Our intelligence and cognitive abilities are perhaps due to an expansion of our cerebral cortex. But surprisingly, compared to highly intelligent birds, primates have many more neurons in their cerebellum as compared to the cerebral cortex. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Share this funding opportunity! We offer the Fellows-to-Faculty program to nurture new talent in the basic sciences and to broaden the community of scientists contributing to Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) and Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB).

Stoked to share our latest work entitled: “Large-scale discovery of neural enhancers for cis-regulation therapies” shorturl.at/H3Qww This is an enormous team effort that I had the honour of spearheading with Nick Page and Florence Chardon. Bluetorial below.

🚀 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗱𝗼𝗰 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 We’re recruiting an ERC-funded Postdoctoral Researcher to explore how 3D gene regulatory networks evolved during human and primate brain development, using cutting-edge single-cell multiomics, organoid models, and CRISPR screens. 👉 Apply by Nov 30 | www.bonevlab.com/join

Happy to have contributed to this work on how transposable elements shape the regulatory landscape of cerebellar cells - together with @tyamadat.bsky.social , @ioansarr.bsky.social and @kaessmannlab.bsky.social. Tetsuya's scientific journey is just taking off - definitely one to watch!

Excited to share the preprint from my main postdoc project! It’s been a long journey—huge thanks to everyone who made it possible, especially @leticiarm1618.bsky.social for being the best collaborator one could ask for, and the amazing @kaessmannlab.bsky.social lab for the invaluable support!

We are thrilled to share our new preprint entitled “The origin and molecular evolution of the mammalian liver cell architecture” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Vertebrate Genome Evolution. Annual Symposium of the @louisjeantetfdn.bsky.social Foundation in Geneva. Free access on site and on line. Great speakers for a super interesting topic. #SvantePaabo #HenrikKaessmann organisers 🙏 See you there! @biology-unige.bsky.social @genevunige.bsky.social

Announcing our 9 new Fellows-to-Faculty Fellows! These awards help senior postdoctoral researchers with fresh perspectives on autism & neuroscience transition to tenure-track faculty positions: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/simons-foundation-announces-recipients-of-2025-fellows-to-faculty-awards/

👇 !!!

Huge congrats @klehto.bsky.social on this achievement!! Her work has already enriched the @estbiobank.bsky.social and will continue to do so! 💙🖤🤍

🧠 Opportunity for a post-doctoral position on human neurobiology, funded by the @erc.europa.eu! 🧫You want to use human pluripotent stem cell based models to understand the evolution of human cerebellar neurons and disorders, this position is for you! 🔗Apply here: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

🔬 New preprint out! Thrilled to share our new preprint, where we uncover the molecular diversity and developmental origins of cerebellar astrocytes using multi-omic approaches. 📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #scRNAseq #astrocytes #neuroscience #glia #cerebellum @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social

The Anne West lab at Duke is hiring a postdoc to work on nuclear cell biology in neurogenesis. Please help me spread the word! Applications to [email protected].

1 To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised! 🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Thrilled to share that our latest work on marsupial heterochrony is now online at @cp-devcell.bsky.social @cellpress.bsky.social @lab-turner.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk We used scRNAseq to understand the asynchronous progression of developmental programmes in marsupials www.cell.com/developmenta...

Our study on a male-essential microRNA and the evolution of other dosage compensation mechanisms in birds is now out in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Human de novo mutation rates from a four-generation pedigree reference www.nature.com/articles/s41... - amazingly comprehensive study from Evan Eichler and colleagues

Now out in @natneuro.nature.com: Temporal control of progenitor competence shapes maturation in GABAergic neuron development in mice. Congrats to first authors @annrosebright.bsky.social, Yana Kotlyarenko, @flo-neuhaus.bsky.social, and thanks to all collaborators! www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/n

🤩 Happy to see my PhD mentor Tõnis Timmusk elected as a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization ‪@embo.org‬. So well-deserved! An inspiring scientist, supportive mentor, and generous friend! ‪ @taltech.bsky.social‬

Did the miss the Cerebellum Development and Disease conference last year? Never fear, as we wrote up a conference report! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Excited to share the first 2(!) preprints from the Kebschull Lab. The amazing @hyopilkim.bsky.social developed MAPseq2 & POINTseq and used them to map the dopaminergic cells of VTA and SNc. tl;dr MAPseq2=10x cheaper, 4x better; POINTseq=easy cell type specific barcoding; DA neurons=very cool.

We are delighted to share our new preprint “The evolution of gene regulatory programs controlling gonadal development in primates” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What about the social cerebellum during development we wondered? Here you find some cool insights on this awesome part of the brain! BIG thanks for the great work Katerina Manoli, and support from Charlotte Grosse Wiesmann and Frank van Overwalle 🧠🦋 rdcu.be/epKmZ

Get the word out far and wide. New opportunity from the Simons Foundation in the Eco-Evo space. 2026 Simons Graduate Fellowship in Ecology and Evolution Awards, due July 31, 2025, only for incoming PhD students who plan to start their PhDs in Fall 2026. www.simonsfoundation.org/grant/simons...

New preprint alert 📣 #Cerebellum, organoid, autism & brain evolution 🧪 🧫🧠🧬 Collaboration with G. Testa; fruit of years of work by smart students, led by postdoc Davide Aprile. Organoids to understand better the developmental basis of autism (focus: CHD8) & sapiens brain evolution (focus: CADPS2) 🧵

Out in Cell @cp-cell.bsky.social: Design principles of cell-state-specific enhancers in hematopoiesis 🧬🩸 screen of fully synthetic enhancers in blood progenitors 🤖 AI that creates new cell state specific enhancers 🔍 negative synergies between TFs lead to specificity! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... 🧵

Big congrats to our longtime collaborators in the Stefan Pfister and @lenakutscher.bsky.social labs — large-scale chromosomal changes as early tumour-initiating events in Group 3/4 medulloblastoma!

Check out our latest work on the evolution of animal genome regulation out today in @nature.com. Nicely summarized below by @ianakim.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/s41... This is a major output from our ERC-StG project Evocellmap @erc.europa.eu at @crg.eu

🎉 This paper has been a long time and a labour of love (and hardship) for multiple group members, but, finally: we MPRA'ed 25k introgressed variants (Denisovan and Neanderthal) segregating at allele frequencies > 0.15 in humans today to evaluate their potential to regulate gene expression.

Delighted to share our latest work deciphering the landscape of chromatin accessibility and modeling the DNA sequence syntax rules underlying gene regulation during human fetal development! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Read on for more: 🧵 1/16 #GeneReg 🧬🖥️

Delighted to share our new preprint, the outcome of many years of collaborative work with Giuseppe Testa’s group, both at the bench & in front of the computer, probing human brain evolution using organoids. We tried something cool, and learned a lot 🧪🧫🧠🧬 [follow 🧵] www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What an elegant study - uncovering the regulatory basis of an evolutionary adaptation

We are super excited to share our latest pre-print in collaboration with @sonjavernes.bsky.social lab! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... : Evolution of the cellular landscape in mammalian striatum 🧠🧬🧵

It’s been a hectic few days, here’s a quick thread on our latest endeavour exploring GABAergic neurogenesis in the human cerebellum published in @pnas.org. Key takeaways: Purkinje cells are born very early in human development — much earlier than previously appreciated. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Inspired by Cajal, the Hansel lab’s new work in @eLife provides a comparative histological analysis of human and mouse Purkinje cell morphology. Following our 2023 study, we detail differences of scale and kind between the neurons of the two species 🧵⬇️ elifesciences.org/articles/105...

Amazing upcoming conference for brain evo-devo enthusiasts: #ECCN, May 6-8, Alicante. See the fantastic program and register here eccn2025.umh.es with keynotes @laurarosefenlon.bsky.social @alainchedotal.bsky.social ,Gilles Laurent, Henrik Kaessmann Registration deadline next week – Spread the word!

Want to decode #cancer & #autism with organoids, stem cells & genomics? We’re hiring PhD students @dkfz.bsky.social via the fully funded International PhD Program! 🌍 Heidelberg 🔗 www.dkfz.de/en/career/in... #PhDopportunity #CancerNeuroscience #Genomics

Are you an undergrad looking to gain hands-on, in-person #neuroscience research experience? Apply for our 2025–2026 SURFiN program, which offers paid fellowships in cities across the US, Canada and Europe. Deadline is 5/1: www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/3/27/ap... #science #research

A tour de force study from Taipale&Yin labs. It expands the vocabulary of the Regulatory Code by adding 1131 TF:TF composite motifs that are different from the individual TF motifs. The new composite motifs are enriched in cell-type specific elements and active in vivo www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We're disappointed to see Ben Barres's powerful book "The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist" among the ~400 titles removed from the Naval Academy Library. Needless to say, we're proud to have published his book and will keep it — and his memory — alive.

MSK's Dr. Alexandra Joyner is hanging up her lab coat following an illustrious 40-plus-year career. When asked what advice she has for new scientists, she shares: "You have to decide: Why are you going into this career? And then you have to stay true to that." Learn more about her legacy & impact ⬇️

We released our preprint on the CREsted package. CREsted allows for complete modeling of cell type-specific enhancer codes from scATAC-seq data. We demonstrate CREsted’s robust functionality in various species and tissues, and in vivo validate our findings: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Autism: The Truth is (not) Out There www.wiringthebrain.com/2014/10/auti...

🚨New preprint from @bonevlab.bsky.social 🚨: What are the key epigenetic mechanisms that drive species-specific gene regulation during primate neurogenesis - and how do they contribute to the evolution of the human neocortex? Here’s what we discovered 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Fantastic study and collaboration led by stellar postdoc @ioansarr.bsky.social, it was a pleasure to host you in the lab (& thanks to @embo.org for the visiting fellowship)

Wonderful to have the last (major) part of my postdoctoral work preprinted! Huge thanks to @ioansarr.bsky.social and @tyamadat.bsky.social—it's been a blast. Grateful to be part of the inspiring, collaborative and supportive team @kaessmannlab.bsky.social! #Cerebellum rocks! #EvoDevo #GeneRegulation

💫 New preprint from the lab: Comparing great ape cerebral organoids, we found that human-specific morphoregulatory signatures in basal radial glia characterise neocortex evolution. Fantastic work from super-talented PhD student Theresa Schütze! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Postdoc - Statistics and machine learning with spatial omics and single-cell perturbation data www.huber.embl.de/group/posts/...