Kinetic organization of the genome revealed by ultraresolution multiscale live imaging www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

#FluorescenceFriday: a weekly reminder that behind the data, there are moments of pure wonder. This is why we do what we do. And the #retina is so uniquely beautiful!

A big thanks to the NEI for supporting my new R01 and MCW for highlighting the research focus. We’ve already made some interesting discoveries and I’m excited to see how the research progresses for years to come. www.mcw.edu/mcwknowledge...

We’re excited to share that, after receiving many requests each year from the research community for Oligopaint DNA & RNA FISH probes, we’re piloting a service to design & prepare probes for labs. Please share with colleagues who may benefit! ericjoycelab.com/oligopaint-f...

Damaged retinal ganglion cells can lead to blindness. MCW’s Dr. Joel Miesfeld is conducting #research into the development of these cells to better identify ways to help them regenerate after damage. Learn more: www.mcw.edu/mcwknowledge... #Ophthalmology #VisionHealth #MCWKnowledge

🎉 New preprints from the lab! (1) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New preprints from the lab!! (2)

Very proud of former Kumar lab PhD student, Alison Ordway, for receiving a K99 award from the National Eye Institute on her work describing photoreceptor patterning in Drosophila and mosquito compound eyes. Keep your eyes out for Alison when she goes out on the job market.

Very excited about our new preprint, led by @gkafetzis.bsky.social /w @mikebok.bsky.social & @denilsson.bsky.social. We suggest that the vertebrate 'duplex' retina emerged from interconnecting two ancient median-eye microcircuits. Say goodbye to the 'simplex' retina - it probably never existed!

Our latest manuscript is out, and this one tackles the problem of cellular aging in the retina, using comparative multiomic analysis of zebrafish, mouse, and humans. What led us to work on aging after studying development and regeneration? Explainer follows./1 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/7 Really happy to see my PhD work published in ✨Developmental Cell✨ today! We find human endoderm is specified by two developmental trajectories 🔀, and the choice between alternate routes is dictated by the combinatorial BMP4/Activin signalling. www.cell.com/developmenta...

I am excited for Ali Ordway, a postdoc in my lab, who just got award a K99/R00 award!! She is studying how photoreceptors are patterned in the eyes of flies and other insects!

Excited to share the latest paper from our lab! Excellent work from Cátia Gomes and Kang-Chieh Huang! Modeling human retinal ganglion cell axonal outgrowth, development, and pathology using pluripotent stem cell–based microfluidic platforms

Fly friends--join us at #Dros26

Latest from the lab, the beautiful work of Iryna Mohylyak and colleagues describing a temporal developmental transcriptional program for mitochondrial quality control and synaptic connectivity, with @jdejuan-sanz.bsky.social, Olga Corti and @steinaerts.bsky.social labs www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our work on the function of miR-51/miR-100 is out! miR-100 is widely conserved across eumetazoans but its function has been mysterious. Emilio Santillán found in worms it regulates signaling and extracellular matrix genes, some of which seem to be conserved targets! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Excited to share an important new pre-print from the lab led by incredibly talented postdoc @maureenbiologies.bsky.social, a neurotoxicologist who came to the lab with an ambitious goal of understanding the consequences of toxicant exposure in human neurodevelopment. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Sharing our newest study led by the incredibly talented @federicamosti.bsky.social investigating new molecular mechanisms of human brain development. We discover a human-specific enhancer HAR1984 that influences chromatin looping to promote cortical size and folding! www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

#DBfeature #Drosophila🪰 Decoding a Cell's Fate: How Notch and receptor tyrosine kinase signals specify the Drosophila R7 photoreceptor by Ronald Arias, Andrew Tomlinson sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A Summer reading recommendation: new primer in @dev-journal.bsky.social explains how dynamical systems theory unlocks the logic of developmental patterning Everything from bistable switches & oscillators to phase portraits & more with Python code to explore journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

My lab's newest research paper on the Drosophila eye is published in Development today. Thanks to the editorial staff for writing a research highlight and interviewing us about our work. journals.biologists.com/dev/article-...

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

Happy to share our publication - Comparative connectomics of two distantly related nematode species reveals patterns of nervous system evolution www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Paper alert! With co-first authors Nick Tolman and @taiboli.bsky.social , we profile trabecular meshwork cells using single-cell RNA + ATAC seq, identify mitochondrial dysfunction in an early-onset glaucoma model, and use Vitamin B3 to protect against nerve damage. elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

Hi all, we got a grant for a cool project that will follow up of our paper published a few months ago (see below). We will explore how light acts as a morphogen to instruct PCP. If you are looking for a postdoc position and interested in this topic, please reach out!

Bassem Hassan @bassemh.bsky.social, Corey Harwell & yours truly are co-chairs for 2026 Neural Development #GRC August 2-7, 2026 in Newport, RI 🇺🇸 - if you are interested in updates on the conference & to hear about our 🤩 line-up of speakers...follow @neuraldevgrc.bsky.social! 🧠🪰🐭🐙🐸🦎🧒🏻🧫🧪🧠

Very excited to share our new work on gastruloids by the incredible Cat Triandafillou! We mapped gene expression across 26 individual gastruloids at single-cell resolution and discovered some pretty amazing patterns about how these "mini-embryos" organize themselves. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

NEW: In an unprecedented move, the NIH will soon disinvite dozens of scientists about to take positions on advisory councils that make final decisions on grant funding. NIH staff were told to select others aligned with the Trump administration and told to expect placements by political appointees.

Congrats to Kristen, an awesome scientist, colleague, and person!!!

Congratulations to all! I'm so proud to have not one but two @ucd-physiology.bsky.social colleagues on this list! @doctheagrif.bsky.social and @elisazhang.bsky.social are rockstars and this is very well deserved!!! 🎉🎉

New collaborative study out with Mark Wu’s group identifies a thalamic reuniens-zona incerta circuit as both responsive to induced sleep deprivation and essential for mediating recovery sleep. Further perspective on this work follows./1 www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

i am here to share what just happened. I just asked a fly colleague if they could share some reagents, and literally in 9 MINUTES they wrote back and said of course, we'll send everything and more. this is reason #834 why the fly community is the best. THE BEST!!! 🪰💪

Yesterday, the NIH R35 “Outstanding Investigator” grant to fund scientists in my lab studying antibiotic resistance was terminated for reasons not related to the content of the science, or any actions taken by me or members of my lab

Thrilled to share our latest study out in @natureportfolio.nature.com led by the fantastically talented Jing Liu. Our study provides insight into a long standing question in biology: What molecular features make us uniquely human and how do these function? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Current situation at Harvard Medical School for NIH grants view.u.hms.harvard.edu?qs=3ed8c01b9...

From MBoC Dr. Robert Krauss, Professor of Cell, Developmental, and Regenerative Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, wants to bring clarity to a classic biology term: “master regulator.” What should it really mean? ➡️ www.molbiolcell.org/doi/10.1091/... #ASCB #CellBiology

Congratulations to the next Chair of the Dept. of Molecular Biology: Elizabeth (Liz) R. Gavis, the Damon B. Pfeiffer Professor in the Life Sciences and Assoc. Faculty in the Program in Quantitative and Computational Biology. Her term begins on July 1, 2025. molbio.princeton.edu/news/2025/ga...

Yes, that is me, for those who did not yet know. This was not planned but I am very happy to go 'home' even though I will miss a lot about Portugal. If you still want to visit, hurry, otherwise see you in Cambridge. If you want to know more contact me directly. www.pdn.cam.ac.uk/news/dr-care...

It’s starting! #EYES2025 @joelmiesfeld.bsky.social @phruzycki.bsky.social @latorrelab.bsky.social @macdonaldlab.bsky.social @clark-lab-retina.bsky.social @pierre-mattar.bsky.social

Reflections from the Human Developmental Biology Initiative's public engagement team on improving science communication while building public trust. Bridging between tissue donors and discovery research. journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Today is a fantastic day

Truly grateful to all of the NIH staff who are working so hard and keeping everything going in these challenging times.

So you want to study the optic nerve head. You’re thinking a Pax2-Cre driver should work, right? Well, think again: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40300047/

@accorsi-alice.bsky.social is the best! She truly has a vision for #VisionResearch. biology.ucdavis.edu/news/snail-r...

Our latest manuscript (7 years in the works) tackles the question of how diurnal ground squirrels evolved a cone-dominant retina, in contrast to the ancestral rod-dominant retina retained by virtually all other mammals./1 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The final version of our eLife manuscript on viral Oct4-mediated neurogenic reprogramming of retinal Muller glia is now out, with all reviewer comments addressed. elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

Wanna grow organoids to understand human retinal development as a research assistant? Wanna help run the lab as a lab manager? The Johnston lab is hiring a research assistant/lab manager. If you are interested, please apply (also please share!): jobs.jhu.edu/job/Baltimor...

Second (takes deep breath) It appears that PAYMENTS FOR ALL GRANTS THROUGH THE PAYMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ARE BEING FROZEN. If this is correct, then no funds will be transferred to any grantee institution, at least at this time.

To add to the good news from the lab, congratulations to Xiangning Chen for defending her beautiful thesis work on the direct effects of light on glucose metabolism!! It’s been a pleasure for Haiqing, @samerhattar.bsky.social and I to mentor you. Thank you for allowing us to be part of your journey!