Today is a big day. After many years of work, I’m excited to finally share a paper describing a novel approach to identifying potential breakthroughs in biomedical research, up to twelve years before the breakthrough itself occurs. 1/15

Just over a week to our FIRST event for 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣6️⃣- 13/01/2026 15:00-17:30 GMT. What better way to fire up those neural circuits than dipping into the latest breaking #Cilia and #Centrosome science 🧪? Free and open to everyone- /1

Modern biology research is biased towards investigating genes that are widely conserved and present in humans. What about genes that ARE widely conserved but NOT present in humans? Can genes missing from humans tell us something about what makes our biology different from that of other animals? 1/8

Helping this mood is our latest now out in its final form! @irfankathiriya.bsky.social leading the teams with me. Thanks to the editors and reviewers (incl. @wythelab.bsky.social)for a pleasant and productive journey. More to come when the full issue is out. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Happy holidays! My mind remains boggled how, kinda like the ghost of Christmas past, scientists who may be long dead and I will never meet IRL can tell me their most cherished thoughts. All I have to do to activate this trans-generational telepathic ability is download and read their old papers. 1/4

Tired of drawing cilia or centrioles for slides and papers? I feel you. Check out CiliaBuilder for ChimeraX → cxtoolshed.rbvi.ucsf.edu/apps/chimera... Build custom 3D cilia & centriole models (tips + primary cilia included).

#WntA is a crucial marker of stripe elements early in development for the Nymphalidae butterfly family. @jasminealqassar.bsky.social & co explore if WntA has maintained its role in stripe elements over 95 million years of evolution in the Hesperiidae family of butterflies. doi.org/10.1242/bio....

I don’t always eat cake, but when I do, I prefer it to be ninefold symmetric. Cake credit: Thao Phan.

The vestibular system in your inner ear keeps you spatially oriented (problems cause vertigo). Comb jellies have similar statocysts, perhaps the first sensory organ. The cilia build the statocysts by transporting cells to their tips... like little escalators! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Submit your latest research to our upcoming special issue: Cell Biology of the Nucleus. This issue is being coordinated by Abby Buchwalter @abbybuch.bsky.social, working alongside Megan King @luskinglab.bsky.social. Deadline: 5 January 2026 journals.biologists.com/jcs/pages/nu...

Good to see the peer reviewed version of this published A chemo-optogenetic system for spatiotemporal control of gene expression We use it to: - Reconstruct SHH mediated neural tube patterning in vitro - Measure extracellular half-life of Shh www.cell.com/developmenta...

How does C2CD3 contribute to distal appendage formation in centrioles? @centriolelab.bsky.social show that C2CD3 acts as a central architectural organizer of the distal #centriole, bridging the luminal distal ring complex & peripheral appendage sites @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/496XZuH

We’re excited to announce the opening of the Geneva Expansion Microscopy Facility (GenExM)! GenExM is a full-service U-ExM platform (U-ExM, Cryo-ExM, iU-ExM), delivering nanoscale imaging. Led by Dr. Olivier Mercey, GenExM welcomes academic & industrial collaborations. 👉 www.unige.ch/genexm/

Calling all postdocs! Applications are open for Dept. of Molecular Biosciences 3rd Trailblazers Postdoctoral Symposium @utaustin.bsky.social. Come to Austin, meet your peers, showcase your work. Application is easy and all expenses are paid! Spread the word! tinyurl.com/yw7ffjn9

Summary data from 2025 NIH and NSF funding: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Cells can form patterns within themselves just like embryos do. How? Connie Yan's new preprint shows how the anterior-posterior cytoskeleton pattern in Stentor is dictated by regionalized scaffolding proteins www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Here is a copy of last year's Twitter thread explaining our preprint - jump to (21) for the new stuff 👀 Synergy between cis-regulatory elements can render cohesin dispensable for distal enhancer function now revised and journal accepted at www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵👇

Happy Thanksgiving, all! First meal of the day: Dutch baby, the best of the pancake phylum.

Our new paper showcasing molecular connectomics with pan-expansion microscopy is out in @natbiotech.nature.com! www.nature.com/articles/s41... This wonderful collaboration with @bewersdorflab.bsky.social was led by Ons M'Saad (now founder/CEO of Panluminate) and @allisonphysics.bsky.social. (1/5)

Good morning, Bay! I’m up early to head out to University of Florida and Daniel Kopinke. I hope to see you at the Dept of Pharmacology seminar Wednesday!

Good news. Faculty expressing their concerns seems to be having effects. If you are in academia, make sure your administration knows your views on the compact.

I am excited to share our preprint on the use of machine learning to identify abnormal cilia function. I am proud of Nicholas Hadas, a talented PhD candidate, for his hard work in compiling the code and preparing this manuscript. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Looking forward to a day with the developmental biologists at WashU in St Louis. Honoured to be giving the 44th Annual Oliver H. Lowry Lecture 4pm Jeffrey T. Fort NRB Building, Auditorium happenings.wustl.edu/event/44th-a...

An obituary for the venerable Dr. Marthe Gautier: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/h...

Today is the #BBSGlobalDay — an opportunity to raise awareness of this rare condition and offer support to everyone living with BBS and their loved ones 🌍 🌎 🌏 www.img.cas.cz/2025/10/8758...

Karl’s putting on a good performance this morning.

Meet the 2025 cohort of @dev-journal.bsky.social Pathway to Independence fellows Read about the scientific visions of eight dev bio post-docs entering the academic job market journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Congrats CD on your well-earned achievement! (This is _actually_ on the "journal" website) ＼(〇_ｏ)／

New cures feel sudden, but the seeds were planted decades ago by basic scientists. Which seeds will turn into cures? Unpredictable looking forward, a straight line looking back. 🧪🧬 🧵

Yifan Cheng to Receive 2026 Anatrace Membrane Protein Award buff.ly/ooI1UDy

I am excited to share our new preprint on the CAGE complex, a mysterious hollow protein complex that I first saw years ago while surveying Tetrahymena ciliary lysate www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #cilia #protistsonsky 🧬🧪

🎉 Congratulations to Needhi Bhalla, UC Santa Cruz (www.bhallalab.com ), named a 2025 #ASCB Fellow! This honor celebrates her outstanding contributions to cell biology, leadership, & service. Fellows will be recognized at #CellBio2025 in Philadelphia this December. #CellBiology

Apply by Oct 15 - please spread the word!

Side hustle level-up! My book, IN THE BEGINNING, will be published by @harperonebooks.bsky.social in 2027! It's about the human embryo, how it gets built, and what it means for where we come from and where we're going. @harpercollins.bsky.social (1/2) @socdevbio.bsky.social #devbiol #scicomm

Whoa - neuronal ciliary proteome! Tons to dig into here - different from kidney cilia proteome (perhaps unsurprising) and enriched for many postsynaptic proteins, strengthening previous suggestions of cilia as postsynaptic signaling structures. @nachury.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congrats to Lucy Shapiro, a pioneering microbiologist, for winning the 2025 Lasker-Koshland Award. So deserving! laskerfoundation.org/winners/pion...

Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars: "...conclude that the Bright Angel formation contains textures, chemical and mineral characteristics, and organic signatures that warrant consideration as ‘potential biosignatures’." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Co-discoverer of reverse transcriptase at 32, Nobel Prize at 37, played a key role at the 1975 Asilomar comference.

Congratulations to Thi Nguyen for an excellent, insightful, rollicking defense!

Ahh! The classic Bay Area fall triad: fog, soccer and geese coexisting.

I'm loving the @idlesband.bsky.social-fueled soundtrack for Caught Stealing. The album cover is a chest X-ray most notable for the six foreign objects in the lung fields. Also notable is the right-sided cardiac apex. Does this individual also have heterotaxia?

New preprint with @gfudenberg.bsky.social We find the rate of cohesin loop extrusion in cells is set by NIPBL dosage and tunes many aspects of chromosome folding. This provides a molecular basis for NIPBL haploinsufficiency in humans. 🧵👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I know there is A LOT going on but just a heads up: TOMORROW, 9/3, is the last day to apply for a talk (or early poster) at #CellBio2025 in December! There will be a #Meiosis4Eva: The Cell Biology of Reproduction minisymposium on 12/7 at 10am. Please apply if you are interested in giving a talk! 🧪

Gordon Ramsay had a basal cell carcinoma (BCC). Protect yourself and your loved ones from too much sun, and avoid misactivating ciliary Hedgehog signal transduction! www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/...

Research team @nadlerlab.bsky.social, A. Honigmann @biotec-tud.bsky.social, B.Drobot @hzdr.bsky.social, M. Hof @heyrovskeho-ustav.bsky.social develops approach to visualize lipids in cells & uncovers the main transport mechanism for lipids within the cell. @nature.com www.mpi-cbg.de/news-outreac...

⏳ Last days to apply to the International Course in Developmental Biology "From #stemcells to #morphogenesis" organized by Institut Curie and @sorbonne-universite.fr 📅 Application deadline: September 5 🔗 Program & registration: training.institut-curie.org/courses/deve... #devbio

From the Strahov monastery library in Prague, Galileo looking cheery. I guess he didn’t know what was coming…

Remebering Paul Kulesa (1962–2025) We honor Dr. Paul Kulesa, whose pioneering work on neural crest cell development has profoundly impacted neuroscience and pediatric cancer research. His loss has deeply impacted the Developmental Biology community and everyone he graced with his presence in life.

Have you saved the date for #Cilia2027? It is going to be in March 2027 at this lake near #Milan. 👇

In our ongoing saga of description of new protists, we are happy to introduce Multisulcus malaysiensis, a deep-branching heterolobosean that forms highly unusual multiflagellated cells with multiple ventral grooves. Great work by @kristina-prokina.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....