Honored to receive the 2026 R.R. Bensley Award in Cell Biology from the @anatomyorg.bsky.social 🏆 Excited to keep exploring how metabolism, genetics, and epigenetics shape gonadal development and cell differentiation 🧬Grateful to my mentors, collaborators, and lab mates who made this possible.

👋 Welcome to the official BlueSky account of the #VSD scientific community ! This account was created to 👇 -share official announcements -highlight scientific content & speakers during the #VSD2026 meeting - support live discussions and help our community stay connected 1/3👇

For this festive season, I’m sending friends and family something a little different: postcards straight from the microscope. 🔬 Featuring my hiPSC Christmas tree from last year and a hiPSC colony turned into a festive bauble, with wishes for a season that’s festive at every scale. 🎄

Are you going to SICB in Jan2026? I can't but I'll be there in spirit with these plates I am donating for the Division of Invertebrate Zoology Libbie Hyman Auction. Show up and support student travel funds by bidding for them! Featuring #membracids #acoels #cnidarians #rotifers @sicb.bsky.social

🎄 Day 1 of the 24 Days of Development ✨🧬 This study shows how different fixation methods (PFA vs. TCA) change what researchers can visualize in chicken embryos using HCR or IHC. 🔍🐣🔬 doi.org/10.1016/j.yd...

🎄✨ Introducing 24 Days of Development! Each day we’ll highlight one of 2025’s most influential papers published in Developmental Biology, the official journal of the Society for Developmental Biology. Follow along! 🧬❄️🌟 #DevBio

I can’t believe it’s already been a year! 🎉 Grateful to share this initiative with such an amazing group of Latinx scientists in developmental biology 🙌 More to come! ✨

Happy to report that our recent findings on the innervation of the masseter made the cover of the International Journal of Developmental Biology @isdb.bsky.social . Early post for #FluorescenceFridays #DevBio @brchfx.bsky.social 🧪 ijdb.ehu.eus/issue/69/

💚🦴 Fluorescence Friday: Halloween edition! 🎃 This glowing mouse embryo skeleton is serving serious spooky vibes 👻 Who knew bone development could look this eerie and elegant? 💀 Image by @martinestermann.bsky.social #FluorescenceFriday #SpookyScience

Join us for a new zoom series on metabolism and development. This will be a monthly feature with PIs and trainees presenting. Sign up here (forms.gle/Y8QzucogKKrZ...) to get the Zoom link and join the mailing list.

We are thrilled to announce the inaugural Metabolism in Development & Physiology virtual seminar, a new series connecting researchers across all stages & disciplines in metabolism! 🗓 13 Nov 2025, 16:00 CET 🎙 Alexander Aulehla (EMBL Heidelberg), & 🎙 Christopher Bell (Uni of Oxford) See you there!

🚨Excited to kick off our online seminar series on Metabolism in Development and Physiology! Please help us grow a collaborative and supportive community by joining (<1min): forms.gle/Y8QzucogKKrZ... #Metabolism #Development #StemCells Please RT! 🙏

It is so cool to be able to see things like this (#DevBio) in real life and share it with students. 🤩

🚨LatinxDB organize: “Why didn’t I know this before? What to expect from a PhD or a postdoc in life sciences” Thanks Estefania Vasquez, M. Fernanda Palominos and Emma Rangel for creating this space and discussion. @niasv.bsky.social @fishfena.bsky.social Join us at 2025NDiSTEM @sacnas.bsky.social

Our next #DevPres webinar focusses on development across scales with talks from Osvaldo Contreras @osvaldoics.bsky.social & Yinan Wan, chaired by Alex Eve @amjeve.bsky.social 📅 15 October, 09:00 BST (UTC+1) Register here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Our latest ‘call for preLighters’ closes tonight! Interested, but didn’t find the time to write an application? Expressions of interest are also welcome – just email us at [email protected] Why join? See what other preLighters have to say…⬇️👀

📢To all the sex determination lovers! 📢 Get ready for the 10th International Symposium on the Biology of Vertabrate Sex Determination (VSD). We exchange the nostalgic Hawaii beaches with the gorgeous Crete beaches 🏖! The meeting will take place on 23-27 March 2026. biology-of-vsd.my.canva.site

🚨 New call for preLighters!🚨 Help us highlight the most exciting biological #preprints. Share your insights, build your profile, and be part of a supportive community! 🌍 Interested? Apply today & help shape the future of science publishing! 📢 More info: prelights.biologists.com/news/join-th...

✨If Monet studied mouse ovaries 🎨 Stromal cells 💜 Follicular cells 🔵 and Fatty Cells 🟡. Together, they reveal the cellular architecture and functional zones of the ovary 🔬 Image provided by @shmimberly.bsky.social 🧪 #FluorescenceFriday #ReproductiveBiology

🎉 Big news! 10 postdoc fellows from 5 Latin American countries have joined the 2025 class of #PewLatinAmericanFellows, and we’re proud to share that one is our own @mary-flores.bsky.social! Learn more: bit.ly/45rgN5L @cumedicalschool.bsky.social @cuanschutz.bsky.social @chrmosimann.bsky.social

✨Development meets design in this embryonic chameleon lung 🫁 🦎. Smooth muscle swirls 🟣 and branching tips and cartilage 🟢 come together in reptilian lung morphogenesis. Image taken by @drkatiegoodwin.bsky.social 🔬🧪 #FluorescenceFriday #DevBio

From Shosei Yoshida's beautiful talk @ssrepro.bsky.social. Differentiation waves in mouse seminiferous tubules (Stra-8 eGFP). Absolutely spectacular👏 #ReproRocks #ComplexSystems #Microscopy

✨Unexpected but beautiful! 🔬
4 hpf zebrafish embryos injected with BFP 🔵, GFP,🟢 and RFP🔴 mRNAs (1:1:1) showed mosaic, multicolor expression, resembling a brainbow without any genetic recombination 🧬🌈 image taken by A.J. Treichel 
#FluorescenceFriday #Zebrafish #DevBio

Lovely work by @martinestermann.bsky.social and colleagues from the Capel lab! Together with our recent work (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...), this really makes a strong case that lactate is crucial to supporting male germ cells in vivo - from flies to mammals.

🚨 New preprint alert! 🚨 Excited to share the preprint that marks the beginning of my journey into the world of metabolism! 🍭🧬 A new chapter exploring how metabolic pathways shape gonadal development. There’s more to come, stay tuned! #DevelopmentalBiology #Metabolism

🐌💫 Snail embryos never looked so fabulous! Tubulin (white), phospho-histone H3 (pink), and F-Actin (cyan) light up this early stage like a cytoskeletal disco ball. Image from Clemens Cabernard & Adam von Barnau Sythoff 🪩🧬 #FluorescenceFriday

🐣✨ TUJ1 staining reveals the forming trigeminal ganglion in a chick embryo! Image taken by Rocio Márquez from @pstrobl.bsky.social lab, where they investigate how neural crest and placode cells communicate during the formation of this sensory structure 🔬🧪 #FluorescenceFriday

LASDB board meeting during the @socdevbio.bsky.social / @isdb.bsky.social / LASDB joint meeting in San Juan, PR 🌴✨! We’re excited for what’s ahead for developmental biology and the growing role of Latinx scientists in the field. 💪🏽🧬 🐸🐟🐣🐭🪰 #DevBio #LatinxInScience #LASDB #LatinxDB

My first light sheet scanning with a #zebrafish 🩷 embryo! #devBio #microscopy🎉

🧵1/ 🚨 New tool for reproductive biology! We generated a Nr2f2-iCreERT2 mouse—an inducible Cre model that specifically targets interstitial cells in both male and female gonads. Read more in our new @biolreprod paper: 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/biol...

🧠✨ E14 mouse embryo lighting up with neural progenitors! Nestin (⚪️), p73 (🟢), and Tbr2 (🔴) mark distinct progenitor populations shaping the nervous system. Vishal Lolam is investigating how their balance is disrupted in neurodevelopmental disorders. #FluorescenceFriday

One of my favourite IF images is participating for the #SSR 2nd Annual #ReproBioArt Image Contest! Mind helping with a vote? ⬇️ woobox.com/2poyka/galle...

Sugar is usually thought of as a cellular fuel, but it also changes how cells differentiate. preLighter (@prelights.bsky.social) @martinestermann.bsky.social shows that metabolites, such as sugars, influence the development of sex organs—ovaries & testes. Sweet story! #2025SDB #2025SDB #ICDB2025

🎆🧬 Fireworks in the making! At 3 days, Nematostella vectensis is already producing stinging cells across its body. These genes (🩷💛💙) cluster in the tentacle tips and across the sea anemone juvenile body 🪼✨ image provided by @gelatinoussting.bsky.social #FluorescenceFriday #DevBio

✨#FluorescenceFriday brings you a glowing Berghia stephanieae juvenile! This stunning sea slug is lit up with Anti-α-Tubulin 🟢, revealing the dense network of cilia that help it glide across surfaces. 🐌💫 Image taken by @Luiza-O-Saad.bsky.social #Microscopy #DevBio

Iron deficiency in pregnant mice may lead to the development of ovaries in a small proportion of offspring carrying XY chromosomes, which typically determine male sex, according to a study in Nature. go.nature.com/45FjiTK 🧪

Got stunning fluorescence microscopy images? 🌈🔬 SDB wants to feature YOUR work for #FluorescenceFriday! We highlight images from SDB members with a short description and the image creators 📸. Fill out the form to be featured: forms.gle/gf7Lid9fXcmb... 🧪

🦋✨ #FluorescenceFriday meets developmental biology! This glowing "butterfly" isn't an insect, it's a transverse section of a developing chicken gonad. When art meets science, even sex differentiation takes flight! Image taken by @martinestermann.bsky.social #ChickenModel #DevBio 🐥🔬

Got stunning fluorescence microscopy images? 🌈🔬 @SDBiology wants to feature YOUR work for #FluorescenceFriday! We highlight images from SDB members with a short description and the image creators 📸. Fill out the form to be featured: forms.gle/gf7Lid9fXcmb... 🧪

A tiny reef builder lighting up the ocean 🪸. This 1-month-old rice coral (Montipora capitata) glows 🟢 with natural GFP and 🟣 with symbiotic algae 🔬. Image taken by Emma Rangel-Huerta #FluorescenceFriday #ScienceArt #DevBio

Behold a mouse blastocyst: The earliest glimpse of a mammal’s first cell fate decision!
Green marks future placenta cells.
Red highlights cells fated to become the embryo. Image taken by @VirginiaSavy.bsky.social #FluorescenceFriday #DevBio #MouseEmbryo #CellFate #ImagingScience 🧪

Missed the #KSMetabDev25 meeting? #KeystoneSymp @martinestermann.bsky.social & virginiasavy.bsky.social have listed the #preprints that were discussed. Check out their #preList ⬇️👀 prelights.biologists.com/prelists/ksm...

The deadline to registre for the 20th International Congress of Developmental Biology in Sheraton Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR is on the 21st of May. The meeting is co-chaired by Marianne Bronner, Carole LaBonne, and Juan Riesgo. More information here: www.sdbonline.org/2025icdb

Together with @virginiasavy.bsky.social, we curated a preList of preprints presented at the Keystone Symposia: Metabolic and Nutritional Control of Development and Cell Fate! Explore the latest in the field, fresh from the conference! 📑🆕: prelights.biologists.com/prelists/ksm... #DevBio #Metabolism

Thrilled to see my images featured in this IRP NIH blog post! irp.nih.gov/blog/post/20... ✨🔬🎨📸 While they look pretty, both were actually used to expand our understanding of testicular biology and male fertility. Check out our research here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Red nuclei and a glowing green lateral line—zebrafish never disappoint under the scope! Sensory biology meets stunning visuals. Image by Marycruz Flores @mary-flores.bsky.social 🐟🔬
#FluorescenceFriday #Zebrafish #Microscopy #ScienceArt

Day 2 of the Metabolic & Nutritional Control of Development & Cell Fate conference is electric! Celebrate our Future of Science Fund scholars: @jennabergmann.bsky.social, @martinestermann.bsky.social, and Alba Villaronga Luque. Discover Keystone scholarships: keysym.us/scholarships... #KSMetabDev25

So honoured to receive a Future of Science Fund scholarship and thrilled to share my latest research at #KSMetabDev25. This has been one of the most enlighting meetings I attended. Thank you @keystonesymposia.bsky.social