Have been fortunate to host Dr. Margot Williams from @bcmhouston.bsky.social for a seminar today in the Biosciences department at Rice University. Such cool, innovative work! Also, a masterclass in how to deliver a talk. Thank you for sharing your science, Margot!

New @maxplanck.de study: We looked for left-right differences of gene expression and cell-type abundances in the brains of MICE 🐭using Xenium @10xgenomics.bsky.social. Possible clues to how functional brain asymmetry is supported !! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Short thread below ⬇️

Another tour-de-force from David Baker's lab : custom DNA-binding miniproteins to target specific DNA sequences for diverse applications in gene regulation and editing. With David, nothing is impossible !

Check out our new work led by @rodrigomorec.bsky.social published today! We show that sequential, multiplexed HCR in whole-mount larval zebrafish revealed 3D spatial gene expression groups at the cellular and gut-levels in the enteric nervous system! faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1096/...

Check out our new work led by @rodrigomorec.bsky.social published today! We show that sequential, multiplexed HCR in whole-mount larval zebrafish revealed 3D spatial gene expression groups at the cellular and gut-levels in the enteric nervous system! faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1096/...

What are some good Photoshop and Illustrator alternatives?

Cytoneme feedback ensures signaling specificity when multiple ligands converge on a common receptor https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.28.672500v1

Characterization of cis-regulatory elements and functional variants in colorectal cancer using epigenomics and CRISPRi screenings. www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Very proud to say that on Thursday August 21st I successfully defended my thesis!! I'm very thankful to @uribelab.bsky.social for being an amazing mentor through all the ups and downs.

Assistant Professor position open in my department. Please re-post!

Open rank faculty search in my department. Please re-post!

The Department of BioSciences at Rice U invites applications for an open rank tenure-track position to begin July 1, 2026. We seek candidates with research programs in theoretical and computational neuroscience, including candidates 1/2 apply.interfolio.com/172558

The Department of BioSciences at Rice University invites applications for an assistant professor position to begin July 1, 2026. We seek biophysical candidates who are using molecular imaging to understand the structure and mechanism of molecules, macromolecular 1/2 apply.interfolio.com/172568

Late last week, the 5th PhD student from my lab defended their thesis! Below is a "time lapse" of the traditional Rice University tie-cutting ceremony at Valhalla 🍾 👔 Congratulations, Dr. Rivas! We couldn't be prouder!

Pathway to Independence – an interview with Joaquín Navajas Acedo. In this interview, @mads100tist.bsky.social talks about about his research vision, zebrafish and the importance of community: journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

We’re excited to share the speaker lineup for InSDB–ISD 2025! This year’s program features a remarkable group of researchers at the forefront of developmental biology and stem cell science. Time is running out to register. Sign up by August 31: bit.ly/4dqXZXS

I just got the notice that all the FlyBase people at Harvard, including me, will be laid off on October 12. I'm devastated.

I spoke to The Guardian about the devastating impacts of the Trump adminstration's war on the NIH and science www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

🧪⚛️ I don't even know where to start with this. It's a mess. This is an explicit attempt to destroy peer review for federal science grants. "The grant review process itself also undermines the interests of American taxpayers." Great. Awesome. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Super proud to share the first first-author paper from @ashockney24.bsky.social and our first official Rummel lab publication! Check it out here: nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The longer I am in this job, the more I realize it is just all about the people. It is the most important thing.

We celebrated the end of successful summer research projects in the lab last week. The undergrads and a high school student worked on projects investigating ENS development in zebrafish and learned a lot! So proud! Special shout out to the graduate student and postdoc bench mentors, thank you!

Let's please keep the remaining staff at NIH, NSF, etc in our thoughts even as you lose sleep over your own lab and scientific career. They are enduring pure chaos to try to hold the fort. See snapshot from wapo.st/4feKKuu (gift 🔗) saying they are "barely holding it together"

Don't miss out on this fantastic line-up of speakers at the Neural Disorders RIG meetup of the Zebrafish Disease Models Society! July 30, 10:00 EST. Registration details below:

Happy to share our latest preprint. We show that juxtaposing amnion cells with human pluripotent cells is enough to trigger gastrulation-like events. Great work by former student Xiangyu Kong now a postdoc in the Theunissen lab @washumedicine.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The NAS Council has approved the nomination of Neil H. Shubin to be the next president of the National Academy of Sciences. An evolutionary biologist and science communicator, Shubin would succeed Marcia McNutt when her term ends on June 30, 2026. Read more: www.nasonline.org/news/neil-h-...

Thank you, @siegenthalerlab.bsky.social, for a great virtual seminar about Retinoic Acid and the retinal vasculature! We all learned a lot! It was great hosting your research for our journal webinar!

Deepika Dogra, Karin Tuschl, and I are thrilled to host the Neural Disorders RIG meeting of the @ZDMSociety on July 30, 10:00-11:30 am ET. We have a fantastic line-up of speakers. Register here: zdmsociety.org/2025-zdms-ri....

Are you interested in signaling? Imaging? Development and differentiation? Please us Friday for our virtual seminar series and a talk by @siegenthalerlab.bsky.social from @cuanschutz.bsky.social! It will be fantastic! 11:30 AM PDT/1:30 PM CDT/2:30PM EDT. Register: scisoc.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

BWF is pleased to announce the 2025 recipients of its Career Awards at the Scientific Interface (CASI). buff.ly/WDswUnt #bwfcasi

!! Paper Alert !! We recently discovered that the mammalian enteric nervous system (ENS) contains population of mesoderm-derived enteric neurons. Now our latest study shows potential relevance of these neurons to #gut #dysfunction in an #autoimmune disease: #Scleroderma. A blurtorial (1/n)

🧬 New preprint! We’ve identified core microRNAs that orchestrate neural crest delamination and condensation in chick embryos, key for trigeminal ganglion formation. ✨ Introducing cranial MET-miRNAs into trunk neural crest cells reprograms them to gain cranial-like differentiation potential

Check out our work using 3D whole gut spatial genomics, where we found spatially-distinct gene expression patterns along the zebrafish enteric nervous system across 4 to 7 days in development www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Join the editors-in-chief of Differentiation on July 11 at 1:30 p.m. Central for a virtual seminar with Julie Siegenthaler on retinoic acid signaling in retina endothelial cells and early angiogenesis. 👁️🔬💉 Register for free: www.isdifferentiation.org/Events/Semin...

Did you realize that not only are we halfway through 2025, but we are also more than halfway through THE DECADE?

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Love my #DevBio community! Congratulations on an amazing meeting! #2025ICDB @socdevbio.bsky.social @uribelab.bsky.social @mikepiacentino.bsky.social @ceriweber.bsky.social

Good science, good people, and good food! #2025ICDB #PuertoRico @uribelab.bsky.social @rrbehringer.bsky.social @socdevbio.bsky.social @intlsocdiff.bsky.social

Did you realize that not only are we halfway through 2025, but we are also more than halfway through THE DECADE?

My new piece in Nature Human Behavior: "We need to fight for the next generation of US researchers" All trainees need 3 things to thrive. In the US, those things have been ripped away. Let's brainstorm and fight to get them back. (share link): www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Almost all Nobel Prizes are awarded for work that is exploratory, or absolutely basic science with no obvious commercial or medical benefit. You cannot predict where advancements come from, so you have to invest in science and scientists. Targeted (corporate) science investment will never do this.

In other news, I submitted a grant today.

#DanioDigest (April 2025) Community News: Prof Wendy Bickmore @wbickmor.bsky.social elected as an International Member of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Prof Dr Andrea Rentmeister @rentmeisterlab.bsky.social#DanioDigestreceives 2024 Franco-German Georg Wittig - Victor Grignard Prize. (1/46)

@riceuniversity.bsky.social we started a #DevBio SuperGroup Colloquia where trainees formally presented their work all last academic year. It was a resounding success! Check out some of the cool science happening at Rice in developmental biology. Special thank you to Lucia Rivas!

2025 has been a hard year, but I wanted to share some overall good news from my lab, the Laboratory of Neural Crest and Enteric Nervous System Development! First, we had FIVE undergrads graduate from Rice, and many of them earned Distinction in Research Awards. So proud! Four in the 🖼️ are shown 1/3

First Bluesky post! I'm excited to share a preprint from my postdoctoral work where we 1) define the developmental mechanisms guiding formation of a vagal gut-brain circuit and 2) discover that this circuit regulates much more than just appetite. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This work reveals some of the earliest molecular consequences of MYCN oncogene overexpression in a developmental cell lineage in vivo, the sympathetic nervous system progenitors. Let me know what you think, the implications of this study are numerous! dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

The "Biological Differentiation Across the Scales" virtual seminar series kicked off on April 28 with an insightful, engaging talk by @ecbrooks96.bsky.social. Missed it live? Watch the recording: www.isdifferentiation.org/Journal/Page... @rogerslabucd.bsky.social @uribelab.bsky.social #devbio

🧪 Though a doubling of NSF's budget might seem far-fetched, that's exactly what Congress said what's needed to maintain national competitiveness in science & tech. From the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022:

What are the 3D spatial molecular patterns of differentiating enteric nervous system (ENS) in vivo? Are there co-expression networks? Are there spatially variable genes? In our preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @RodrigoMoreC et al explored 1/4