Efforts like these help make research more accessible and engaging, and are important for connecting science with society. Well done @anupamahl.bsky.social group👏

Congratulations to Marylène Bonvin, who defended her PhD thesis last week! Her work explored how metabolism and gene regulation help Hydra — a tiny freshwater animal famous for regeneration — organize and maintain its body plan 👏

FMI researchers and collaborators at the University of Queensland found that mitochondria, best known for producing energy, also help immune cells fight bacteria. The study suggests that changing mitochondrial shape could offer new ways to boost defenses against infection. www.fmi.ch/news-events/...

Congratulations to Harsh Kanodia and Antonio Falasconi from Silvia Arber’s team, jointly affiliated with the FMI and @biozentrum.unibas.ch, on receiving the J.C.W. Shepherd PhD Student Prize for Scientific Excellence, one of Biozentrum’s internal scientific awards. Well deserved! 📷: Biozentrum

🚨 Reminder: The SNSF is seeking 21 new members for its Research Council Researchers with a broad understanding of research trends and experience in evaluation and decision-making processes are invited to apply by 14 June. More info ➡️ sohub.io/l88v

📌 Have you watched them yet? The "ERC Classes" videos on managing your ERC grant. They cover: 💼 PI rights & obligations 📊 Third parties ⏱️ Time recording 💰 Personnel costs 🧪 Internal goods & services 📝 Amendments Full series 👉 t.co/lRjTNrH1Uf

Spread the word: We’re hiring a Director of Operations to lead scientific support at the FMI. This senior role enables cutting-edge research by partnering with scientists, overseeing technology platforms, ensuring safety & compliance, and representing the FMI externally: www.fmi.ch/education-ca...

Our seminar room was almost overflowing for the third Friedrich Miescher Lecture, hosted by @priscaliberali.bsky.social and delivered by Ewa Paluch from @cam.ac.uk. Paluch gave a fascinating talk on cell shape and the cross-talk between cell shape and cell fate 🔬🧫

Join us this Thursday for two exciting talks on how the dynamic compartmentalisation of metabolism and metabolites can drive cell function and fate. @albrechtlab.bsky.social @dacolon.bsky.social

Congratulations to Sera Weevers, who successfully defended her PhD thesis yesterday! Her work explored how Hydra—tiny creatures with regenerative superpowers—use chemical signals and physical forces to decide where to grow a new head 🎓

June is #Pride Month: a time to celebrate LGBTQI+ communities and recognize the progress made — and the challenges that remain — in advancing equality and inclusion. Throughout June, the Pride flag will be displayed at the FMI entrance, with stickers and small flags available at the Welcome Desk 🌈

That’s a wrap for #EULIFE2026 in Amsterdam 🌷 So much energy and openness across the EU-LIFE community leaves us inspired, aligned and ready for what’s next. A huge thanks to @nkinl.bsky.social for the warm hosting and to everyone who made this meeting special. Already excited for #EULIFE2027! 🚀

📢 2026 ERC Advanced Grant call is open for applications! Are you an established, leading researcher who needs long-term funding to pursue a ground-breaking research project? The ERC Advanced Grant could be for you. Application portal 👉 link.europa.eu/QCDXct #ERCAdG #research #grant #funding

A small delegation from the FMI is at the NKI in Amsterdam for this year’s @eu-life.bsky.social community meeting: three intense days of exchanging ideas on strategy, science communication, EDI and more with colleagues from leading life science institutes across Europe 🧬💬🤝

Ahead of Pride Month, a flag-raising ceremony took place today on the Novartis Campus in Basel, celebrating diversity, belonging and community with inspiring speeches and the Novartis Choir 🏳️‍🌈 #Pride

This week, we welcomed ~160 high-school students to our annual Tage der Genforschung. Over 3 days, our visitors got a glimpse of biomedical research through hands-on activities, met FMI scientists, and explored possible life science careers. A big thank you to our amazing volunteers! 👏🔬

Like scaffolding erected before construction starts, Polycomb proteins help pre-organize the genome during development so distant DNA elements can later connect to shape the face, FMI researchers now report in Nature Communications. @natureportfolio.nature.com www.fmi.ch/news-events/...

EU-LIFE’s 2025 Annual Report is out 🚀 In 2025, the alliance strengthened its voice in European science policy, advocating for strong, discovery-driven research. Proud that the FMI hosted the 2025 EU-LIFE Strategy Meeting in Basel. Congrats to the @eu-life.bsky.social community on a productive year!

Postdoc opportunity at FMI + Novartis Biomedical Research 🧬 The Dahmane lab (FMI) & Farady lab (Novartis) are seeking a postdoctoral researcher to study how extracellular inflammasome particles propagate inflammation during neurotropic RNA virus infection. Apply by May 31: www.fmi.ch/education-ca...

The FMI is proud to be part of @eu-life.bsky.social, uniting top life science centers across Europe. This series highlights our shared priorities — this month: #Cooperation! Stay tuned for the FMI’s story 💡 #WeAreEULIFE

Researchers @fmiscience.bsky.social have developed lab-grown organoids that can cyclically simulate the tissue renewal that occurs after #menstruation, which can potentially offer new insights into the understanding of uterine diseases. 🔗 www.eara.eu/news/organoi... #NAM #organoid #WomenHealth

Congratulations to Margherita Turco and the whole team on this beautiful @cp-cellstemcell.bsky.social cover, celebrating new work on an in vitro model of the menstrual cycle using human endometrial organoids. Read more about this research & watch the accompanying video: www.fmi.ch/news-events/...

Congratulations to FMI alumna @angelikafeldmann.bsky.social on receiving the 2026 Hella Bühler Prize, recognizing her research on the regulation of gene activity 🧬

1/7 New paper accepted as ICML spotlight arxiv.org/abs/2605.03517! We unify self-supervised learning (SSL) algorithms (e.g., contrastive, VICReg, stopgrad) via latent distribution matching (LDM), which matches an induced latent distribution to an explicit latent model.

Excited to share our new study on CpG islands (CGIs) regulation by transcription factors (TFs)! CGIs drive most transcription initiation with unclear regulation. We find that chromatin-opening TFs are key players—following a surprisingly simple rule. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/9

Spread the word: We’re hiring a Director of Operations to lead scientific support at the FMI. This senior role enables cutting-edge research by partnering with scientists, overseeing technology platforms, ensuring safety & compliance, and representing the FMI externally: www.fmi.ch/education-ca...

A tiny chemical tweak changed medicine! 💉 Discover how RNA modifications made efficient mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 possible, for which the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SQd... @snsf.ch @unibe.ch @ethz.ch @nobelprize.org @rnasociety.bsky.social

📣 #Call for Postdoc.Mobility. Expand your #research experience with a stay abroad. If you would like to find out more about this call, take part in our online information event on 18 May 2026. 📆 Submission deadline: 4 August 2026 Read more 👉 sohub.io/dqzj

Despite affecting hundreds of millions each month, menstruation has long received limited scientific attention. FMI scientists created a model to help open this biological “black box” and reveal how the uterus repairs itself. Watch the video to learn more 📹 www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJnP...

❗📣 The SNSF is reforming its career #funding. The final calls for Ambizione and Postdoc.Mobility will take place in 2026 and 2027. The eligibility criteria have been adapted to focus on the schemes’ key target groups. ➡️ www.snf.ch/en/kaczpDec5c…

Every month, the lining of the uterus sheds and rebuilds itself, but how it repairs is unclear. Using lab-grown uterine tissue, FMI scientists identified cells that drive healing and coordinate regeneration. The findings may help explain conditions such as endometriosis. www.fmi.ch/news-events/...