Our preprint "Predictive design of tissue-specific mammalian enhancers that function in vivo in the mouse embryo" is on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... . Amazing collaboration by @shenzhichen1999.bsky.social, Vincent Loubiere (@impvienna.bsky.social,@viennabiocenter.bsky.social),... (1/2)

Out today officially! Such a cool story and I feel very lucky to have been involved - congrats to @sumrubayin.bsky.social and @jensbager.bsky.social along with everyone else involved! Was fun to get back to my roots in cerebellar development for a bit 🧠 journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

So happy to see this amazing work by @annamalkowska.bsky.social out! A huge effort that ended in a really exciting story - read if you are interested in epigenetic maintenance of cell states and if you aren't, read it anyway! 🪰🧠🧬 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

“A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress - though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known" - Bertrand Russell, 1976. Time-lapse video of Vampyrella lateritia eating Spirogyra algae from Science Source/Oliver Skibbe. 🦠

Our scientists have been busy this year! From dinosaurs to diatoms, they have helped to describe an amazing 262 new species from all around the world! 🪸🐠🦎🦋🪱 Read more about this year’s new species list 👇🏻 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

BBC News - Top UK scientist says research visa restrictions endanger economy www.bbc.com/news/article...

Cool work on how male pregnancy works in seahorses and other Syngnathids - brood pouch formation is androgen responsive. Interesting comparison of cell types to mammalian parallels at the end too! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I haven’t enjoyed reading a review so much as this in a long time - an in depth and beautifully composed overview of metazoan evolution through the lens of transcription factors and transcriptional regulation 🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Diminutive fairy wombat poop. Tiny cubes under 2mm on each side. These are egg sacs made by a spider in the family Theridiosomatidae. They made yesterday’s hike special. Finding something I’ve never seen before is such a thrill. 🌱 #nature #macro #spider

Really great to see more studies like this, exploring how tiny changes in enhancer sequences over evolution can have tangible effects on developmental processes! journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Domesticated animals have pulled our heavy carts and turned our large mills for centuries. But what about the opposite end of the spectrum—what if the wheel you want to turn is so small you can’t see it? Turns out we can harness the power of bacteria to power the world’s smallest machines. 1/7 ⚛️🧪

What is a promoter? And how does it work? We very happy to share our latest work trying to understand enhancer-promoter compatibility. I am very excited about the results of @blanka-majchrzycka.bsky.social, which changed the way I think about promoters www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I am thrilled to share our latest story led by the incredibly talented Brooke D’Arcy and Camila Musso. We discover a rich world of local gene expression in radial glia, essential neural and glial precursors, and develop a new method for sub-cellular mRNA manipulation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Delighted that Ziqi Dong's PhD paper is out for all to read! Hypoxia is fundamental to normal development, and fascinating! Thanks to all of our co-authors including @jamesnathanlab.bsky.social @jellevda.bsky.social authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

New online: Computational design of sequence-specific DNA-binding proteins

Very cool paper providing mechanism to how sea slugs can retain photosynthetically active chloroplasts (also love the term kleptosomes) - www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Today in relatable science: Gulls making a mysterious daily trip that turned out to be to a potato chip factory

My Cyclops (type of freshwater copepod) culture is teeming with life 🧫

Is there anything more unsettling and beautiful than the eyelids of a red eyed tree frog? They're so ornate and bizarre. I can't think of anything else like them.

Looking at some water from an algal culture for fun and came across these bizarre creatures, does anyone know what they might be? This looks like it might be part of their development where they initially emerge within this hairy chamber then hatch as they grow (?) more pics to follow 🧫

If you are interested in neural stem cells, epigenetics or both (or neither honestly) you should read Anna’s preprint! Beautiful work characterising histone modification dynamics across neural stem cell quiescence and reactivation, in truly excruciating detail and at great breadth 🤯🪰🧬

I’m very excited to share our work on the early evolution of animal regulatory genome architecture - the main project of my postdoc, carried out across two wonderful and inspirational labs of @arnausebe.bsky.social and @mamartirenom.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New telomere to telomere ape genomes - www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In an unprecedented move, the US National Institutes of Health has begun mass terminations of research grants that fund active scientific projects because they no longer meet “agency priorities”. https://go.nature.com/4bpG2It

Can’t say that Gilead sciences sponsoring drag race was on my bingo card 😂

I have read few papers as immediately useful and important as this one on Cacio e Pepe phase behavior. Tl;dr: the starchy pasta water is absolutely critical to avoiding “mozzarella phase” arxiv.org/abs/2501.00536

Why is human brain development, and particularly neuron morphogenesis, so slow and how is this linked to evolution? doi.org/10.1101/2024.12.28.630576 We developed mouse brain organoid methods capturing differences to human and used these to address this. doi.org/10.1101/2024.12.21.629881 🧵 (1/n)

40 years ago all of Genbank was published in print form by NAR. The same format today would require over 4 light seconds of shelf space. To a year of progress in 2025.

How proximal is proximity labeling❓ Using DNA nanorulers we found that TurboID/BioID are largely contact labeling, while APEX2 also bears a major contact labeling pathway in parallel with diffusive labeling. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Special thanks to @aliceyting.bsky.social for discussions

A nice (and very random) gift from my local coffee place, Hot Numbers! 🥳

1/🚀 Excited to share RegVelo, our new cell model combining RNA velocity with gene regulatory network (GRN) dynamics to model cellular changes and predict in silico perturbations. Here's how it works and why it matters! 🧵👇 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.11.627935v1

I greatly appreciate this title.

They propose eliminating... the entire NIH...

This is such a cool example (and one of the most convincing I've seen) of non-coding RNAs having powerful and direct control over phenotype (melanization)! 🦋

When we understand the story of #genomics, we can understand diseases better. This means we can diagnose them quicker, treat them more effectively, and even prevent them.

Welcome to the #devbiolwriteclub Bluesky Boot Camp! I’ll be posting here regularly with thoughts and exercises to help scientists become better writers. Let’s start by managing expectations: I will NOT help you write better. I WILL help you become a better writer. 🧵 1/10

I think @novogene-europe.bsky.social might have won the company swag race with this one… (more important than the great RNA-seq data I got from them)

New @dev-journal.bsky.social editorial We know we have high standards - but we're committed to making publishing with us constructive From clear revision guidance to limitations sections & transparent peer review, we're here to help you share your science journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

two excellent papers on enhancer-promoter distance. Revisiting a classic unsolved problem. www.cell.com/molecular-ce... www.cell.com/molecular-ce... Wysocka and @chribue.bsky.social labs

Does anyone have a recommendation of a hippocampal organoid protocol that they have tried & works? 🧠

BCL11A (CTIP1) tetramerization allows it to effectively repress genes in concert with NuRD. At least in part via displacement of other TFs by steric hinderance of their binding, which it can't do as a monomer! Could give cool insights into how human variants disrupt function in neurodevelopment too!

Hello #SciSky 🧪! We're the Node, a community site for developmental and stem cell biologists, hosted by @dev-journal.bsky.social This is your site: once you’ve registered, you can share your blog post, job advert or event notice with the #DevBio and #StemCell community. thenode.biologists.com

Calling all mentees. Come join us for the last session of the year for the Career Catalyst Mentorship Programme on 'Negotiating Your Job Offer' to be held December 9th 5pm Central European Time.

✨New✨ Brand lab preprint - Quiescent neural stem cells adopt a transient 'stem cell-neuron' identity to coordinate their reactivation across the CNS. We've been discussing the neuron-like traits of quiescent NSCs for years, so it's been wonderful to see Laura and Jocelyn uncover these mechanisms! ⚡

One enhancer can activate two endogenous genes simultaneously and across a TAD Boundary. Check out our new preprint. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Bought some really beautiful bio-inspired earrings as a gift for someone last weekend from the market in Cambridge - thought I’d share as the festive season is coming up. Always good to support independent craftspeople!

A cross-section through the quail neural tube. Look at those beautiful microtubules! ❣️ Imaged by the wonderful Dr Siew Zhuan Tan 🧪 #devbio

Does anyone know any good publications/databases to find non-coding variant loci for neurodevelopmental disorders? (anything, but particularly disorders of brain size if possible)

#Heterochromatin #Celegans H3K9me selectively blocks transcription factor activity and ensures differentiated tissue integrity A must-read for heterochromatin learners👏 How much of this 🪱knowledge translatable to mammals?😆 Susan Gasser lab #NatureCellBio 2021 www.nature.com/articles/s41...