Sometimes we feel like one of those giant unethical experiments psychologists got to run in the 1960s, except the only research goal is to test the maxim that 'there's no such thing as a stupid question'.

1/3 New bioRxiv preprint from the lab: “Minute-scale coupling of chromatin marks and transcriptional bursts”. Led by Xiohui Gao & Chaebeen Ko. bioRxiv : www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

After a huge amount of work w/ @alex-stark.bsky.social's group, a new version of our Ledidi preprint is now out! In an era of AI-designed proteins, the next leap will be controlling when, where, and how much of these proteins are expressed in living cells. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Can one map the genome-wide binding (1) and its protein partners (2) simultaneously from the same sample? Yes, one can. with CUT&ID ✂️🪪 Spearheaded — singlehandedly — by @annanordin.bsky.social No need of transgenesis, cloning and overexpression. Check it out, it's fast and its works.

Dead internet theory gets yet another point on the board.

All travelers from ESTA countries (yes the ones on visa waiver programs) will have to disclose 5 years of social media + huge amounts of personal data to enter the US now. All US academic associations should now meet outside the US if we want to meet our international colleagues.

Single-Molecule DNA Footprinting and Transcription Imaging Reveal the Molecular Mechanisms of Promoter Dynamics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.26.690466v1

Now online! Thermodynamic principles link in vitro transcription factor affinities to single-molecule chromatin states in cells

Are you an early-stage graduate student (2nd or 3rd year) or early-stage postdoc based in the US or Canada, working primarily in Drosophila? Would you like to help improve the experience of all trainees working in Drosophila research? If so, read on. (Please repost to reach a broad audience.)

🧬 𝐋’𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐝𝐞́𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐠𝐞̀𝐧𝐞𝐬 Des scientifiques de l'IGMM utilisent l’embryon de drosophile pour démontrer que la répression de l’expression des gènes est un mécanisme beaucoup plus complexe qu’attendu. 📖 👉 lnkd.in/dPqUREuf 📷 © Mounia Lagha et Virginia Pimmett

FlyBase needs your help! We ask that European labs continue to contribute to Cambridge, UK FlyBase, whereas US and other non-European labs can contribute to US FlyBase. For more information and how to donate: wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase...

On vacation but still managed to find a microscope. Spouse is woefully unsurprised.

A Summer reading recommendation: new primer in @dev-journal.bsky.social explains how dynamical systems theory unlocks the logic of developmental patterning Everything from bistable switches & oscillators to phase portraits & more with Python code to explore journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

🚀 @hfspo.bsky.social funded Postdoc 3-year contract Start after Dec 2025 📩 Apply: [email protected] Subject: "[HFSP Post doc application]" 📎 CV + short research summary + cover letter 🔗 More info: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/363437 @laghalab.bsky.social @umontpellier.bsky.social @cnrs.fr

We are hiring! "Researcher in DNA-Based Information Processing Systems" (PhD or postdoc level). Co-supervision by Prof. Ralf Reussner (KIT computer science) and myself (biological systems). Combination of experiments and computational work. Please Apply / Repost! www.pse.kit.edu/english/karr...

Come and join the team! It's a stellar group of people and some really interesting questions to dissect with all kinds of cool tools in play.

Tom Lehrer died today. He was one of the great comedians our culture ever produced. Without Tom, there's no Weird Al, probably no that entire branch of comedy. He went alone and beat the odds. youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs?...

In today’s publication in Science we introduce Zincore: a novel protein of QRICH1 and SEPHS1 and functions as a transcriptional coregulator dedicated to zinc finger transcription factors. Here’s how we found it: 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 1/11

🎉 Thrilled to share our new paper in @narjournal.bsky.social! We uncover how the Hox TF Ultrabithorax controls alternative splicing to shape muscle patterning and homeotic identity 🧬 @igmm-montpel.bsky.social 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

Textbooks: “Enhancers are just a bunch of TFBSs” But how do they REALLY work? New paper with many contributors here @berkeleylab.lbl.gov, @anshulkundaje.bsky.social, @anusri.bsky.social A 🧵 (1/n) Free access link: rdcu.be/erD22

We currently have a call for support that has gone out to European labs, to support FlyBase-UK. We are asking our colleagues from labs in the US and other countries to wait for a similar call to them that will go out in the near future, to support the US sites. We thank you for your patience.

Why use #CRISPR in #Drosophila when RNAi works so well? Because for some genes well is not good enough. Check out new preprint from the lab demonstrating a role for Vps15 in Wingless trafficking. Something that was missed in several RNAi screens. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

incredible, he's actually going down, what a perfect end to the night how much is Poilievre cursing Trump out right now, he's got to be fucking livid

check out our latest paper investigating how TF concentration affects transcription dynamics @dev-journal.bsky.social. optogenetics+mRNA #imaging in #drosophila #embryos. joint effort with @stathopouloslab.bsky.social @caltech.edu. bravo to @pimmett.bsky.social and J.McGehee.

It's always the people you most expect www.bbc.com/news/article...

A thread about power. There is a lesson here, about how beating autocrats like Trump involves STANDING UP to them, not backing down. Find a way to stand up. Canada's PM told Trump to fuck off, and now Trump is treating him better. 1/

Celebrating 10 years of our lab with a new preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... How does enhancer location within a TAD control transcriptional bursts from a cognate promoter? Experiments by Jana Tünnermann and modelling by Gregory Roth

A stressful tragedy for the scientific staff, but a blessing for humanity. Let it fade into data-destroyed obscurity.

Don’t forget to register for this special conference. If you like gene regulation from single molecule approaches, please join us #EMBLSingleMolecule. Imaging and Omics and a bit of theory for lots of fun!

We wrote a review article on modelling and design of transcriptional enhancers using sequence-to-function models. From conventional machine learning methods to CNNs and using models as oracles/generative AI for synthetic enhancer design! @natrevbioeng.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s44...

#StandUpForScience #StandUpForScience_Montpellier Montpellier. Pour finir la journée tous ensemble !

Spatial transcriptomics in fly brain and body. Wonderful collaboration with @steinaerts.bsky.social led by @jasperjanssens.bsky.social @pierremangeol.bsky.social Nikolai Hecker & Gabriele Partel - look at mRNA patterns in muscles and brains spatialfly.aertslab.org elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

Excited to share the peer-reviewed version of our paper on predicting the chromatin response to TF dosage using transfer learning www.cell.com/cell-genomic...

In her Essay, Renata Basto highlights the huge budget cuts facing the scientific community in France. In response to the cuts, a group of researchers has formed the ‘Pour une Recherche d'Avenir’ initiative to secure the future of French research. journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Explained compound-X chromosomes to a non-fly geneticist today. Turns out: a) I had enough colours of markers on my desk to draw out the cross, and b) it appears my undergrad classes in developmental gene regulation from undergrad *are* still buried deep in my brain somewhere.

Single molecules, in living zebrafish embryos, during hour-long period of development: Jonas' work on binding kinetics of cohesin and CTCF around ZGA now online. Great collab with labs of @lucagiorgetti.bsky.social @akispapantonis.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s414...

"Genes are... the easy part" @philipcball.bsky.social argues biologists need to embrace complexity from the start, rather than beginning with oversimplified "one gene, one trait" models +1 www.cell.com/cell-systems...

Online Now: Identification of molecular determinants of gene-specific bursting patterns by high-throughput imaging screens

#SaveTheDate Valérie Hilgers on March the 4th #BIOLuMSeminarSeries @igmm-montpel.bsky.social @irim-life.bsky.social @crbm-montpellier.bsky.social @laghalab.bsky.social

Now that musk is saying he’s doing the DOGE stuff “because the globalists have plotted a Great Replacement in which they use government handouts to buy votes from illegal immigrants and urban blacks” maybe we don’t have to act like this is about deficits or cost cutting anymore

Stand with science. Always.

1/n Excited to share our new preprint! Using live imaging in Drosophila embryos, we show that RNA Pol II clusters switch from sites of initiation to elongation during zygotic genome activation and that they are stably associated with an active gene: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Making intrabodies from antibodies just got easier! Learn how we made 𝟭𝟵 intrabodies to bind and light up peptides and histone modifications in live cells. And thanks to Academia, all sequences are freely available. (video credit: Yuko Sato @YukoSatoT2) (1/15) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Today's madcap adventure in pursuit of science: convinced my labmates to eat a bunch of cheese so I could have the wrappers for an experiment. 💯 agree that @laghalab.bsky.social's homemade chocolate cake today was way better, but they kindly suffered through the otherwise awful cheese anyways.

Insect wings arose with a genetic circuit that extends the useful range of a BMP morphogen https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.07.637038v1

Measuring morphogen transport over multiple spatial scales in live zebrafish embryos https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.06.636788v1

Our latest work: how can compartmentalization emerge in a eukaryotic genome lacking canonical heterochromatin? By investigating bacterial genomes put in yeast, we show that the presence or absence of transcription is sufficient! #chromatin #3Dgenome #generegulation www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 👇

Our paper is out! We delevoped a method to follow individual translating ribosomes for hours in living cells, and discovered that ribosomes are great friends and help each other in problematic situations: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Apropos of very little in global happenings, the lab jukebox today is featuring CanCon🇨🇦 by way of Great Big Sea: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wcj...

Hey Halo-tag users—wish you could bring something along for the ride with a JF dye? Pratik Kumar & Luke Lavis dropped multifunctional fluorescent ligands letting us pull down & manipulate organelles. Proud of our cameo showing a killer application: Brd4 hops from euchromatin to nucleoli in 60 min!