It's taken a while but final version of Alex's manuscript now out in eLife. We're proud of it – it was a difficult project with hard assays. Even the eLife editor admits it's 'useful' – and I'm not sure how often you see a genuinely useful paper these days?! elifesciences.org/articles/107...

Join us in Sheffield! We are keen to support early career researchers in applying for independent research fellowships (IRFs) to join our friendly and collaborative environment, in areas related to developmental biology, stem cells and regenerative biology, and neuroscience.

Fat cadherin cleavage releases a transcriptionally active nuclear fragment to regulate target gene expression. New preprint from Helen McNeill and colleagues doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Job Alert 🔊🔊 Looking for your first or next Postdoc position? Then don't look further, apply to this opportunity to join our lab to tackle the next big challenges in the Wnt signalling field. Experience in protein biochemistry and in vitro cell biology is essential for this post tinyurl.com/2p9rndfy

My first post on Bluesky! Very excited to share our work just published in @science.org. We find that “Interphase cell morphology defines the mode, symmetry, and outcome of mitosis” - in angiogenesis and other tissues! www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1... www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Development folks: the next Northern England Developmental Biology @bsdb.bsky.social @biologists.bsky.social meeting will take place on the 10th of July in Sheffield. Great speaker line-up, cheap registration fee and plenty of slots for ECR talks. Registration deadline=31/5, see poster for details

New! 15y after the classic Aigouy et al "Cell Flow Reorients the Axis of Planar Polarity in the Wing Epithelium..." from lab of much missed Suzanne Eaton, we provide our take from post-doc Sara Tan "Tissue shear as a cue for aligning planar polarity in the developing Drosophila wing". rdcu.be/d81Vn

Now that my lab has moved to Emory I want you to join us in Atlanta. We have an NIH-funded postdoc position available to study Planar Cell Polarity (PCP) signaling using vestibular hair cells of the mouse as a model. Please repost and/or DM for details

My quote of the day (or possibly the week/month/year): ‘Building organisms is about bringing #SelfOrganization under control’ I’m going to borrow this to use in my talks

Drosophila cell culture people: we've been using Qiagen Effectene to transfect S2 cells with ~30% efficiency, but latest batch is only giving us <1% efficiency (so no use to us!!). Qiagen don't seem to have a solution. Anyone got suggestions for other (good!) fly cell culture transfection reagents?

A little pre-Christmas reading for my planar polarity follower(s) – I’m sure there’s at least one of you! The Fat-Dachsous planar polarity pathway competes with hinge contraction to orient polarized cell behaviors during Drosophila wing morphogenesis. Current Biology doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

Dodged that pre- Christmas bullet. Mycoplasma, not Covid.

Please spread the word! We are looking for postdoc(s) interested in quantitative problems in Development and Regeneration. Previous experience in quantitative biology is not required. We will support you and provide a great training environment if you are committed to learn new things.

Only 3 days left to apply! Postdoc positions available in the Röper lab at the University of Cambridge! @PDN_Cambridge Discover the role that supracellular cytoskeletal assemblies and crosstalk play in sculpting organs in Drosophila or human organoids in culture! Links below!

Morphogenesis alert! Stoked for our new paper with the inimitable @shinuoweng.bsky.social! See her Skeetorial (👇) about the work in @currentbiology.bsky.social exploring the coupling of subcellular and tissue-level forces during convergent extension. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Are you an early career researcher in the Wnt field and at a career stage where you hope to make a transition to start your independent research group? Then this your opportunity! We have an invited ECR speaker slot at the upcoming Oxford WntUK 2025 meeting!! Details below 👇👇

The 2nd WntUK meeting will be held at @WorcCollegeOx @UniofOxford on Monday 24th March 2025. Registration and abstract submission opens soon. Wnt researchers of all levels and disciplines welcome from the UK and beyond!

Postdoc position available in the Röper lab at the University of Cambridge @PDN_Cambridge! Join us and discover the role that control of cytoskeletal dynamics, crosstalk and cell adhesion play in the formation of the nephron tube in human renal organoids! jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/48947/

📢We have a 3y postdoc position available in our interdisciplinary team at the Institut Curie. Join us if you're interested in epithelial tissue morphogenesis using live imaging, quantitative biology & (opto)genetics. institut-curie.org/team/bellaiche Please spread the word.

Our latest on planar polarity mechanisms. Painstaking work by Alexandre Carayon, investigating mechanisms of cell-scale polarisation in the fly wing. Enjoy it (if this is your thing)!

Evidence for strong cell-scale signalling during planar polarisation in the Drosophila wing https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.14.618159v1

Rho/Rok-dependent regulation of actomyosin contractility at tricellular junctions controls epithelial permeability in Drosophila https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.04.616625v1

Linked article is facinating but chilling. Nightmarish…

For my planar polarity follower(s?), we have a new paper out on Fat-Dachsous. Fat-Dachsous are known to interact (signal?) in trans between cells, but we now find a second (more important!) trans-interaction suggesting new models for Fat-Dachsous clustering www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We´re hiring! 2-year postdoc position opening in my lab at the Multiscale Imaging Center, University of Münster, to work on membrane trafficking and epithelial tissue dynamics in Drosophila. For details, please see shorturl.at/auBW4 and apply by Feb 29th.

Bluesky exclusive (at least until I get around to posting on the other place) – our latest work on understanding symmetry breaking in planar polarity: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... I would do a lengthy 'tweetorial' but luckily for you all I don't know how to.

Here for the science. But in the meantime for my friends who think it always rains in Sheffield, some pictures from Stanage Edge this morning.