Syncytins, retroviral envelope genes co-opted into mammalian genomes multiple times during evolution, are best known for roles in placental biology. Our new study now identifies syncytin-like genes in sharks, but intriguingly not in sharks with placentas. Preprint here: bioRxiv preprint

Our recent paper "From mice to rhinos: Whole-organ quantification of 3D mammalian placental structure using correlative multiscale imaging" also has images of giraffe placenta! doi.org/10.1016/j.pl... Congratulations to @davislaundon.bsky.social for bringing this paper together.

Is the placenta in crisis? See our paper in Biological Reviews: “Placental crises: disruptive selection and maternal under-investment as the foundations of mammalian placental evolution and dysfunction” Open access doi.org/10.1002/brv..... Huge credit to @davislaundon.bsky.social who led this work.

Our new preprint asks why umbilical cords have two, three or four vessels across species and if the cord has an important role in heat transfer. Plus nice imaging revealing the triple helical vessel structure in humans umbilical cord. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The lab had an excellent time at IFPA 2025 in Erfurt. @drjanecleal.bsky.social, @davislaundon.bsky.social, and myself presented talks while @ananditau.bsky.social and Ella presented posters. Great science, great company… and even fire dancers! 🔥

The a-maze-ing placenta was out at the New Forrest Show today with @ananditau.bsky.social and Lois Brewer. Over 100 people on the leader board with a hard core coming back multiple times. Best time of the day 8 seconds (but 13 seconds for a first try!).

Remember when computers filled a whole room? Our placenta research was presented as a usecase at the Isambard-AI launch today(UKs biggest supercomputer filling a large room). With @mdarrow.bsky.social at RFI, we’re building AI models to segment 3D biological tissues and tackle the transfer problem.

Congratulations to Ella Proudly whose poster won both the Chairs and Audience Choice awards at Southampton imaging conference. The poster showed her PhD research imaging endometrial cilia and exploring their role in sub-fertility.

Great talk by @ananditau.bsky.social at #EPPW showing how we’re using NMR-based metabolomics to understand how nutrients and drugs cross the placenta. This work will help ensure babies are born healthy — and stay healthy across the life course. @unisouthampton.bsky.social

Proud of my PhD student Lois Brewer, who gave an excellent talk at #EPPW on modelling IgG transfer across the human placenta. Her research sheds light on how babies gain passive immunity, with implications for maternal immunisation and antibody-based therapies. @unisouthampton.bsky.social

Excited to be attending the 18th European Placental Perfusion Workshop in Manchester!

In these digital days always fun to see yourself in actual print. And in esteemed company too!

Our new paper tests an approach using sandpaper to improve X-ray tomography of unstained placental tissue. It also demonstrates X-ray fluorescence to identify elemental distributions in the placenta. See www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A preprint of our study into how the cellular composition of the endometrium is associated with recurrent pregnancy loss is available on bioRxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

3D imaging sheds light on the 'pseudo' in pseudostratified! At first glance, these endometrial gland epithelial cells imaged with SBFSEM appear stratified. But shift the angle, and it’s clear—they’re just columnar epithelium with a bit of a lean!